Since moving into our house, Rachel has taken over a portion of the basement where there is a workshop.
She learned how to use all the tools and has started building longboards. She even built a press to form the concave and camber curves in the board while creating the board. I'm so impressed with what she's been doing in her workshop.
Her second longboard looks like a Ceviche. That's the black one on the right.
She has been building her third board, the longer one in the picture above, over the past few weeks and took the trucks and wheels off the Ceviche-style board so she can fit them onto the new board.
Longboards and skateboards are fully customized when built, starting with a collection of components that you purchase separately. Trucks are the metal hardware that the wheels attach to. The picture below is the belly of her first board with one set of trucks and wheels already off.
So how are longboards different from skateboards? (Here's my mom's-view explanation. You other boarders may disagree and I welcome any clarification.) Skateboards are smaller and nimble for jumps and tricks and looping in and out of skateparks and bowls. You've seen these boards on the X-Games, Tony Hawk video games, and in pictures on boys' t-shirts. Longboards are less about vertical jumps and airborne tricks and more about cruising, gliding, and horizontal maneuvers.
Skateboards to longboards is like:
Jeep Wrangler - Cadillac Escalade
barn storming - hang gliding
chihuahuas - labrador retreivers
...kinda sorta...
Here's a video of some guys using the Ceviche.Tomorrow I'll show you a couple of guys on the Whirling Dervish longboard.
