Who are you? Whats the deal?

Well, we are a group of skimboarders from Seacliff, Adelaide, South Australia. We have been skimboarding for years and have wasted many long summers days sliding around pointlessly. Anyway at the beginning of this year I was given a project to do at TAFE and I chose to make a skimboarding company for it.

How did you get interested in Skimboarding???

I became interested in the sport when I started becoming friends with Nick and Jamie. I remember them kind of teaching me how to do it and I really became obsessed with it for a while, because it has elements of surfing and skateboarding, witch I was already interested in.

What were your Intentions at the beginning of the project and how did it vary from your final presentation???

When I first started this project I wanted to make three skimboards all varying in size and shape. After I began though, I discovered that making three would cost too much so I decided to only make two. I made two of these boards both identical, one for my self and one for my friend. I also decided to make a website, as this was something I had never seriously tried to do before.

Why did you choose this as your project???

I chose to do this for this project so that I would actually do it, because skimboarding is something that I find interesting. It also is a reasonably underground sport, not many people really understand how challenging, fun and extreme it can be when pushed to its limits. I guess that I probably would have made these boards anyway, even if not for this project, so I guess TAFE give a kind legitimacy to it. Another factor was that at the time I knew of no companies making skimboards not only in Adelaide, but when I looked into it there is not a specialist skimboard maker in Australia, as far as I know! People always ask me questions about weather I make them myself, and how I make the and soforth.

Where did the Name "Powertrip" come from???

Powertrip was the best name I could think of. At the time. The idea behind it was that me and my friends are trippers, and when you skimboard and I got strait into making stencils and spraying them onto my shed door.. I started getting pretty good at this and decided that this was how I was going to paint my boards. Most of the stencils that I had made said POWERTRIP on them so at some point I decided to go with it. Overall I think its a great name and kind of reflects what the company should be about. Of coarse there's the fact that powertriping is actually an activity generally undertaken by Cops, Politicians, Security guards and other wankers, but I know what I mean so who cares. Other names thrown up for consideration were Stella, Ruiner, Safarka, Insane and Spastik Skimboards.

How much did all of this cost???

well lets see, $25 for brushes, $60 fiberglass, $40 paint, $40 board, $60 resin. $10 for Hardener.

How long does It take to make a board???

well to make a good on one must really spent a lot of time and effort thinking about and planning the construction of the board. I found that I needed good weather to do the board as resin wont set unless the sun is out and shining on it. I also found hustling up the tools I needed like the clamps and the jigsaw a real bitch I would say that you could make a board from start to finish in about a week and a half, if you got good weather for the whole time. Other things like setting the kick in the board take a few days too as the last thing you want is it bending back on you.

How did you pay for this monstrosity???

I drew finances from my mate Alex, who wanted a board, my bank account and my mum, who has given me money for it when I had none of my own. THANX MUM!!!

What was the Highlight of this Project for you???

I guess the best part off this whole thing is going to be using my finished boards. I have been looking forward to this since the day I started this project and the time is near!!! When I started I thought painting the boards would be the most fun part, but since then, especially with the white board, that making them look good.

What was the worst part???

I guess this would have been just after I hurt my knee, you guessed it, skimboarding. This was probably one of the worst injuries I have sustained and I still haven't fully recovered from it. I however did get a lot of work done during the week I spent crippled and hardly able to walk. I hobbled around until I could hobble no more. I spent quite a few solid days making them during that period.

What Problems Did you Have and how did you fix them???

The first and main problem that its hard to paint underneath Resin as the resin eats through the paint. This pissed me off at first but after some experimenting I discovered how to paint under the resin. The trick was to paint on the resin quickly and not to drag any paint.

Another problem that I had was that fiberglass glass doesn't come in a suitable width to lay it long ways so you have to make joins. Although I could have done it that way there was too much wasted materials so I made joins.

I also found it hard to keep the boards an even colour, as I would leave them outside and birds would poo on them, bugs would crawl and crap would drop on them, while the res was setting

Tell us about this website???

well i made this website to improve my mark on this project. I wanted to kind of make it look like PT Skimboards was real, So I made A site. I guess there was a bit of R'n'D involved with this as well. I have made sights before at tafe, but I wanted to make a good one for a change and put it up on the web and make it searchable. I have submitted it to search engines and added it to a few directories so it will be interesting to see if I can get any traffic. Some of the things I found hard was making all of the links work on the server, adding a guestbook, getting it all to fit together with no errors, and also adding javascripts and html code, using an html editor.

Did you collaborate or get any help from anyone during this assignment???

Well yes and no. The most anyone else did was give me a hand whilst I did things like Alex and Jamie both helped me design shapes, but that was about the most of it. I got some help from a guy at mid coast surf. I just asked him a few questions about painting boards. And how to apply resin over the paintwork. Also when I went to Cutloose the guy there answered a lot of questions that I had. I learned the correct ratios of hardener, catalyst and resin and stuff from those guys. I was for a while interested in putting a woodgrain ribbon down the middle of the board like what you see on so many longboards, but I gave up on that because it sounded too hard.

Will you continue on with this project???

Maybe. I do think there is probably a market for these boards as all of the competition that I have seen has been pretty average. There is one guy who is making boards under the name "ocean culture" they are in my opinion, very average and obviously being made by some guy who wants to make some money, whilst never really taking skimboarding on himself. I would like to do this maybe in the future, as I am quite addicted to the surfer bum lifestyle that so many of us give up in our quest to pay bills.

 

 

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