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That is my one,
and it's probably one of the most fun, just like straight up toys that I own.
So I was writing it around the other day and it got me thinking,
could I build something like that myself?
I mean, obviously not one that bounces on a single wheel like that,
but could I build a board capable of ripping around the city
that doesn't have all the anti right to repair nonsense?
The future motion is known for,
and that's where my video editor Bryson reached out to me to let me know that
he actually has a wrecked electric skateboard.
He got it from his brother, who was almost hit by a car while riding it.
Thankfully, his brother's fine.
However, the board he was writing at
the time is basically trashed, or at least the deck of it is trashed.
We think the electronic components are still functioning.
So what we're going to do today
is see if we can salvage enough parts from that old board to make a new one.
But it remains to be seen whether or not we can actually do that.
So let's head to the shop and get started on this build
All right.
So I think job number one on this build is going to be stripping down
the old board
and seeing what makes it tick and trying to figure out
how we can transplant all of these pieces onto a new deck.
So be interesting.
Obviously, not everybody is going to have a wreck board the way I did.
However, the company that makes this board while ago
sells all of these electronic components as a standalone kit,
and there's a number of other companies out there selling similar products.
So there are plenty of options out there for us DIY enthusiasts.
Okay.
So it seems like the whole assembly of this thing is actually pretty simple.
So at the rear you have the drive wheels along with this control board here, which
I guess controls the power delivery to it as well as the charging for it.
Then you have the second lithium ion battery pack,
and then you have this wire that delivers power from the battery pack to the motor.
And then the front truck is just its own independent thing,
and it's not really connected to the electronic circuitry in any way.
So having it all laid out like this, it seems relatively simple.
And I think this should be a pretty straightforward
transplant operation, which kind of begs the question,
what are we going to transplant all of these parts onto?
Well, I'm glad you asked, because later in front of me here, I have a DIY
longboard kit from Raw Rocket, which is actually a Toronto based company.
Earlier today, I went to their warehouse and I picked up this longboard
kit that is capable of making like nine different types of decks.
It's actually kind of genius in terms of its simplicity.
In your kit, you get seven layers of maple veneer.
You essentially glue them together, put them on top of the Styrofoam form,
and then you put them inside of this vacuum bag where you suck out
all the air, and that forces the wood to conform to the mold underneath.
Before we can dove right into this and see if it's truly as easy
as I think it is, we have to do one little thing first.
We have to modify this mold so that it's a little bit closer to this deck.
So this deck doesn't have a super aggressive concave on it.
And I need all the components from it to fit on the bottom of this stuff.
In order to make everything fit together nicely, I flatten out the form
a bit using my center.
And that's kind of the fun thing about these forms.
You're free to modify them to your heart's content
and make all sorts of different shapes with them.
Okay,
well, that was way easier than I thought it would be.
We got our form
with a little bit less of a concave on it, so if we can clear up some plywood.
Oh, and one of the little thing they told me to do it
real rocket is to cover the whole thing in tuck tape or some sort of packing tape
so that the glue from the veneers doesn't stick to the Styrofoam.
So let's take this little step.
Will ensure that I can use and reuse this form for many future skateboard bills.
I think we are finally ready.
So here's what we're going to do.
I want this to be the final shape of the deck.
So I need to make sure that this veneer layer goes on first and goes down
facing towards it, because we will use this as an outline to cut it out later.
I'm going to put this on here.
I'm going to coat it in tape on three, and then I'm just going to keep adding
layers and repeating the same process like a stick, the whole thing in the back.
A little bit nerve wracking because we are all the time this.
So wish me luck.
Normally you get like 20 or 30 minutes to set would glue
but because we're dealing with such thin layers, raw Rocket advises
that you get everything into the back bag inside of 9 minutes.
So the race was on.
I glued and stacked four layers.
The maple veneer bundled them together using the provided elastics
and then shove them into the bag to save on time.
I use my shot back to pull the majority of the air
out of the bag while simultaneously watching to make sure the bag itself
didn't get stuck between any of the veneer layers.
Then to get the last of the
air out, I switched to a manual pump that raw rocket provides with every kit.
It's imperative that you get all of the air
out of this bag for the system to work, right?
So I really work that pump all right.
That is our first vacuum form done.
So we're going to let the set for a couple of hours.
However, I will be monitoring it
in case there's any leaks for the first hour or so.
A little bit out of breath. That was tighter
we'll show up.
That catches its breath and we wait for that glue to dry.
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All right, let's get back to building this for now.
Okay.
I left the site for a couple hours one and got some lunch, cleaned up the shop,
and I think we are now ready to break the vacuum and see
our first batch press did their way.
Oh, yeah.
There we go.
Pretty good.
It looks like a very nice veneer job.
I don't see any gaps any way around it.
Perfect.
Okay, here we go.
Another mad dash against the clock and I have a very special surprise
for the last layer, too.
I mean, not so much of a surprise for you guys at home, but a surprise for Bryson.
