Shaper of the month : L’Artisan du Skateboard.

Shaper of the month : L’Artisan du Skateboard.

Ce mois-ci on vous présente Franck, un skateur qui a créé sa marque de planche de skate L’Artisan du skateboard.

Je vous laisse le découvrir avec nous 😉

Salut Franck,

1- Peux-tu te présenter ainsi que ton entreprise?

artisan du skate

Je m’appelle Franck , j’ai 42 ans et je vis à Metz en France . 

Je skate toujours depuis 1987.

Mon entreprise est l’artisan du skateboard.

Je fabrique des skateboards et des longboards de façon artisanale dans le respect du travail manuel.

Je crois au développement d’un marché du skateboard français et je soutiens les skateurs locaux .

2- Quand as-tu commencé la création de ta marque ?

J’ai commencé à presser mes premières boards en Mars 2020 pendant le confinement, je suis toujours en phase de création car les choses évoluent vite.

3- Que représente ton logo ?

Mon logo est composé d’un crâne d’une croix, car ce sont des classiques dans le skateboard.

La Croix est montée d’un truck ce qui représente La croix de Lorraine.

4- Comment as-tu appris à fabriquer des skates ?

Les premiers étaient en DIY avec des presses en béton …

Ce n’était pas satisfaisant ! 

J’ai suivi une formation avec Roarockit sur plusieurs jours qui m’a permis de synthétiser ce que j’avais appris .

5- Quels matériaux utilises-tu lors de la fabrication de tes skates ?

J’utilise des plis d’érable canadien pour les skateboards et parfois du bambou pour les longboards.

6- Comment Roarockit t’aide lors de ces réalisations ?

Le bois proposé est toujours de qualité, les packs de 10 decks sont très avantageux . J’apprécie les conseils techniques de Sarah et Nico quand j’ai une question.

7- Quels procédés utilises-tu ? (presses,….)

J’utilise principalement les presses “thin air press” de Roarockit et une presse custom que j’ai fabriqué.

8- Comment choisis-tu le design de tes decks ?

Ma priorité est de proposer des planches avec un bon pop et une bonne robustesse. 

Pour le design en soi, je privilégie le black work car je sérigraphie en monochrome pour l’instant.

9- Quels sont tes projets futurs ?

Je vais travailler sur la sérigraphie et peut être m’équiper d’une presse à transfert.

Continuer à produire toujours mieux !

10- Où pouvons-nous te retrouver ? ( lieu, site internet, réseaux …)

Vous pouvez retrouver tous ses réseaux sociaux ci-dessous.


11- Dernière petite question as-tu une anecdote ou un idée à nous partager?

Peu importe si tu as du niveau ou pas, l’important c’est de skater ! 

Merci de soutenir des artisans locaux !

Team Luge Rider Julien Fouchard

Team Luge Rider Julien Fouchard

photo rico du talus
Today we are taking a moment to introduce Julien Fouchard: Roarockit Skateboard Europe’s Luge Team Rider.

This introduction is very overdue, as Julien Fouchard has now been riding for the Roarockit Team since 2016.

An enthusiast of the Street Luge and Classic Luge, Julien has been riding since 2012 and started riding competitively in 2013.

 

 

His accomplishments include:

Season of 2014

Peyragudes photo Jean Esquerre

Rider Julien FoochPhoto Jean Esquerre

Photo Maxime Lassale PND Julien

  • 3rd place Street Luge Championships of the South-West of France
  • 4th place Classic Luge, Pyrenee Championships
  • 15th place Classic Luge, France Championship (CDF)
  • 9th place Classic Luge, International Championships (IDF)

Season of 2015

  • 5th place Classic Luge, France Championship

Season of 2016

  • 3rd place, Classic Luge France Championship
  • 5th place, Street Luge, France Championship

Season of 2017

Couldn’t compete due to car problems

 

 

 

We met Julien back in 2014 during events such as Peyragudes Never Dies, Le Rigalet, La D35 (…etc.). So many great events out there!
Julien was looking for a Luge that would meet his needs and enable him to take part in Championships and events across the world.

 

Roarockit technology makes it possible to build all types of custom boards, but a Street Luge entirely made of veneer and vinyl glue with oversize dimensions and shapes had not yet been done. We were up for the challenge and launched ourselves into the making of a unique Street Luge!

 

After several months, the first luge was ready. Made entirely using the Roarockit Thin Air Press, Canadian maple veneer and Titebond III glue. Julien participated in several freerides to test it, see if improvements were needed and to get a maximum amount of feedback on the board from other riders. Returns were positive but some improvements could be made: a little wider and shorter.

