Welcome to the journal of Nagini, my first electric skateboard build log.
I figured rather than spamming Pictures & Nothing Else, I’ll collate my progress here.
Prior to joining this forum, I begun my development log here. I will continue to post in parallel, where a more polished format of my progress will be posted on Hackaday, and this thread will serve as a place for more regular updates and discussions.
The journey begins with my commute. I’m a degree apprentice, meaning I work 4 days a week and study for 1. Thankfully I have the luxury of working from home, however I still have to attend Uni in person, and aim to get into the office once a week also.
The problem with this is, I live a 45 min drive away from both work but I don’t drive. Thanks to COVID I never got round to having lessons until recently. The solution? A 10 minute bus, then an hour bus, then a 15 minute walk. Anyone in the UK will know how much of a fucking nightmare the buses are…
And don’t get me started on my Uni commute. It’s the same 10 min bus, then a 1.5hr journey. The bus is always crammed, so 90% of the time I can’t get a seat at 50% of the time I cant even board. So I’m almost always late.
I figured it would be more fun to skate, so I replaced my first bus with a 20 min skate down one long cycle path. The good news is it is downhill on the way there. The bad news is it’s uphill on the way back. Unfortunately there’s not much I can do about the bus to work, but I realised if i get a 20 min train to one town, there’s a lovely cycle path leading straight from the train station to Uni. So that takes half an hour in nice weather to skate.
I’m kind of rambling so I don’t blame you for skipping all of that crap. The point is, there’s a lot of skating to do at the start and end of my day, and it’s bloody exhausting. Especially now the weather has gone to crap, and the mud and leaves plague my entire route. This gave me the perfect excuse to pick up electric skateboarding as my next expensive hobby.
I begun with the mindset that I wanted a bare minimum setup, using as much of my existing deck as I possibly could. I begun researching, creating CAD models, and buying parts. My overexcited ADHD brain was rushing through all the important steps, like understanding my requirements and focusing on safety. My mindset switched when I joined this forum and realised this could be so much more than a Frankenstein’s monster of parts - if I want to enjoy my commute, I need to do this properly.
I fell in love with mountain boards after seeing all those gorgeous trampa setups across the forum. At this stage I had bought myself 2x Flipsky 6354s and a set of Caliber IIIs. I knew that something so powerful and elegant would be way outside my price range, however visions of me flying through the hills and forests behind my flat made me dribble in my underwear so I wanted to find a compromise.
I came across @esk8col post, selling his haggy bergmeister pneummies and the deal was too good to pass up. They will be a perfect compromise - economical for pavement and street riding, but large and grippy enough for some minor MTB action.
Realising they wouldn’t fit my Globe deck without gouging out huge wheel wells or increasing the ride height such that it feels like standing on a dinner table, I knew I needed a new deck. I have always loved drop down decks (I guess coming from skateboarding prior to longboarding, lower ride height is important to me) and figured one would be perfect for this application.
After weeks of painstakingly scouring the internet for the perfect deck with shape, size and graphic that fits the aesthetic I had in my head (definitely not because I had a whole £20 in my account to last the remainder of the month) I came across the Indy 42" x 9.5" slant drop down deck.
I wanted the deck to look aggressive yet natural, using black and brown tones to match my Bourbon Caliber trucks. None of that namby pamby carbon fibre nonsense, I want to ride and feel one with the trees.
I’m currently in the process of designing the graphic for my deck. The plan is to sand it down completely, pyrographically draw the design, Stain the rest of the deck a dark brown/Ebony to provide some contrast and match the trucks, then clearcoat. This isn’t going to be just another electric skateboard, this is going to be a work of art.
Anyway, I’m sure you’ll see more of me around this forum. I’m determined to reach “regular” status so I look cool and experienced.
Cheers for reading my ramblings.