You see, your standard skateboard is made up of seven layers of veneer,
so I glued and laid up three more layers of me.
However, this wasn't going to be your standard skateboard,
so I wanted to add a special eighth layer.
You guys ready for the fierce resistance?
We got this beautiful sheet of Formica.
That's the same color as braces companies logo.
Roy Rocket calls these their rocket lab sheets,
and the benefit of them is that they add some rigidity to the deck
and make them more durable and resistant water, which I figured
would be handy for an electric commuter bill with the eighth winner in place.
The procedure was the same as before, but everything inside the vacuum bag
secured all the air and then leave it overnight.
Or in this case, a few nights
All right, everybody.
It's a few days later and it is time to break the vacuum seal
and see how our boarded.
I'm actually really surprised at how well this thing held the vacuum.
It's still just as tight as it was before
Now that we got this guy out of that vacuum bag,
we have to cut along the line here on the top of the deck and, you know,
get this thing looking a little bit
more like a skateboard and a little bit less like just a regular piece of plywood.
Normally, the best way to cut out a skateboard deck is with a pencil,
but I don't have one of those.
So I use a combination of my Maya saw, my table saw and my jigsaw.
And as you can see, I'm using the design printed on the veneer as a guide
for all of my cuts.
This specific kit does eight different shapes of decks
with each layer of veneer, having one or two designs printed on it.
That's why earlier I was so adamant about starting
with the design that I wanted face down on the.
Otherwise, I'd have no line to trace thoughts
Oh, man, that is looking really good.
So that's as far as I want to take it with the jigsaw.
And now I'm going to clean up all these rough edges behind me.
On the set up with a 120 grid standing build.
I was able to dial in the last couple millimeters of each cut
and give the whole deck a nice, smooth exterior edge.
Next, it was
time to give the deck that classic rounded skateboard profile.
So I threw a round over bit on the trim rotor and got to work
oh man.
Every step of the way.
This thing just looks a better and better.
I'm really digging how this is turning out.
Okay, so at this point, we had to take a quick break from finishing it.
No more sanding. We have to install some hardware.
And I think let's start with the truck, shall we?
This part of installing the hardware was pretty straightforward.
I used each of the boards
components as a practical template to locate each of the individual portals.
Once the trucks were in place, I moved on to do the control board
and then the battery pack,
and then I flipped the board over and counter sunk all the bolts.
This will be important for a later step, but for now, let's figure out
how we're going to connect the battery to the control.
Okay, so that's all of the easy holes done.
Little things get a little bit more interesting.
Let me show you what I'm working with.
So remember earlier
how I said the drive wheels in the battery pack were two separate units?
Well, we have to connect them using this wire.
So I think what the plan is, is to drill a hole
here to the other side of the road, a channel all the way over to this side
and drill another hole and pull it through.
But that's going to be a little bit tricky.
We kind of
got to get this perfect on the first try because there's no other board to
practice with. So this is going to be pretty high stakes.
Okay.
So maybe drilling the holes
wasn't that high stakes, but I did have to come up
with an interesting solution for the channel.
So here's the setup.
I have this angle ion
clamped right to the deck of the board way across, and it's nice and straight.
So what I'm going to do is use that as a fence for my rotor.
I'll set up the rotor along here, move it along
so that it's following on the edge of the England,
and it should give me a nice straight line between the two points.
I double check my plants, set my rotor bit to a quarter inch deep,
and then carefully cut my channel from one hole to another.
Well, being careful not to overshoot my mark at either end.
Next, I had a first of all a request from Bryson to fulfill the original board,
had a carrying handle cut into it, and he wanted one on this board too.
So I broke out a whole soft
side, a couple of balls in the deck, and then connected them using a jigsaw.
Oh, and of course I gave them
a nice little round to
Now we are ready to do some finishing.
So in order to treat this boar, we are going to use them in wax.
Helmsman, spar, finish.
This is just a good high quality oil based polyurethane.
Good for outdoor finishes.
If you're following along at home, feel free to use whatever finish you want.
But I strongly advise you use something that's oil based as it's likely to hold up
better long term.
After the first coat, I left the deck to dry for 24 hours,
came back and scuffed it up with some fine sandpaper, get a second coat
and then waited another 24 hours.
Oil finishes. What can I say it? Dry slop.
This is now feeling nice and dry, so I think we are ready to move on assembly.
Don't worry, the fund is not over yet.
We still have a few little creative things left to do to this board.
First, let's pull back again as the instructions always say.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly, though I did tweak the original design
a little bit by adding some hot glue to the wire channel.
Hopefully this will keep moisture away from the wires
and will give me a nice flat surface to attach the grip tape to later on.
After that was done, I made sure that everything was plugged together
securely, and then I tightened down all the remaining bolts
at this point, I would love to take this thing for a spin.
Unfortunately, it's
been sitting for so long that the batteries are dead on it so well.
It charges we are going to do one of those fun little bonus steps.
I alluded to a second.
