Hana Builds! in Maui

Ma Ka Hana Ka ‘Ike

They work, they learn… to build stuff. Like their own skateboard park.

And their own skateboards!

Students doing the cement work at the park and in their shop building lots of boards

On the island of Maui, the local park in the remote town of Hana was really only used as a late-­night hang-­out. But since the skate park was completed, it is filled daily with skaters, many riding their own handmade Roarockit boards! Families and friends are spread out on the grass, picnicking and enjoying the scene.

Under the leadership of founders Rick Rutiz and his wife Kirsten, high school and graduate students do hands-­on building projects as part of the Ma Ka Hana Ka ‘Ike Building Program. They’ve done many ambitious builds such as a shelter for their school buses, a thrift shop for the Home Dialysis group, cottages for their local kapuna (elders), a solar‐powered home for a family who’s house burned down and have even outfitted their work truck with solar panels to provide power for on-­the-­job energy.

The Roarockit truck parked by the student-built bamboo framed wood storage and office building

Ted enjoying the community built skatepark in Hana

When the skate park was nearly completed, Rick contacted us at Roarockit to bring in our technology to his classes. He wanted the boards they built to be of the best quality to match the level of skating now possible at the park. He offered a summer program to the local school and the response was overwhelming! In this very small community, over 100 students signed up literally overnight, to build boards! 

Ted and I went on location to visit the build sessions and to meet Rick and especially his 3 graduate students who lead the skateboard build sessions. Russell, James and Lyman are skaters themselves and are the shop foremen in the workshop and on the jobsites. In a few short weeks these friendly, smart, inventive and very cool dudes had figured out how to use the Roarockit Thin Air Press technology, taught more than 80 young builders in class then taken it further by modifying and creating new molds for their own custom designed boards. Awesome!

Ted with Russell, James and Lyman, discussing advanced Roarockit build techniques

The kids with their custom built and painted Street Decks!

The town of Hana is a community that helps each other in true Hawaiian spirit. We were awed and amazed by the experience of being there. The scenery is breathtaking and the community is supportive of each other, what a wonderful place and a great way to live!

Aloha,

Norah

To see other projects built by these Ma Ka Hana Ka 'Ike students, visit hanabuild.org

Brand New BIRCH Veneers Pt.3

Conclusion

From a board builder and riders perspective, we are quite pleased with the results of the 1/16” Solid Birch veneers. We found them very easy to work with, and the results were a nice contrast to our standard Maple veneers. Both are very strong/durable, and access to both now allows builders to further customize their rides. There is also the possibility of combining both materials on the same board to help create a unique weight and flex. The fact that Roarockit offers both at the same price allows builders to mix and match material with ease (contact us directly to order your own customized mix of veneers) .

Compared to other common board building materials on the market, our Birch veneers compare nicely to the popular bamboo/foam core alternatives. Especially for 'dancers' and boards meant to have a substantial amount of flex.

The durable, flexible and lightweight properties of the Birch are what lead us to making the Bamboo comparison in particular. It is also worth noting - for our North American builders who import bamboo from overseas, the fact that we have found a local source for our Birch veneers, helps reduce our carbon footprint and keeps cost down for everyone.

Through our research and testing, we concluded that the 1/16” Solid Birch was the most dynamic new material that wasn't readily available to board builders. It is no secret that the Birch Plywood found in most local lumber and hardware stores is not an ideal building material for skateboards. However, we chose to test this material because it is often used by beginners due to it's widespread availability.

Roarockit welcomes anyone who has tried our new Solid Birch veneers to send us their feedback and experiences working with the material. Also, if anyone feels like further breaking down the science behind some of our findings, any and all data or suggestions would be greatly appreciated... We may look great in our lab coats – but in reality, are much better skaters/woodworkers than we are scientists!

We would like to thank you all for your continued support of the Roarockit Skateboard Company. It brings us great joy when we see our hard work and dedication to classrooms/independent builders, pay off with positive comments and success stories from around the world.

Happy building!

Brand New BIRCH Veneers Pt.2

Testing

For the last few months, we have been making and testing boards using the new Solid Birch veneers. We ran a series of tests comparing identical boards made using our standard 1/16” Maple, our new 1/16” Solid Birch and the 1/8” Birch Plywood commonly found in most hardware and lumber stores. The results were really quite impressive.

Strength – We tested the compressive strength, hardness and overall durability of the 3 materials.

1/16” Maple = The strongest of the bunch. Once pressed together, our Maple veneers make for some of the strongest boards in the world. The maple board withstood an amazing amount of punishment, and held its stiffness throughout each of our tests.

1/16” Solid Birch = Tested similar in many ways to the Maple. Overall the material is not quite as hard as the Maple, but it absorbed impact well and kept its shape throughout testing.

1/8” Birch Plywood = The more we tested this material, the weaker it became. We also noticed that during the impact test, the nose of the board actually split quite easily along the factory glue lines.  

Flexiness – All 3 boards were tested by standing on the point directly between the truck holes and compared by the distance the board dropped. Our test subject weighed approximately 175 lbs.

