The evolution of Clyde Longboards

So my newest obsession is longboarding.  I've skated regular skateboards ever since I was a wee lad but longboarding is a different animal.  I rode a longboard from the back parking lot up to work on a daily basis but I never realized what people were doing on these things.

Austin was the catalyst to this disease.  He wanted one this past Christmas and he started exploring what people were doing with them on YouTube.  It wasn't long after he had his board, a Sector 9 Sentinel 2, that we were like "we can do that," or "that looks awesome!"

Downhill.  That was the first addiction.  We started rolling down hills and trying to make corners.  I was on a custom solid wood longboard given to me by a friend Colin Torrence. I had put on some hardware I had from a small longboard, 8 inch wide trucks with small soft wheels.  The speeds kept increasing and the urge for bigger, steeper, and faster hills grew.  Soon we realized that we needed to up our game with safety gear and better equipment. We also envied the pro riders that were sliding their boards either around corners or to slow down enough before a corner to take it without flying off the road.

We got triple 8 helmets which went miles for making us feel safer.  We also nabbed some Sector 9 Butterball wheels.  I upgraded my trucks to Caliber 2's and we both slapped on some Redz bearings.

This worked for a while as we started learning to slide, albeit poorly at first, but every session improvements were made.  We were realizing the only way to tackle bigger and better hills was to be able to slide to a stop or slide to make hard fast corners.

Slide gloves were the next necessity.  It was the only way to slide without potentially turning your hand to hamburger.  Being the thrifty guy I am I went to Walmart and bought work gloves, cutting board, and JB weld for plastics.  

I learned a few things from building these. 

• First be sure to sand the cutting board before gluing the board to the glove or it won't stick. 
• Second, use thick cutting board.  You wear through the cutting board quicker that you think and you want to keep the glove away from the road.  A friend of ours, Kenny the philosopher, uses cutting board that is about an inch thick. The thicker the better. 
• Third lesson is it worked out well that I had a thin piece of cutting board on the glove already and glued a thicker piece on top of it. This allows you to pop the outer board off with a screw driver once it gets worn down and glue a new piece on without damaging the glove. 
• Last lesson is to use regular gorilla glue. The kind that you have to wet the surfaces and it foams up.  Personally I think it's the ish.

These gloves have held up ridiculously well once the new thicker board was glued on.  I saw a pair of nice, $50, brand new sector 9 slide gloves get absolutely shredded in the first session they were used while ours are taking heavy abuse with minimal wear.  When I say shredded I mean fingers showing through and the pucks velcro ripping off. 

So I fancy myself handy in the woodshop at my grandpas and I had been wanting to build my own longboard for a while now.  I bought some thin hardwood plywood and Gorilla Glue for wood from Home depot. Austin and I cut the sheet into 12" x 48" strips, rolled the glue on with a paint roller, and clamped 6 of the strips into a slight curve.  The very first "Clyde Longboard" was born!

 

This board traveled on a sailboat to Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas with the hope of riding some of the hills there. We unfortunately didn't get to Marsh Harbour in time to have a skate session.

I learned several very important things from this build too.

1. The Chinese hardwood plywood from Home Depot is garbage. It's 3 layers of crap in each sheet that delaminate and warp horribly. The 6 layers together create enough strength to actually ride but it is way to flexy for how thick it is.
2. I'm not sure if it was the fault of the Wood Gorilla Glue (which is different than the foaming original) or the fault of the board not being clamped tightly and evenly but splits in between the layers of plywood started to form quickly especially right behind the trucks where the flex was greatest.  It still held up and held its concave shape well.  

I really put this board through it's paces (at least as much as my skill level would allow) and overall I was very happy with it but I had ideas for the next board.

Fast forward to the present and now I have created the second version Clyde Longboard.  This one I took my time with and it came out really well for several reasons.  

1. It is still using the crappy Chinese Home Depot plywood but I still had a whole sheet laying around and I wasn't about to let it go to waste.  The difference this time was I built a mold from some leftover boards and 2x4's from rebuilding our deck that would clamp tighter and evenly across the entire surface of the board.  
2. I also switched to Titebond 3 wood glue that I kept reading about time after time on forums and in peoples YouTube videos. 
3. I added another layer of plywood bringing the total up to 7.  This makes this board ridiculously thick at 13/16" and pretty heavy but I weigh 205-210 so I need a board to support my weight.

So far I am really really happy with the board. It's stiff, stable, and I love the shape. We took it to Sugar Loaf Mountain in Clermont, FL and had some fun.  

We also got a set of Gullwing charger RKP trucks to replace Austins Gullwing sidewinders.  We got some elbow and knee pads so we are pretty much set on gear and now its time to keep practicing!

This is with the first Clyde Longboard when I was just learning to slide.

This is with the second Clyde Longboard with a little more experience. We've been riding for less than six months and have a long way to go but we are having a lot of fun on the way.