I’ve made about 3 boards before and all 3 were very much me figuring it out as i went along, so they all needed constant repairs and didn’t last very long. Heres a pic of my most recent one with an enclosure consisting of a rubber box and plates of lexan that immediately cracked upon assembly.
I found this forum about 6 months ago and since then I’ve been trying to absorb as much esk8 information from yall as i possibly could and slowly buy nice parts to build an esk8 Im really proud of. Now almost everything is here so im gonna start a build thread for My Sweet Baby the esk8.
SPECS:
Deck: arbor flagship dropcruiser 38”
Enclosure: gonna DIY it out of fiberglass and resin should be super chill and fun and easy
Motors: Flipsky 6384’s
Battery: 16s4p P45b built by @Akbrock47
Vesc: Makerx D100s
Remote: flipsky vx4
Wheels: omni 155mm pneumatics
Hangers: BN 270
motor mount: BN precision xl
Motor pulley: 14t
Wheel pulley: 60t
THE LONGBOARD:
I got this Arbor deck for free from an amigo and I just think its the prettiest little thing so I really wanted to make the esk8 out of it. Its definitely not made for eskate but hey whatever man it’ll work out fine probably.
It didn’t work out fine. This is my first time riding pneumies and with their size i was getting a TON of wheelbite with the deck and with my feet. My riding stance is pretty wide (6’5 rider 12 shoe size) so it was uncomfortable with this smaller than normal deck. It was also making my turning radius ungodly large because i had to limit the amount the hangars would move.
I was lost trying to figure out a solution and almost just bought a new deck but then i stumbled upon @IDEA brackets and thought they would solve pretty much all of those problems (Thanks again for working with me with the shipping). I slapped a 15 degree angled bracket on my front end and voíla it looks weird as hell but I could turn better, got no wheelbite, and had more room for my feet to move.
The next big thing i need to do is make my enclosure which is going to be a monster project in my one bedroom apartment with a small balcony but hey man im sure it’ll work out fine. Ill keep yall updated in this thread.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS
ENCLOSURE:
Planning on using this thread to make the enclosure to keep it as straightforward as possible.
Im trying to decide what material to make the buck out of but im leaning towards foam for easy sculpting. Idk let me know if you have any recs.
Then i started laying fiberglass mat. I used jb weld fiberglass resin and chopped strand for the first 2 layers and a woven mat for the 3rd and last layer so it was nice and smooth.
Overall it looks good but it does have some bubbles and pitting. Do yall think i could fill these in with just gorilla epoxy? Maybe gorilla epoxy and some sheets of fiberglass woven mat? Theyre pretty small and i REALLY dont want to mix more resin on my balcony.
Still have more sanding to do and im also considering covering the whole thing with bed liner or something im not sure yet. I know i want it to be black.
Epoxy will bond to polyester resin, often called 'fiberglass ’ resin, but polyester will not bond well to cured epoxy. It might not even cure when laid atop epoxy.
Epoxy will not bond to polyethylene plastic, like zip lock freezer bags.
One can use such plastic to mold shape and manipulate thickening epoxy, babysitting it while it thickens.
If one does not wish to babysit, then make a gravity masking tape dam and fikk with resin.
One can also add cab o sil or microballoons, or even fine sawdust/wood flour to thicken epoxy.into bondo like consistency.
Even epoxy appreciates mechanical tooth.
Big glossy shiny spots should be eliminated for strongest secondary bonding.
I think your work looks good.
Amazing how much work is involved getting it to the stage in your photos isn’t it?
Next thing I did was paint it black and drill the holes for the motor wires and the charging cable. I ran into a problem trying to find a way to affix the charging cable to the hole without a 3d printed bracket or drilling more holes all while making it removable.
I ended up ordering a M to F xt60 adapter and just epoxying that into the board so itd be water tight and i could just plug the battery into it and still be able to remove the battery.
Also the black paint was ugly as hell so I covered it in bed liner.
Didnt take any pics of the inside of the enclosure but just imagine a 16s4p battery with a smart BMS, and a d100s. I cut out adhesive foam in the shape of the outline of the enclosure and it made a nice (hopefully) mostly water tight seal with the deck.
Now shes done. Its super fun, goes faster than i would ever need it to (37mph) and handles great. Thanks for all of yalls tips and advice along the way.
