Turning Skateboards into new pieces of Wood

Preperation

The first part of turning old skateboards into usable wood, starts with removing the grip tape and any stickers one them followed by sanding off all the glue and any clear coat.

After sanding these boards, they need to be cleaned and then arranged into a pattern that works. There is an art to this, and you can laugh if you like, but I have taken many color theory classes in my life, so I lean on that knowledge to pick the right combinations that flow well and look the best.

Glue up

This step usually requires every clamp that I own. The more clamps at this point, the better. clamping holds the layers in place while the glue sets, and with skateboards being oddly shaped, it takes a lot of clamping power to evenly hold everything together.

Strips

After the first glue up, I then rip the stack into strips, which then get glued together… again. These usually require 3-4 “strips” of skateboard pieces to get to a width that is usable for my speakers.

Sometimes, I get creative with the curved nose/tail parts of the skateboard, and create some vey unique and interesting patterns out it.

Speaker Preperation

Once I have nice, clean, squared & prepped pieces, I turn them into faces for my speakers. This requires using a whole-saw, lots of sanding, finish work, attaching the fabric & speakers, and then finally gluing into the carcass to become a speaker.

Final product

After all of that, and a few more steps, I have created a super unique speaker. A lot of work goes into this, and I hope that this helps explain that, but I wouldn’t change anything, and will continue creating these awesome speakers.