Bryson has a YouTube channel called Unbound Vision
that he runs with a bunch of his friends and his brother.
And so what I did was I went to a local sticker company
and I had them print up the Unbound Vision logo on a sticker, and we were going
to put that on the bottom of the deck in order to personalize it for Bryce.
Lucky for me, the stickers that I ordered also came with these clear transfer
sheets, so I was able to carefully align the logo on the bottom of the deck before
sticking it down.
Oh, look at that.
That looks really nice.
Hopefully this thing is charged up enough
that we can test to do this remote control.
So I guess you could turn this on like so.
Yeah, I got that.
And there's a power switch here and that it
all you that it lives all right.
Let's take this thing outside. I got my board, I got my camera.
Let's go inside and see how this guy works and.
Oh, right.
I forgot the 11 kata.
All right.
I guess we're testing the shot today.
You just got to reconfigure the shop a little bit, so I don't care myself.
One second thought
all right, let's see.
Oh, yeah.
This thing has got speed
oh, oh, oh.
I just made a little bit.
Hey, if at first you don't succeed, try try again.
Man, this thing is fast.
I'm giving it, like, 10% throttle, and I am flying around the shop.
I could see this being a legit way to get around town.
Well, now that I've in this thing, and I know that it works,
I think it's time that we installed some grip tape on it and slowly drifting away.
Hold on. Let me come back over towards you guys.
There we go.
All right, let's start some tape.
I think before I start the step, I should probably say that I'm no expert
in installing grip tape, but I think the process is pretty simple.
Roll it on. Trim off the excess.
And before I do that, I'm actually going to rough up the surface a little bit
with a two 20 grit sandpaper pad just to help with adhesion a little bit.
This step might be a little bit overkill, but,
you know, it never hurts to add a little bit
of mechanical traction to surface before you stick something to it.
When it was time to start installing
the grip tape, I started at one end of the board
and slowly peeled back the wrapper to adhere a couple of inches at a time.
Then once I had the board completely covered,
I went around the edge of the board and stretched the grip tape around it.
This gave me a very clear line that I could then use as a guide
to trim off the excess
and as a final step, I use the rounded profile of a screwdriver
to really press down the edge of the grip tape.
This cleaned it up a bit and made sure that everything
was as adhered as possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have ourselves a completed skateboard here.
I almost wish I could keep this thing for myself, but you know what?
I promise this price. And actually, you know what?
Before we get out here, there is one last thing I want to do.
So here's the thing about an electric skateboard.
Directionality matters with this.
There is a front to the back because it's only driven on one side of the board.
So what I want to do is take this leftover sticker wrapper
and use it as a stencil to put braces logo on the top of the board, too.
This way, when you want to know which way is forward on the board,
all you have to do
is look down and put your front foot somewhere near the Unbound Vision logo.
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a perfect spray paint application here.
There was a little bit of bleed over in a couple of spots.
However, I'm hopeful that most of that will rub off after a few rides.
Overall, I still think it looks pretty slick
All right.
The paint's all dry on this thing, so I think the only thing left to do now
is to take this to Bryce and see if he likes it.
All right.
So it is now.
It's like a week after I finish the board.
We've had some really nice weather the last few days, but
today kind of sucks, and me and Bryson picked today
of all days to meet up and for him to get his board.
So looks like we're going to be doing a little bit of skateboarding in the snow.
Looking forward to let's go show you the board
Oh, oh, you put the unbound logo.
Oh, I put that man logo on the top, and I got it on the bottom.
So the paint job, that's so awesome.
You got the handle by the handle.
You requested the handle, so I knew that was important to you.
Are you ready to go, rip? Yeah, let's do it.
Are you ready to give it a shot?
I am.
We're like, right now, I'm by the lake, too.
So you got a nice breeze coming off the lake.
But we found in this relatively dry stretch of road here,
you compare it to back over this way, it looks much better.
And just like that, he was gone.
All right.
I guess to go get on my board and catch up with them
I can't even keep up with them.
What he's riding, it's just too fast. It's way faster like one wheel.
So we had to pull the plug a little early on filming
because the boards were starting to get iced over completely
and it was getting a little unsafe to keep writing them out there.
So I think what we're going to do is Bryson is going to take the board home
and wait for a nicer day
and then film some B-roll that you guys will see in a couple of seconds.
Thanks so much. Yeah, of course. On the board.
Yeah. Good. Glad.
And shut your channel for the those people at home.
Yeah, check us out at Unbound Vision on YouTube.
We make some good reviews and stuff, but we're looking to branch out,
so stay tuned for that. Awesome.
All right, everybody, see you in the next one. He's well.
Yeah, and I almost forgot.
Big thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video.
An especially big thank you to Roy Rocket for giving me the board kit
to make this board.
And a big
thank you to all my Patreon supporters for supporting me in every single thing.
As always, I'll try to include some links in the video description
for all the products I use, as well as Bryson's channel endeavors.
All right, Bryson hit him with a good B-roll.
See, the next day, because you