Yo, if you’re familiar with my work, you’ll understand how much it pains me to imagine that gorgeous deck hiding underneath 15mm strips of Vicious grip tape. Tap me up if you’re as interested as I am in exploring what a ‘Boards of brown5weden’ collab could look like.
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I have been scratching my head for a while trying to get some grip on the board that doesnt ruin the look. I have used glas and frit since the early days when @longhairedboy first started posting about it (massive thanks btw). on a white or solid colored background it looks amazing if done with love and passion. But to me I have never been skilled enough to get it to look right on a carbon fiber.
Your work is truly a work of art! and I have been eyeballing it for some time!
For sure I would be super happy to figure something out!
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I have grown to like a alot of lean in my setup with the use of soft bushings.
Right now im personally riding with a setup of 35.75° (7° wedge) in the front & 25.25° in the back.
And I have 5x m4 holes drilled into each yellow bushing (drilled top to bottom)
Preload. 1mm front & 1.5mm back. (distance between the truck and the bottom of the alu bushing plate)
I’m 193cm 83kg
And balancing the wheels helps to tame it down a bit at high speeds as well.
I personally feel stable even at top speed hitting bumps and uneven terrain. and is ofc fantastic to carve at lower speeds. I like alot!
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This is bad, I get that you want it to look sleek, but this design choice needs to be reconsidered.
Firstly, my perspective as a battery builder who occasionally does completes: Even if you never sell the decks/enclosure separately. You are hurting yourself here. The battery is where a good chunk of your profit comes from, if your packs are difficult to make and therefor time consuming you are eroding that profit away. No matter how many jigs you have and how well you develop the process it still is an added strain on the production that never needed to be there. I’m also curious on how you plan to use the nickel strip to a curved group of cells since your enclosure is conductive, custom cut nickel the best option, I suppose.
And just my personally opinion: building this battery sounds like a pain in the ass and not something anyone would want to do. Also the esc limitations are also a major bummer, I’m pretty done with using xeniths, good esc’s these days are all much thicker than 20mm.
Regretfully, this info is steering me away from wanting to buying a deck/enclosure if you did sell them…
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Yeah that’d be great, my mountainboard is out of commision atm pending some upgrades, but I’d love to join at another time
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Thanks for the reply! I appreciate the feedback.
The enclosure has a liner of glassfiber on the inside, and the bottom of the deck has two coats of epoxy. the cells are potted to the enclosure with natural curing silicone same goes for the rest of the electronics. however everything but the battery is made to be modular so if one component blows up you can swap that without having to solder anything.
If the battery dies you would have to get a new enclosure with it. not ideal in terms of service but in my opinion it is worth the tradeoff for the added durability and preventing issues in the first place.
And not having cables on the top eliminate the risk of getting anything pinched if you take a hit from below. on a wood/glass fiber based deck you would not have to care as much.
In my case I have a 6mm curvature on the bottom compared to flat (if that makes sense). and im saving an additional 5-7mm by not folding and soldering series wires on top of the batteries. Plus the use of butyl tape to seal the enclosure is very low profile instead of neoprene or similar and having a thin carbon fiber enclosure. For a single stacked enclosure that ends up being a surprisingly large percentage of the height being saved.
With the setup I have today it is pretty damn quick to build. and def not the bottleneck in terms of time.
The enclosure is actually designed for a 14s5p setup with a non VESC based ESC. Delays made me move over to use a 12s5p setup with an Xenith which im happy with so far.
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Typically i use Minwax water based spar urethane, there are a couple of variations, lately I’ve been using One Coat because its thicker and traps more glass
On carbon fiber you’d want a nice finishing epoxy, some super clear glossy top layer stuff that’s kind of thin. You’ll need to brush it on (disposable brush obviously) and then sprinkle that frit in while its wet. You’ll want it kind of runny and you’ll want a thin coat so it doesn’t puddle. I used to use West Systems epoxies but i think there is probably better stuff for less money than something aimed at repairing racing boats.
obviously you’ll want practice with the sprinkle, so try it on some scrap first.
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Frit sucks. Use grip tape. Fuck these haters
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Helpful as always!
Yeah I use two coats of epoxy for the bottom side as it comes off with a layer of peel ply and has a dull finish to it.
And I used to do the same when I used and played around with glass frit. thin coat slightly heated up epoxy to make it flow a little easier and the right thickness of layer to neither drown the glass frit nor be so little it doesnt adhere properly. and sprinkle some fine frit on top and let it sink in the right amount.
The top side comes off the mold with a pretty fantastic mirror finish. Then I run over it for 2-3 min with some wax/polish and a DA buffing machine. more so to keep it looking clean for as long as possible.
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Like the breast pocket on your shirt: works great but looks fucking stupid.
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I use to be in the frittata boat, but I have to agree nice quality griptape used sparingly (if you care about the visual aspect) is not all that evil.
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I’ve fritted heaps of decks, but the honest truth for me is that griptape just feels and works better. There’s certainly something to be said for good looks, and if that’s what you’re after then frit is pretty much the go-to. But for ride feel, i’ll take griptape every day of the week.
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i use both. Hate nothing, explore everything.
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light sanding to rough up the surface and the next layer of epoxy will adhere even if it’s thin, and it will also fill in the scratches (that’s what makes it stick) and look amazing.
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Same but idk it might just be me but for some reason glass frit over carbon fiber looks like shit. But throw it over a white or a light colored background and it looks absolutely amazing.
Idk you def have more experience than me.
For medium grit that’s what I do. but I have issues with air bubbles not completely disappearing when I try to apply epoxy on top of frit. no matter how I dab, stab or drizzle on the epoxy. not even heated up epoxy or using a heatgun afterwards does do the trick. likely and epoxy or technique issue but still.
Fine sized frit is worse in that regard.
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Dos this mean is one cell goes out, you can’t replace it? And have to swap the battery and enclosure?
For the majority of the customers Yes.
It would be something like a 400-450€ + shipping replacement for the customer if the warranty period has gone out (right now set to 6 months). Otherwise I pay for the battery, enclosure + shipping.
if you are creative you could probably get under the p-group and silicone with a thin steel wire and some commitment.
The way I have it set up right now making a enclosure is actually a very quick and strait forward job. I throw the raw material into the mold, slap a bag on it pull a vacuum infuse and cut it out with the CNC.
The prep work to get to this point point however was a little more work…
Alot of the design choices has come down to make it as durable and long lasting as possible to prevent as many failures as possible in the first place. however right there is a tradeoff.
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Oh i don’t hate it. I like making pretty boards. But if i was blind i wouldn’t even consider frit.
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Nice 
this all sound and looks really good 
looking forward to seeing how your journey goes
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