KURBY; The Journey of Pedro's First Build

[PedroMcJimenez]

This will be a bit more than a standard build log. It follows me from my noob beginning of not knowing shit, and hopefully ends with a properly built board and me being a half decent builder/assembler.

I came into this community about July 2020 with much different goals than what ended up being quite the learning excursion. I ordered a BKB Tayto kit in July with the intent to assemble it and ride as is. Then research happened and I switched plans to do a deck swap to a Moonshine Sidekick right away when I received the kit.
The BKB kit was taking quite some time to ship, so while reading on here and seeing all the shinnies, I decided to do a full fledge build with the Moonshine. It was my ideal lightweight kicktailed board: mallgrabable, agile, yet long enough to spread the legs and get up to some decent speeds.
What I imagined went into a build differed far from reality. I thought I could order parts that were all plug and play and I could get away without even learning how to solder. Oh how wrong I was, sweet summer child.
I came into this with almost no skills that applied to building electric murder boards. The only thing I had going for me was my ability to use tools quite precisely, good problem solving skills, and a keen eye for detail. Most of which which came from my background in high end construction.

So I really need to thank this community, y’all are rockstars! There is no way I could have pulled this off if I was only learning from reddit/Facebook. The openness of folks here to share knowledge is really admirable, and makes everyone better because of it. From all the tutorials/wikis to the kind folks in the noob thread answering questions (I still learn from there even if I don’t ask Q’s) to the very helpful knife gang that is fresk8. Thank you all(!)(except @BillGordon , you’re a pussy ), I’ve learned something from way too many people here to start naming everyone off, basically if you contribute knowledge here, I’ve probably learned from you. Building and learning new things is very therapeutic to me and the pride of riding YOUR own board is very much rewarding.

So enough with the chatty sappy shit, lets get to the goods. Don’t get your hopes up too high, most stuff will be pretty rudimentary to y’all, but felt like a solid achievement for myself.

The Goods

• Moonshine Sidekick 35"

• Eboosted SS Enclosure by @eBoosted

• 12s3p Molicel P42a by @A13XR3

• Stormcore 60D+ by @Deodand and Co

• Boardnamics M1 Thane Drives by @Boardnamics

• 184mm BN Hangers from @KaramQ

• Paris V3 Baseplates 43/50 split

• Hyperdrive 100mm Wheels

• Riptide Bushings/Pivot Cups/Tunnel Risers by @RipTideSports

• FlexiBmsLite by @SimosMCmuffin

• FreeSk8 Robogotchi GPS Logger by @DerelictRobot @skate420

• 6355 190kv Maytech Motors

• BnS Guards/Tailpuck/Panel Mount by @poastoast

• Hoyt Puck by @JJHoyt

[PedroMcJimenez]

Fitment Trial and Error AKA buy a bunch of shit and see what works

This goes along with the old adage that expectations are much different than reality. Plans changed so much along the way. Some were caused by naivety and some were due to the nature of a custom build with tight tolerances while others were due to my headstrong nature to make things end up how I want with little compromise. Ordering parts started in Fall 2020 and continued on until clearances and mock up was sorted.
One of the early battles was getting the drivetrain to mesh well with the enclosure. Motor mounts in the rear and wheels up front were my clearance issues. First mounts I purchased were some gorgeous Whooshboard mounts by @Mikaelj.

I quickly realized there was no chance in hell these would work. Even with being about the smallest C to C for mounts I could find, there was no way for them to be inward mounted and I couldn’t bring myself to make a rear mounted kicktail board.
Enter @Boardnamics M1 GD’s last fall.

It fixed most of the interference issues, but I still needed more. So that entailed a dive into baseplates, specifically wheelbase offset. After counting out the adjustables, this is where I started with BN 40/50 baseplates.

This is where I ended with Paris v3 43/50.

The geometry of the V3s alleviated my interference issues as well as gave me equal ride height. Calibers were a little better than the old BN in the wheelbase offset, but not by much. Randals thin cast near the pivot didn’t instill confidence, and their pivots are weird because almost half your pivot nipple is hanging out. In hindsight, these woes were due to @eBoosted designing this enclosure for TKP, not his fault and not insurmountable. His build was pretty slick. (Sorry, my kid thought it was a great idea to sharpie up my measuring tape)

The next fitment battle was to mash as many cells in this SS enclosure as possible. DS was not an option because of the looks and I was trying to keep it lightweight enough to be used as a compact last mile solution. Enter @A13XR3, bless his soul… He put up with much back and forwards while I measured to try to fit 12s3p P42a. He stomached my napkin drawings and after many "Are you sure it will fit"s, he accepted my design and got to work .

The idea was to wing the end cells up to utilize the extra height that the grab rails allowed. That worked, but I didn’t factor in how much extra the series connections would take up. So I ended up using a 6mm hard(ish) rubber gasket that I think i pulled off pretty cleanly.

I used CA glue to get it down and then used a sikaflex like sealant that I had laying around to seal it and give more hold. Shit is bombproof, I’ve glued a chunk of a wheel back on with it and its lasted 1300+ miles.
With the major fitment issues taken care of I moved onto mounting the enclosure.