1/16” Maple = Dropped 5/8” at the lowest point to the ground

1/16” Solid Birch = Dropped 3/4” at the lowest point to the ground

1/8” Birch Plywood = Dropped 5/8” at the lowest point to the ground

In this test we revealed that the 1/16” Solid Birch was indeed the most flexible of the three building materials tested. We could feel right off the bat that this was the case, and our tests confirmed that the board dropped a full 1/8” lower than the other two boards. It was described by one rider as feeling 'very springy'.

We could also tell that, while the 1/8” Birch Plywood dropped the same amount as the Maple board, it had far less spring-back. As our tests went on, the plywood board actually felt as if it was getting weaker - this is further confirmed by riders who described the plywood board as having a 'dead' feeling.

Glue Lines – We also decided to test the factory glue lines on the 1/8” Birch Plywood to see how they reacted to moisture. To do this we put the unfinished ends of the 1/16” Maple and 1/16” Solid Birch board laminated using our waterproof Titebond III, and one of the factory glued Birch Plywood.

We soaked the boards for 2 hours at a time, twice over two days. Neither board experienced any sort of delamination - which is great – However, we noticed that the exposed end of the 1/8” Birch Plywood actually swelled quite a bit compared to the other boards.   

Weight – All 3 boards were made at 1/2” thick and feature an identical shape and concave.

1/16” Maple = 1.8kg

1/16” Solid Birch = 1.5kg

1/8” Birch Plywood = 1.7kg

Our new 1/16” Birch weighed in at 1.5kg, the lightest of the 3 building materials tested, and our 1/16” Maple was the heaviest at 1.8kg - no real surprise considering the extremely dense nature of the material. We also believe that the extra glue lines found in the factory produced 1/8” Birch Plywood, are the reason it tested heavier than the 1/16” solid birch.**

**To further explain – a single 1/8” sheet of Birch Plywood contains three factory laminated layers, held together with two glue lines, as opposed to the one glue line it would take to make 1/8” with our 1/16” solid veneers.   

Check back next week for Part 3 of Roarockit's Birch Report!  Feel free to ask any questions or leave a comment about any of our posts.

PART 3 HERE!!

Light Bohrd

Almost everyday we get to see something cool that people are making with our Thin Air Press and other Roarockit products... but when this one came through, our eyes literally LIT UP!

If you haven't heard of them, you soon will... Roarockit is proud to present: LIGHT BOHRD

Chris Forgey is the President/Founder of the Texas based Light Bohrd, and is extremely excited (as we are) to finally bring his technology to market. To get an overview on what their doing to revolutionize the board sports world, here's some words from Mr. Forgey himself:

“We're making longboards and skateboards that feature illuminated graphics. We're the first company in the world to do this and have a patent pending for the idea and concept. Our boards have several unique features: the technology and components are fully embedded, no external wires, no external batteries. The lights in our boards are motion activated, we recharge our internal power source with a charger from PowerMat.

Our first priority is to build a premium longboard and skateboard. The reason its taken us so long to bring our product to market is the refinement we had to go through to have a product that had the performance and feel that we'd expect as riders ourselves. Then we wanted to add the cool feature of adding illuminated graphics.

We're excited about the product. Light Bohrd is sponsoring 3 riders at Maryhill this upcoming weekend. They'll be riding our pro-series board made for extreme downhill riding. This will be Light Bohrd's debut and we're ready.”

Photo Above: A little quality assurance done by Light Bohrd's Product Engineer 

The Light Bohrd team at the 2012 Gnarathon

Make sure to check these unique boards at http://lightbohrd.com/ and on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/lightbohrd

Brand New BIRCH Veneers Pt.1

Here at the RockitLabs HQ, we have been working to find the next great material for our board builders around the world. After carefully weighing the pros and cons of various different materials, we came to the conclusion that one in particular really stood out... the choice was clear.

The Roarockit Skateboard Company is now fully stocked, and proud to offer our brand new - 1/16” Solid Birch Veneers! This locally sourced wood is strong, flexible and looks amazing!

There are over 40 species of Birch trees grown around the world, many of which are exclusive to North America. Birch trees can thrive in many different climates, which helps make it ones of the world's most popular building materials. The grain on birch is generally very straight and contains numerous small pores. The fine, straight nature of the grain makes it easy to cut, sand and accepts stain very well. You can stain Birch to match many different wood types.

When it comes to the strength of Birch as a material, it is considered to be one of the hardest and most durable of the common wood varieties. Like Maple, Birch can grow in extremely cold weather conditions. These extended periods of coldness allow the tree to mature slowly which results in tighter growth rings and a stronger final product. However, Birch contains 'flexier' properties than its Maple counterpart – something that is integral to certain types of boards.

Flexibilty is a function of the elastic and compressive values of a given material, and there are natural variances found within the complex structure of fibres and cells, that make Birch a 'flexier' building material. While we have done quite a bit of research to understand the science behind this, we do not claim to be expert Biologists. We look at this from a riders/builders perspective, and we know how different types of boards should feel. That being said, we are quite thrilled with the results!

For the next couple weeks, we will be releasing our test results, testimonials and opinions from board builders regarding the new Birch material.  Make sure to check back for Parts 2 and 3 of Roarockit's Birch Report.

PART 2 HERE!!