Why be bored in school? Go to a Skateboard School! This Toronto District School Board alternative school design program helps students earn high school credits and graduate by creating their own brand and running a skateboard business / professional design studio. OASIS SKATEBOARD FACTORY (OSF) "ON THE GRIND": TDSB's ART & ENTREPRENEURSHIP O.G.s since 2006!

Friday, March 24, 2017

Zim Skateboards

Zim Skateboards: I'm 18 years old. I started Zim Skateboards at the beginning of this school year. Since then it has flourished into the awesome fun loveing brand I formed it to be. My brand still plays off the retro style and vibe with the neon green and pinks although it hard to say my board shapes are retro because Zim is making an effort to push our board shapes to the next level. These 2 boards are perfect examples because I did a complete switch up from your normal street deck or long board. What I did was press 2 sets of pintail vaneers on my custom made street deck mold in order to create these awesome new long board shapes. The first one I made was the drop down. It was inspired by new wave long board culture and one of my close friends. They showed me that if you move your trucks on to the tails of your skateboard it becomes very similar to a drop down long board, but the only problem was wheel bite. So what I did was simply cut out where the wheel wells would have been. For board number 2 I wanted to continue with my new way of pressing pintails on my custom made street deck mold so I made a pintail street deck and it looks like a torpedo. For me the one thing I hate the most when I'm skating is wheel bite so what I do to all my skateboard is add wheel wells so there is more space between the board and the wheel. By now I'm sure your wondering how I do all this cool stuff.

Let me walk you through the process. First thing first I pick out my veneers then I set up to press the board using the @roarocket thin air press, tri bond 3 wood glue and a lot of elbow grease. After one night in the press to allow the gule to dry I will take the board out and shape it using a jig saw and rasp. After that I sand the board down and its ready for a graphic. For the first graphic I did a negative tape stencil with a double fade. Some of the elements and principles of design that I used for the board were symmetry, balance and color. On my second board I wood burned a maze in to the board. This was probably the most tedious way of putting a graphic on a skate board ... you would think I would have learned after the first time. On this board the elements and principles of design that I used were texture, lines and again balance.

Reflecting on my frist boards, over all I'm very happy. I feel like everything went really well with these 2 I had no problems. If I could change one thing about them it would be the length of time it took to make them. I'm super excited to hang both of these in my shop...now lets go skate!

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