Sexbolts FTW

[PedroMcJimenez]

Backtrack To Sidetracked From The Sidekick
I bought a 3d printer around Thanksgiving cause why not and it gave me and the boy something to nerd out on together over winter/covid. This comes in handy later on.

Printed all the useful stuff, obviously.

At some point before that (late Sept)I assembled the BKB Tayto Kit. It was pretty straight forward. Biggest learning curve was diving into vesc tool and figuring out what all the settings meant.

That was fun, quick and far from inciteful of what goes into a real build. Grip was traced off a custom tiled niche where I broke the tile with hammers and chisels, honed then set 1 by 1.

[PedroMcJimenez]

Aesthetics
Way back in Aug/Sept I picked out this design. I didn’t plan on skinning it myself, but situations happened and my hand was forced, not gonna get into details on that. The color scheme was pulled from the urethane rails of the Moonshine. I set out to find a green themed skin that I would like.
During the search I remembered an album cover of one of my favorite hip-hop artists and knew that was it. This album was a daily playthrough during one of the tougher parts of my life. The name for the board is pulled from the album in which a song is entitled Kirby, after his new kitten that his therapist recommended(yeah, I listen to hardcore shit ).

So about late Jan 2021 I decided it was either learn how to skin, or forget about it.
Enter the legends @glyphiks and @rosco s skinning tutorials on the FreeSk8 forum. Reading through them and the frit thread here made it seem feasible. I owe them both a lot, beyond their tutorials, they were there and seemingly happy to help with any questions I had as well as happy to laugh when I fucked up. Thank you 2 fuckers, your gentleman(well maybe not Al) and scholars.

So here is the skinning/aesthetics journey. Keep in mind I’m an anal fuckwad and tend to deep dive and practice stuff that I’m not experienced with, which is everything coming up, even spray paint was a foreign subject to me.

After all the materials showed up I got to work on some practice. First up was a couple 2x8s to just get a feel of the process.

I experimented with some glow-in-the-dark granules and varying size and mixes of frit.

After some successful trial runs it was time to move onto prep for my practice boards that I had laying around from my pre-built days: Boosted V2 Vanguard and Backfire Zealot Bamboo.

Filling channels and inserts. I had some leftover GITD resin from an experiment so I used that on the Zealot. One lesson here was to listen to @glyphiks when he says to use a filler/thickener. I had some running that had to be mitigated with excessive sanding.

Next was some late night cold winter sanding.

Some sexy bamboo on the Vanguard

The Vanguard was up to bat first. Both patterns were stock from spoonflower.com. I didn’t realize until layout time that these designs needed near perfect symmetry to look right. There was little margin for error so I needed to figure out someway to help with proper alignment while applying the fabric.
I came up with a gridded reference board as a solution. Executing a desired layout would have been near impossible without.

The execution of the layout went pretty good, it was within a few millimeters in any direction
I learned that dust and pet hair management were integral. As well as the spoonflower satin is really thin and prone to stretching thus warping the design. The biggest lesson was to be very mindful of time and temps, in relation to resin mixing/application. I let the resin kick too quick and had to mix a new batch in the middle of it which resulted an uneven finish. This was rectified by letting it cure and giving it a good sanding. Sanding resin is a shithole, it must be avoid in the future.

Moving onto the Zealot

There ended up with a little Easter egg for whoever ends up using it…

Being I had extra fabric and I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to practice more on the undersides.
Skinning around the routed wire exits wasn’t fun at all. My hand was forced here

Stained the zealots rails black and left the Vanguards natural with clearcoat

The practice rounds payed off, many lessons were learned and refinements were made. Thankfully, Kurby was the smoothest skin yet.

If you notice there were a couple iterations of the fabric. I didn’t like the larger one, so I had it reprinted after asking for the original photoshopped image from @mmaner.

Definitely stoked with how this turned out, not perfect, but close enough(similar to what was said about me at birth). For not fritting the character/cat, I carefully cut in around it as opposed to masking off(like the Zealot). It worked quite swell as was a little hint I took from a @Sender interview I listened too.

On to the bottom of the deck and enclosure!

I worked with the lines and shape of the enclosure and opted to skin the center. Quite experimental and failsafe was to paint over it, but stoked with how it turned out.

Then I started messing with mica pigments in resin

Had a masking failure and aborted the pink curves. It was quite stressful peeling the tape to see it seeped because the texture. Anyway I think this looks better being along the lines of less is more.

Moving on, I employed @poastoast 's talents to cad up a couple parts of some napkin drawings of mine. First was a panel mount for the phase mr60s. The sensors are passthrough for the time being. I would really like to panel mount in the future whether it be M8 for full sensors, or xt30 to run ASS.

Next I needed a tailpuck so could properly use the tail to set the board down and kick it up. As well as lean it up and use it as a cane while mall grabbing.

@poastoast is a saint and did many alterations with me printing and testing in between.
I ended up with lots of his gear on this build and even a PoastMote later on.

Thanks Poast! Your gear really put some nice touches on this

Finally, last bit of aesthetics! Whoever is still here deserves a beer/soda/whatever your flavor.