Rider Julien Fooch13336140_1041605175914704_6322777066245595461_n 13343033_1041605505914671_784504067822531516_n

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

luge in thin air press

 

The second prototype was then a success! A Street Luge entirely handmade with Roarockit technology, a one-of-a-kind Luge.

The making of this first Street Luge entirely out of veneer is a great pride. A successful collaboration between rider Julien Fouchard, who brought his knowledge of the discipline and Roarockit for the technicalities of the build. The graphics were done by rider and artist Thomas, aka LeGrinch, Lako – Art & Co

 

 

IMG_3090

 

in the press
This coming season of 2018 Julien will be taking part in several Freerides: the Rigalet, Montaut Express, Saint Pathik…etc.

And also the IDF championships: Transylvania, Kozakov, Verdiccilio.

We are thoroughly looking forward to following his accomplishments this season and are stoked of having such an awesome Roarockit Ambassador and Team Rider!

Plus big shout out to Julien, for his input on the successful build of the Street Luge !

 

May it be a successful year of downhill events for Team Rider Julien Fouchard!

 

 

DREAM IT, MAKE IT, RIDE IT

Follow Julien on facebook & instagram

Building an carbon-epoxy fin keel for a radio controlled model sailing yacht with Roarockit.

Building an carbon-epoxy fin keel for a radio controlled model sailing yacht with Roarockit.

It is a pleasure to present to you the work of Aad Terlouw from the Netherlands and his beautiful build of a carbon-epoxy fin keel for a controlled model sailing yacht, using the Roarockit Thin Air Press Technology! Thank you Aad for taking the time to share your experience with us!

 

Radio controlled model sailing yacht

Radio controlled model sailing yacht

 

The wide range of applications of the Roarockit is shown with the construction of a fin keel by Aad Terlouw in the Netherlands for his radio controlled model sailing yacht.The fin with a length of 65 cm had to be light, stiff and strong and with a narrow airfoil cross section of about 6.5 mm wide.To achieve that goal he decided to go for an carbon-epoxy fin with a balsa wood core and to apply vacuum bag technology.
In spite of the availability of numerous industrial vacuum bag systems the favourable reviews of the Roarockit on the internet convinced him to purchase the Roarockit with a bag of 135*40cm.

The balsa wood core consists of 2 balsa planks of 3 mm thickness, each of them were given an one-sided airfoil-like cross section by accurate planing and sanding (photo below).After this shaping stage the two halves were glued together with epoxy in the Roarockit vacuum bag.

After consulting vacuum bagging expertise on the internet for similar projects Aad had concluded to replace the delivered breather net by a release film with closely spaced ventilation openings directly placed on the balsa fin core.On top of this film a bleeder cloth is needed to absorb excess epoxy.It is essential to keep the valve on the bag offset from your work as recommended in the user guide of the kit.


After drying the complete core was sanded down to about 4.5 mm thickness and in top and bottom inserts of small pieces of hard wood were glued for fitting the bolts for connection of the fin with the hull and the ballast lead later on.

Aad had decided to place three layers of unidirectional (UD) carbon cloth on both sides of the core.

In dry condition the combined thickness of these 3 layers carbon was 1 mm and in order to determine the final thickness of the carbon-epoxy composite he made a small testpiece using the Roarockit. This also enabled him to familiarize himself with the Roarockit for such projects.
The final thickness of the vacuum bagged and cured carbon-epoxy testpiece had remained unchanged and appeared to be still 1 mm.This confirmed that a core thickness of 4.5 mm was needed for obtaining a final thickness of 6.5 mm.

In order to obtain a stiff and strong fin Aad has applied carbon cloth of a high modulus of 240 GPA (steel abt 210 GPA) laid in three layers of different widths saturated with epoxy on both sides of the balsa core.The whole was covered again with release film and bleeder cloth and kept one night in the vacuum bag of the Roarockit with the valve kept offset from his workpiece.It was noted that the vacuum was maintained overnight quite well.

After drying the rough fin was further sanded and painted etc to the result as shown on the photograph above and the first trials with the fin in his modelyacht were completed successfully.The final weight of the fin was 185 gram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aad Terlouw, Netherlands

 

You can read more about Add Terlouw’s builds on this forum for model builders in Dutch.

Wood’n’Stuff – Peter Karsai

Wood’n’Stuff – Peter Karsai

Several months ago, Roarockit received an order from Wood’n’Stuff. Ever since, we have been in admiration of his work, following his technics and the evolution of his projects.

