Calgary Academy | Ministry of Wood, Skateboard Builder Directory

Calgary Academy

Lanny Donde

Calgary Academy

Website: CA CYCLE

I’ve been a Special Ed teacher at Calgary Academy for 10 years now. The first part of my career was spent in the classroom while always dreaming of putting together a shop at our school, where students learned the basics of bike mechanics and repair, while better the community through bike donations. My passion for cycling always kept me working in bike shops as a student. I worked as a mechanic for 10 years before becoming a teacher. At the end of my “bike shop career” I was training kids around the same age as the ones I’d soon be teaching. An idea was born from that seed which was planted over 15 years ago and I’m now fortunate enough to be teaching my passion full time.

7 years ago, I set up a shop in our school which is fully equipped to function as a bike/ski shop among other things. In the shop I also teach an Outdoor Ed course with a heavy focus on Mountain Bike skills and Skiing (my other passion). My students and I have been building a pump track at the school for 3 years now and it’s growing into an amazing project involving many different grades and components of our school. Kids learn bike skills in their Physical Education classes at Calgary Academy.

The shop is called CA Cycle but tuning and donating bikes is just a small part of what we do. My kids learn to tune skis and snowboards, they learn basic woodworking skills building birdhouses, they make furniture out of bike parts and skis, they build skateboards and customize logos for them, they string rackets and more…

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BUILDERS
DAILY BUILDERS TIP

Did you know that Sugar Maple, grown in northern Canada is the best skateboard building material available? It is 10% stronger than maple grown in the North Eastern States. It is all because of our longer, colder Canadian winters.

If it's snowing in your part of the country and you can't longboard ..... BUILD THEM!

Try out a cabinet scraper for taking glue and paint off of a deck.

Be prepared! When laminating any skateboard remember to have all your tools at hand. All glues have a wet time. Some are longer than others. Titebond III has one of the longest wet times, 9 minutes as opposed to 4 or 5 for regular water based woodworking glues. That extra 4 minutes makes a big difference when gluing up a deck.

For dancers that are longer than 48" you can offset 1/16" maple veneers as you laminate your deck. Butting them end to end works great. Make sure the offset of veneers is at least 16" apart.

Use a vacuum cleaner to evacuate most of the air from a TAP bag before using the manual pump.

Always use the same paint brand when painting your deck. Different paint brands are sometimes incompatible with one another.

After purchasing veneers by mail, let your veneers acclimatize to the moisture content of your shop for a couple of days before laminating them into a deck.

Keep unfinished decks out of anywhere there is a lot of heat. The outer layers are prone to cracking. Apply a sealer coat ASAP after sanding your deck.

After using your glue filled roller. Do not wash it out. Place it in a ziplok bag. It will last for weeks and be charged with glue for your next build.

Water based glue makes maple veneer more flexible. Applying water to tight bends on the top and bottom of the outer two layers will make it easier to achieve tighter bends.

Apply clear packing tape onto your foam mold to protect it from glue while pressing.

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