Kevin Sullivan

I received a great email from a teacher, Kevin Sullivan who has access to a ShopBot at his school and with his class has begun to build molds and cut out boards with it.

He also has included links to the mold files if any of you are interested in duplicating his build. Here is his letter to me and photos of the build process.

Ted

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I am a High School Teacher and I have just started helping my student’s making longboards. I started this project just a few weeks ago now. Today, my first student pressed their first longboard. I have this whole entire curriculum written out, it’s being revised slightly as I run into a few minor snags, but its for setting up and cutting out molds on a ShopBot to use to press longboards. The model I have created is for a 41 in W-shape deck with dropthrough trucks. I was wondering if this is something you want to post links to on your website or if they are files you want to use yourselves. The link below is to my GrabCad page where I have all of the files one would need to cut the molds I have created.

https://grabcad.com/library/longboard-mold-1

About the deck these files produce:

It’s a 41 in W-shape longboard. The trucks are setup for dropthrough style. The radii of the mold are offset for a 0.5 in deck. This mold is setup and the instructions are for a press, not a vacuum bag, but this is something that could easily be modified to accommodate a vacuum bag. I haven’t found many W-shape boards for under the $125 – $150 price range and my student’s will be making these for about $40. A fiberglass reinforced deck for $40?! Nuts, right! My student’s are already huge fans of the board. I have shown it to a semi-professional longboarder and he was instantly impressed after stepping on it. That is really just me getting lucky with my model and I really won’t take much credit.

About the CAD files:

I don’t know if you are familiar with GrabCad but it’s a free website to use, download from, upload to and share CAD files and renderings. It is a legit website too. There is no money to be made unfortunately, at least not that I have found. It’s for DIYers to communicate and share files, collaborate, and brag on. Technology teachers are also hopping on to share projects, much like myself. All the files and toolpaths are included on the page for free.

A bit about myself:

I’m a high school Applied Technology teacher who spends way too much time at his job. I’m not getting anything out of this other than the happy feeling of bringing something to students they would otherwise may not be able to afford, don’t have the ability to do on their own, or never thought they could do. This give students the opportunity to use tools and gets them outside. I want students to be able to find something they can get into easily and that is also affordable. I do understand that, unfortunately, not every school has a ShopBot or other CNC machine, but this is a good jumping off point for those that do.

I hope this helps you guys on your conquest of skateboards for all!

Kevin Sullivan