So here it is.
There’s a few things to get into about what and why.
Firstly, these are a progression of the old Other Planet P2 trucks that I helped to make with Other Planet back in the day, 2008-2012 or so.
The company went bye-bye several years ago, and now the patents are expired. So I’ve spent the last two and a half years adapting them for Mountainboarding, and hoping the get a version going on esk8.
Other Planet Trucks are unique in a number of ways. But the most stand out feature is the rubber cam, and the raising center of gravity giving these trucks incredible stability even without any resistance.
You can see how gravity alone provides a natural return to center.
I’ve taken OP trucks without resistance up to 40mph.
Along with that inherent stability also came a tremendous ability to lean. Your ability to lean wasn’t locked in or restricted by bushings, which provided its own unique feel and freedom.
With all your weight resting the cam, it also eliminates the metal on metal contact, and harsh feel that so often comes with channel style trucks. In the gif you can see the center bolt doesn’t come all the way up to the top of the slot, and that’s to account for a couple mms of compression of the cam while riding.
A truck that can ride without resistance is all well and good. But it wasn’t just that they worked really well without resistance, with the P2 it was also that we really couldn’t figure out how to provide robust resistance. Without that option they were really limited, and that was part of their downfall.
Now lets wrap everything back up and focus on the M1’s again.
Resistance is one of the things I’ve been really focusing on.
What I came up with was really heavily inspired by what IMO is the best feeling resistance on any non-traditional truck, the Rojas Trucks, and their bushing solution.
Rojas provide just such an incredibly positive center, without even having any preload. They also have a great progression that allows for a ton of feel. You’re not just putting your energy into something dead, it gives back and has expression.
If you imagine taking those Rojas bushings, and sort of cutting them in half to get two sets of figure 8’s,
That’s exactly what I’m using for my Trucks. The range of motion is greater, so the bands are a little thinner than Rojas. But I’m telling you now, the feel is superb.
The bands are 3D printed Polyurethane, and in the 2 years I’ve been using them I’ve yet to have one break. But just in case, I’ve built in some redundancy so there’s 2 bands on each side.
The Cams are also 3D printed polyurethane.
Different cams result in different lean progressions, and will engage the resistance bands slightly differently. Over the course of years of experimentation I’ve narrowed it down to two basic cam variants.
We used to call these standard and super-carve cams, but now I feel like its more appropriate to call them front and rear cams. The more curved front cam offers quicker turning response, the flatter rear cam provides a lot more stability. If you want something really responsive you can use two front cams, if you want something super stable, you can use two rear cams.
Durometer and rebound also affect the feel, which is why these are printed from a different and less reboundy material than the resistance bands.
Now lets talk DIY.
One of the incredible things about this truck is that everything here is hand made, or 3D printed.
Just printed templates, drill bits, disk sander, and a propane blowtorch.
The goal, and the concept is hopefully be able to get it out there as a kit for people to make themselves. As nice as it would be to get this truck CNC’d or go out and get molds made, firstly I don’t think the design is developed enough yet. But also I find this approach just really compelling.
Think about the customizations, modifications, and also the reparability that comes from this approach.
First off, the whole hanger is built around standard 3/4" 16 ga square tubing. I made these narrow, only 9".
But I could really easily make them just about whatever.
For the axles I’m just using 3/8" bolts. And the secret sauce to make this so doable is square nuts, and silver solder, to transform the square tubing into a robust hanger.
The limiting factor for strength seems like its going to be the square tubing itself. I’ve not done a lot of testing yet, but so far it seems like the solder joint is the strongest thing here. I think you’ll destroy the threads or bend the tube before you break that joint, unless fatigue changes things over time.
I would like to explore 7/16" axles, I think drilling and tapping the square nuts to the larger size would probably work. But I’m not sure what to expect from the strength of the square tubing yet. So the 3/8 axle size might be more appropriate to the strength of the system. 7/16 might mean finding a way to get 1" tubing to work, or perhaps stainless steel square tubing instead of mild steel.
Currently using 1/8" aluminum angle on the base, mostly because that’s what I have. I’m not sure strong the channel itself its going to need to be. Forces are distributed over so much surface area, and in so many different ways, I’m just not sure yet. But the design should accommodate 3/16" or 1/4" aluminum angle as well.
The last thing is, I just don’t know how much everything is going to wear. One of the flaws of this design is its not able to utilize bearings to take up load anywhere. The entire channel is essentially acting as a giant plain thrust bearing, meaning the entire channel wall and hanger is a wear surface.
Right now the plastic slot plates are made of acrylic, because that’s what I had on hand.
But I’d like to get them made from UHMW.
The slot plates are just press fit onto the hanger with pins, and are reversible. So once one side wears out, you can flip it and use the other. And its simple enough of a component to be able to make replacements by hand if ever I’m not able to provide replacements myself.
The aluminum angles are protected by HDPE shims, which is designed to be the primary wear surface over the UHMW slots.
HDPE is softer than UHMW, and should therefore take up most of the wear. Shims are very easy to make and replace by hand using only scissors. Food grade plastic containers can be used to source your own material, so raw material is readily available.
So yeah, the plan is to sell them as kits that come with all the material and bits you need. It would have the plastic slots already cut out and drilled, it would have adhesive backed templates already printed, it would have tubing, nuts, silver solder, flux, etc, etc. The whole kit idea still has to be developed to make sure that the process and the instructions are something people can deal with. But, I think it should be a lot of fun.
