The Wurst - Twin Tip LongBoard
Description: Originally designed to be my "fun board" (double hinged axles, Butterball wheels for sliding practice and twin tip for deep carves and 180's), it was such a blast to ride it replaced my commuter board. When I first finished it , I was quite please with its look, the purpleheart and the figure of the curly maple really popped. I went to show my partner, who is an artist. She agreed it looked nice, but asked, "Why I made a 'hot dog' board?" Confused, I took the trucks off and viewed the deck in isolation. Sure enough, there was a strong resemblance to a bunned hot dog, complete with ketchup and mustard stripes.... It couldn't be unseen. In light of this new, slightly disappointing discovery, I etched a new name into the bottom of the board, "The Wurst".
Materials: Purpleheart, Wenge, Curly Maple
Shape: Twin Tip (34”, 28” wheel base)
Finish: Minwax Natural Stain, 3 Coats Minwax Semi-Gloss Aerosol
Grip: Lucid Clear Spray Clear Grip Medium
Hardware: Gull Wing II, Double pivot trucks, Sector 9, 65mm Butterball Wheels
New Techniques:
Laser Etch Outline: In previous hardwood boards I had printed off the board shape on a printer and taped the stencil to the wood blanks to transfer the pattern. On this board, I decided to etch the outline, including the mounting holes directly on to the planed blank. It took a fair amount of alignment on the laser cutter, but after a few "dry" passes I was confident that it was centered and ready for etching. The etching went smoothly and I then rough cut the shape on the band saw and sanded up to the line on the standing belt sander. The new technique saved ~30 minutes of work and yielded a more accurate stencil. I would switch to this technique for the next few boards, before taking the bold step of doing the through cut on the laser as well. More on that in another post.
Lessons Learned:
Rendering to Avoid Embarrassment: As mentioned in the description above, after the board was shaped and finished it came to my attention that my board looked like a ball park frank. Now, this wasn't actually a big deal, I thought it was pretty funny, but it illuminated a problem for customer/ commissioned boards; designing something in your head is a poor substitute for a digital or physical mock up. Had this board been for a paying customer, I would not have been surprised, nor upset, if the unintended resemblance to a hot dog would have caused them to reject the deck. As the designer, and fabricator, the final appearance is entirely on me. To prevent incidences like this in the future, a 15 minute rendering can provide an accurate depiction of a theoretical design.