Now, months down the road, we are particularly proud to be able to share the story behind Wood’n’Stuff and what it has become today.

 

20160214_133502So, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, where do you come from, what you did before etc…?

Sure — I’m Peter, a thirty something occasional woodworker from the town of Budapest, Hungary and a proud father of two. I manage a software product by day and I have a second life working with wood by night. I guess it’s needless to draw your attention to the classic “concealed superhero” setting here 😛

 

 

 

When did you first get into woodworking ?

It started out with a hinge that I wanted to mortise into an IKEA storage bench. I carefully researched the subject — that’s two YouTube videos — then headed out to the home improvement store and returned with a chisel and a mallet. Four gruelling hours later I swiped away the sweat on my forehead and proudly adored two rather ugly-looking recesses for the hinges. With the 10 points immediately deposited on my Manliness Account, I decided this experience was for me and that’s where it all started (only later I learned that chisels are sold dull and need to be sharpened before first use).

This was two years ago. Ever since then I stick with hand tools — chisels, hand saws and hand planes, that kind of stuff. They are slow and take a good deal of skill that I’m still very much in progress of acquiring, but they offer a kind of intimacy with wood I doubt I could get from power tools. It’s an incredibly intensive thing. And I get to keep my fingers.

monolith-05

 

When, why and how did you find the Roarockit technology ?

Frankly, I don’t recall where exactly I ran into it, but I do remember it was some Internet forum where the commenters said the inventor’s idea can’t possibly work. This was kind of odd for a product that has already been proven and sold by then, so the name “Roarockit” stuck in my mind.

A year later, when my project ideas called for something more flexible than traditional clamping I decided to give the TAP kit a try. In a way, this was because someone, somewhere once said that this was going to be a poor decision 🙂 You gotta love the irony.

 

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In particular, I looked into vacuum pressing because my bentwood bracelets are made of several layers of veneers laminated onto circular molds and vacuuming saves me tons of work by not having to make a mold negative to press veneers onto the mold.

I have to admit I had doubts about whether TAP will work for the tighter curves I need compared to a skateboard, but once the test project passed with flying colors — no gaps between layers or impressions from the breathing net — I put it into use immediately. My setup is pretty similar to the skateboard building one, except that I use thinner veneers (1/32” instead of 1/16”) and another PVA glue instead of Titebond III. I’m yet to test it with some of the more rigid veneers like goncalo alves, but I’m confident it will work just as
flawlessly as with the softer hardwoods.

 

small.2What is the spirit of wood’n’stuff? Why did you create it ?

How could I not? It combines my two things I feel passionate about: woodworking and creating products 🙂 It’s so much fun to build something from the ground up, starting with nothing but blank canvas.

The spirit is definitely geometric as opposed to ornamental. Ok, it positively helps that I suck at drawing, but being a “sans serif” kind of guy, the things that get me going are lines, angles, ratios, curves borrowed from perfect circles. Frankly, I could admire a perfectly polished slab of steel for hours 🙂 Geometry is also such an alien concept to an utterly organic material like wood that it acts as a frame and highlights the natural grain of wood. A hard edge on a block of wood forces your mind to traverse the grain, to reveal the structure, to fully comprehend the uniqueness of wood as a material.

 

 

 

What do you expect from wood’n’stuff? How far do you want to go ? movingui-02

Wherever the road takes us! At this point, I’m thinking about growing a well-groomed beard and buying a flannel shirt to get fully immersed in the subculture 🙂

I try to keep this project fun and not to take it too seriously — hence the name “wood’n’stuff” — which is surprisingly hard given the tremendous passion that goes into it. Of course, in my dreams it grows into an awesome full-time woodworking enterprise, with a rustic barn converted into a heated shop and huge slabs of walnut neatly stacked up next to my collection of $400 Lie-Nielsen bench planes, but let’s just say the seed has just sprouted and there’s a long way ahead and milestones to conquered. Like reaching breakeven. Ahem 🙂

 

Are there any new projects for wood’n’stuff?

Oh, more than I have time for. I definitely want to further explore veneer lamination bracelets and I can freely experiment with any convex shape now, thanks to my TAP kit which I hereby endorse 🙂 I have some exciting ideas that will be put to the test in the coming weeks.

I’m also very interested bringing cast concrete and wood together. Walnut with its earthy brown, in particular, looks stunning next to grey industrial concrete, so that should be another way to bring out the beauty of wood.

 

Find Peter and his Etsy shop at https://woodplusstuff.etsy.com

and on Instagram at @wood.n.stuff (https://www.instagram.com/wood.n.stuff/)

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