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Object Culture

Louis Bradier's skateboard ditches plywood for carbon fiber. Will it thrash?

By Rain Noe - July 28, 2010

I first learned about plywood and its properties not through the Eameses or design school, but as a teenaged skateboarder. We built ramps and surfaced them with two layers of 1/4" ply, and our boards themselves were made of seven layers laminated together, cross-hatched for strength. The way skateboards are constructed became obvious to me after I shredded the tail of my John Lucero deck, worn down after months of abuse; the tail "de-lammed" or delaminated unevenly, and as the glue failed you could see the different profiles of individual layers and their alternating directions of grain.

I wasn't the only one riding a raggedy-ass skateboard, as it wasn't something you were meant to keep nice; it was supposed to be abused, and you'd keep riding it until you wore it down to an unworkable nub.

Which makes me wonder if Mechanical Engineering and Design student Louis Bradier's carbon fiber skateboard will be a hit or not. It's a downhill longboard deck as opposed to a more thrashable street deck, but will skaters take to a material and technology more likely associated with skiing than skating?

Whether or not it takes off, it's impressive that that's no rendering, above--Bradier designed and built the thing himself. "It features a foam core construction with a torsion box," he writes, "an impact tough injected polyurethane edge and load distributors." You can see more of Bradier's projects here.

Object Culture

Rain Noe

Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.

6 Comments

Harmon

8 years ago

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How much is this board?
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Sk8 Gears

8 years ago

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I'm not a skater but I like the design and texture of this skateboard. It gives the impression of lightness and flexibility.

Anyway, I agree that the materials used are not really new. A friend of mine still own few skateboards, some are made of wood, plexiglass, fiberglass, etc....
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Jamekins

8 years ago

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This is nothing new. Composites like carbon fiber, fiber glass and even kevlar have been used in skateboard manufacture for years. Especially in down hill where lightness is prized. These are usually made around a foam core and with some sort of protective layer on the out side made of something like bamboo. These are also turned out by amature builders with vac bags in their garages.
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monkeyfumi

8 years ago

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Sad to say, but there is nothing really new here.
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Rob Dahm

8 years ago

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I worked for a small niche longboard manufacturer in Rhode Island called Soda Factory Skates over the spring... Rus (the head honcho over there) makes some all-carbon, carbon + foam ("foamcore"), carbon wood hemp and foam, etc etc. downhill longboards that hold up to some serious thrashing.
Anything all-carbon tends to not feel right.. Soulless and hollow. Wood (and hemp) help dampen the ride while not hurting responsiveness and rail-like stiffness.
The Soda Factory is not the only company doing carbon boards... RPP out of Israel makes some, Pulse out of NZ, and Insect out of Washington state, to name a few.
I'd love to try out Louis' board shown here... The real testament to its durability is riding, though sexiness certainly sells.
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Rhys

8 years ago

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I would give it a go. It would have been nice with some upwards curvature so it has some bounce like a long board, but I can't really judge the board untill I have ridden it. It looks outstanding!
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