How to Apply Camber

Here is a tutorial on how to apply camber to one of our pintail decks or a custom shaped longboard.

Tools and materials

Thin air press

2 pieces of plywood, 1/2″ to 3/4″

The steps are easy

Make your custom mold with only concave or use our pre-made pintail shape.

Glue your veneers as usual and place on mold

Put the stack of veneer and mold into your vacuum bag

Place two pieces of 1/2″ plywood under each end of the deck around where your trucks would be (outside of the bag)

As you vacuum the air from the bag, press firmly down around the middle of the deck bending the stack of veneer and foam

Once the air has been removed the pressure is so great that the stack cannot return to flat

This technique is completly adjustable and saves tons of time by not having to carve camber into your foam mold

I have made an uncountable number of decks using this method and it works everytime.

Simple and foolproof!

Comments

Ivan Gabriel Gonzalez On April 18, 2013 at 8:50 pm
Permalink | Reply

Would this method work on a 1 or 2 Inch Drop Deck build?
Would you have to remove the sheet of plywood or would a thinner piece of plywood suffice with the 1/2 inch spacers? If the plywood is removed, would it warp the deck or in anyway harm the integrity of the build, specifically the concave?
Sorry about the load of questions :p

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

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.

%d bloggers like this:

Ministry of Wood, Skateboard Builder Directory