Just some cable sleeves to match the theme.

That was a damn journey to manifest my ideas for looks a reality. I think it paid off

[PedroMcJimenez]

Sled and Final Assembly

Initial layout

Ground down the 60d for a few extra millimeters

Some of my first real soldering that wasn’t copper pipes

Grabbed a flexi to save space and gained smarts. This is my first through hole soldering

That was a fun challenge. Any poky bits from soldering balance wires were snipped off b4 heat shrink.
I took a page from @b264 deleted the fuse holder and mapped it to sit right behind the robo.

Updating the FW on the flexi was just sad. I think my cable was wonky so I had to type a long command line around 15 times before it took. Had I quit, the flexi would be bricked.

Every jst cable other than the hoyt receiver was custom mapped and crimped.

Enclosure and deck got some vibration management. All ready for assembly.

Everything got siliconed down and a dab of hot melt to keep it still while the silicone cured.
The balance wire situation isn’t ideal. They needed to go in-between the ESC and the telemetry. I decided to cable sleeve it, but also encompassed it in silicone within the sleeving.

First ride was at 330 am around June 6th 2021. I was instantly comfortable and took it to max duty cycle(28mph) right away. It truly felt better than I even imagined, smooth, carvy, and comfortable for speed. In between the Hyperdrive 74a wheels and the urethane encompassed mounting holes, the ride is pretty dampened for a stiff, short urethane board. Way better than my old boosted mini on all fronts.

[PedroMcJimenez]

Fin

I instantly decided to swap the gear ratio to 2.2 from 2.8. The calculator was showing 30ish mph for 2.8 but reality was about 27.5 at top voltage. That was worth the change, and torque was still a plenty for my liking. The new gears brought it to 36mph peak and I would hit that nearly every run until a couple crashes down the line. One of which was my fault(@whaddys saw it) and put the fear in me, so I rarely take it above 32mph anymore.
The motor guards have been changed a couple times as they are consumables, but do their job. I’m working on getting TPU printing capabilities for a longer lifespan. Tailpuck got moved to pink, because a buddie smashed it into his Plutonium and pink was on hand.

Anyway, I’ve put 450 or so miles on this over the summer, and really got to know it. It really shines in the city where agility is king. Kickturns and curb drops keep me up with the Onewheels in tight terrain, while the top end leaves them in the dust when its time to open up. Fucking love this board, and it filled my quiver spot for a shortboard and then some. My dog really loves it too, its the perfect dog running board.

Only thing left I plan to do is add a OSSR receiver and a Metr pro can(for FlexiBms settings). As well as panel mount my sensors and/or move to ASS with xt30 for temp and ground.

What’s next? It’s been done since Oct, and there is a hint up there of what it is. A much smaller build thread is incoming for it.

Pic Dump

Buzzed up bad decision to try and go up a curb…

If you’ve made it to the end, I’d just like to say I’m sorry that was painful, and I owe you a beer/pumpkin spice latte if we ever meet.

[rosco]

Reserved 5.
Fuck I love this build Pedro.
I want one just like it.
You killed it dude
Before you’ve even finished the thread. Can’t wait for the read!

[poastoast]

i’m happy to work with ya!

super glad it’s workin out, hope to see more builds from ya

ps still looks like a watermelon

[PedroMcJimenez]

@rosco

Fuck I love this build Pedro.
I want one just like it.
You killed it dude

Means a lot coming from you, thank you! your tutorial was integral to me finishing this the way I envisioned it

[PedroMcJimenez]

@poastoast

ps still looks like a watermelon

I’ll take it, some said it looked like a vulva when I was on the brink of disaster… @rosco Think that was you

[poastoast]

oh it lowkey still has a hint of that now that you mention

[JeffyJ]

Another epic build thread! Been some excellent threads lately. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Cheers.

Completely get the inward mounting for kicktail. I’m about to change my mini to a hub build from single drive inward mount. I didn’t leave enough room really on mine for wiring two motors inward facing hence why going to hubs.

Congrats on a great thread and builds.

[PedroMcJimenez]

Thanks Jeffy!

@JeffyJ

I didn’t leave enough room really on mine for wiring two motors inward facing hence why going to hubs.

It really does get tight on certain builds. My tb40 was even tougher to pull off inward while not having the motors to close to the ground.

[cfelzien]

@PedroMcJimenez

Onewheels

Stab them😉

Definitely one of my favorite builds. Been jealous of your enclosure since day one. Good job man. Super clean. Just don’t add a top mount box to it.

[Dunkan]

That’s such a cool build mate! I’m already thinking of building something small to just ride to the shops, you showed me the right direction

[SmokeNEsk8]

Nice work on the builds!

[rusins]

Kirby - YouTube Music

Good shit

[Kai]

! Mount some blacklight LED’s so the picture glows !
Otherwise top notch
Haaaaaaay kurby

[Venom121212]

Gorgeous build Andrew! Your skinning work is stellar. All the skins you’ve chosen are unique and killer too.

This build is beautiful and in no way reminds me of a watery melon

[Nacho]

This is my favorite diy thane build of the year
Definitely a BOTY contender