Guildford Easter Sunday Session

Finally got there to skate.

Fun little park.

Trev was getting the hang of carving on his 8 wheeler.

What's Got 32 Wheels?

A session at XC today that's what!

Decided to try and stick to the 8 all day, started off on the new Veteran Typhoon (left)

Wheelbase is shorter as is the tail, the combination of these counteract each other and it actually skates better than I expected for a short deck with a short wheelbase.

Had a few slams when I switched back to the 4 wheeler.

Shot some footage of Trev on hits BDS with my Pentax K30. Need to practice a bit and maybe switch to manual focus and play with other settings.



Missed the drop in at the start and no hand plants in this run…

Battery was nearly dead on my camera so no other pictures from today. 

Bag of Trucks

Gavin at Surrey Skateboards came up trumps.

Ordered yesterday, arrived today…

Six Tracker Mids, 4 for me for Project "Free, The Danish 8", the other 2 for Gra for something or other he's got up his sleeve. 

Got the blue 'soft' Superball bushings in, might swap them for orange Khiros which are a bit softer. 

Trackersteins

Arrived today, 184 hangers on RT-S baseplates.
Don't think that was ever a factory option.

Looks like new bushings required, been cranked down a bit.

Free The Danish 8!

This arrived today from Denmark.

Veteran Typhoon, was advertised as free to a good home so I adopted it. Paid the shipping from Denmark. Cheers Gilles.
29 1/2" x 13 1/2", 14 1/2" wb, 5 1/2" between inner truck holes, drilled old school, 6" tail, 4" nose.

I won't mention the stickers...

8 Footage

A little bit of video from Sundays session.

Here's Trev showing that just when you think you know what you are doing the 8 wheeler will tell you who's in charge…

Earley Snow Session

Well it's been a while, haven't skated since 7th December, been buying wheels like that are going out of fashion though…

So this morning we headed over to Earley, was snowing lightly and 1º C when I left home.
Trev was already there and had cleared the bowl with his leaf blower and dustpan and brush.

We had the two minty fresh BDS 8's with us so Trev snapped a quick pic before they got ridden...

It was bloody cold…

We soon warmed up a bit...

The 4's hardly got touched, I only had a few runs at the start on my new Pool King Stinger, didn't touch the Skaterbuilt at all..

Gra joined us making three 8 wheelers, possibly the largest gathering of 8 wheelers in the UK ever…

He was soon getting to grips with it… (most of the time)

Trev stepped it up a pace with axle stalls, inverts, roll-outs to tail and a couple of attempted rock 'n' rolls…

A few of Trevs pics of me, cheers mate…

A really good session, sorry I don't get any pics of Paul on his 4 who had joined us from his deathbed.

More Big Wood

Well out came the chisels and Captain Woo Hoo and I managed to remove the block of wood only minimal damage.
Will be okay once it's sanded.

Big Wood

Well it's been a while…

Another project, big deck, arrived at work yesterday.

Looks like a normal deck, right?

Dimensions in millimeters, that's about 45" x 9.5"

Top, metre rule for scale.

Bottom, yes, a big lump of ply has been glued to the bottom, apparently was gonna be a camera mount.
Tried removing it with Acetone to dissolve the glue but it's not shifting just yet, might have to break out the sander.

Also notice it's not drilled, been a long time since I've had to drill a deck from scratch. Will probably measure the nose and tail on the Z36 and use those measurements.
It's a similar shape and fairly flat concave.

Rit Dye 101

Okay so I've had a couple of people ask me how to dye wheels and could I knock up a how to guide.

So this is what I wrote on OldKookSkating after doing my first set…

Oh Well, not quite as Orangey as planned but hey it's a learning experience right? 

I took the wheels, gave them a good scrub in warm soapy water then rinsed them.

I bought myself a mess pan from "Poundland", cost a pound 

I filled it with enough water to cover the wheels, some Rit Dye and brought it up to the boil on the hob, 
stirring to ensure a good mix, then turned down to a simmer, added the wheels (carefully to avoid splashes).

I left it simmering for 30 minutes occasionally stirring and turned the wheels over halfway through.
Took them out and rinsed in cold water. 

So theses were supposed to be orange, this was Tangerine Rit liquid, obviously too strong a solution.

It's still a bit hit and miss after 3 years of doing it, final colour seems to be dependent on a combination of strength of dye mix, length of time in the mix and temperature.

I cold dyed the Rainskates the other day as I wasn't sure about how the hot dye would react with the hot melt glue on the wheels. I heated the water and dye mix up then let cool before adding the wheels, I left those for about 5 hours and they still came out pink rather than red although they looked very red when I first removed them from the dye. 

There is a lot of inspiration and tips here on the Bulldog Skates Forum.

Rit Dye comes in powder or liquid, I find that the liquid mixes easier. 

I think that covers most things. Any questions, leave me a comment and I'll try to answer them.