plywood bombers

Almost 4 years ago
I whipped out this longboard out of some scrap aluminum.

whabamp longboard

It's one of those things that prove that not all my chit works out.
My idea of stiffening it up backfired,
and the welding made it way more curved than I had planned.

01march09

The big drawback was the weight.
All together it was at least 10 lbs!
Going downhill was fun,
but as a commuter board,
it didn't have that snappy glide after a kick.

the boss

With the kids getting a revived interest in skating,
it was time to have some backyard fun.

While his friends were getting new sector 9 longboards,

Jake and I made a deal to make a couple boards,

and see how much he liked longboarding versus the trick boards,

before we bought a bunch of junk that may just sit around.

Sure a board is only $30 or so bucks,
but where's the fun in that!?

jakob at work

My tricks were always extremely limited,
but I would ride forever just as basic transportation.
During the school years,
we had a good downhill group of friends,
bombing the hills of point loma and ocean beach.

Back then I must have made dozens of longboards out of scrap plywood,
even that thick shelf wood.
It seems every weekend was moving the old gullwing trucks to a different board,
a different shape.
Can't believe some of the chit we did without helmets!

jake's blanks

It was time to get the kids to the roots of skating!
Jake expertly cut a couple blanks out of some scrap wood...

plywood longboards roughed into shape

After a couple minutes with the grinder,
we had shaped a board for each of us.
Too bad Jaxon had the sickness at the time.

homemade longboard

My ancient pair of Tracker Trucks - MPI and ALVA wheels!
and one board was down.

jakob and macey

Jakob used some skinnier independent trucks,
and pirated the wheels from his old footboard.

family that skates together...

Within an hour or two we were ready.
The boards worked perfect,
just the right amount of flex,
and the truck holes were almost straight!


This was one of the first runs,
a little short yeah but we were trying to get used to them.
It's a fast street so I'd rather him not fall - me too!
These scrap boards saw more use in one day,
than the aluminum board ever had.

Jakob Perich skateboard mechanic

By the next weekend,
it was obvious my board needed some bearings.
They may as well had rocks in them.
Jake said it sounded like it was a car goin down the hill.
We found some fakey REDS at the swapmeet for $10,
and took out the old crusty MPI bearings.
They were so wobbly I'm surprised they rolled.

MPI wheels and bearings

Perfect timing as they had just cleaned the back table.
Within minutes we were on the road.

Jaxon & Jakob Perich

Now Jaxon was good to go.

He had his first runs down the hill,

and is more of a biker than a skater.

After a while he got the hang of it.

I've got some Indy trucks for his board,

and we'll get it together for the next weekend.

Now it's a bummer the kids have so much homework after school,
and it gets dark a bit too early.
It's been fun getting our carving techniques down!

TP