From putting on the grip tape to screwing on the wheels, check out this guide to building your own skateboard.
Build Your Own Skateboard - What You Need
One of the big advantages of putting together a board yourself, rather than buying a "complete skateboard", is that you can choose your own deck, trucks, wheels and bearings. To put your board together, you'll also need a few tools: a file, a screwdriver, a knife or razor blades and a skate tool. You may need the help of a parent or older sibling for some of the steps - but you should be able to put most of your skateboard together yourself.
Build Your Own Skateboard - Putting On The Grip Tape
- Your piece of grip tape should be a few inches longer than your deck so you have a couple of inches of overlap on each end.
- Peal off the paper on the back of the grip tape and slowly stick the grip tape on to your deck. Make sure it's straight and covers the entire deck.
- Press the grip tape down hard from the middle of the deck out to the edges. Go slowly and press from the inside out to avoid air bubbles. If you see air bubbles forming, slowly pull the grip tape back and re-press it down.
Build Your Own Skateboard - Edging The Grip Tape
- Once the extra tape has been cut off, use some of that extra tape to rub down the edges of the deck until it's smooth all around.
Build Your Own Skateboard - Add The Trucks
- Once you've smoothed out the edges, find the holes in the deck and use a screwdriver to poke through the grip tape.
- Set each truck over the holes at each end of the deck and push the skateboard screws down through the deck and through the holes in the trucks.
- Put the hardware nuts on the end of the screws and tighten them using a skate tool or a socket set.
Build Your Own Skateboard - Attach Bearings and Wheels
- Your skateboard is now ready to go and you should be ready to skate. To check out skateboard trick tips and profiles of your favorite skateboarders, just click here.
- To buy cool skateboard gear including decks, trucks, wheels and more head to underworld-shoop.com
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