The Press

When deciding to make my own board, I needed to decided all of the different kinds of curves I wanted in my board. I was able to choose from a nose and tail kicker, and also a camber for the side of the board. To achieve these curves, I needed to design a press that would bend the wood into the shape I wanted. The type of press I built is called a Dimm press, and unfortunately, there weren't too many resources out on how to build your own. I managed using a single YouTube tutorial and a software called Sk8CAD to get an idea of what sizes were right for the board I wanted to create.

After I decided on the shape I was going to make my press, I moved on to working on the foam itself. The benefit of using a Dimm style press is that it is extremely cheap because it is formed from insulation foam. I used a foam rated at R-10 because it was the highest density of foam found at my local hardware store, so it would deform the least. I had a copy of my CAD drawings to the side of the foam for reference while I was sketching.

I started off my press build by sketching out my design in AutoCAD. Here I was able to play around with different sizes and try my best to insert these dimensions into Sk8CAD to get an idea of what the end result would look like.

I cut out the foam using a variety of handsaws for the precision of the cuts. Although the foam is very forgiving when pressing, I wanted my cuts to be as accurate as possible to ensure a proper pressing and a symmetrical board. After the cuts were made, I ended up sanding the foam to clean up the edges and the faces as the saw could leave some really rough marks.

I mounted the cut out foam to wooden planks, so the clamps would press on the wood instead of directing all of its force directly to the foam. It was a little difficult lining the sides of the male half to the board because there was no real reference with the female side. After fastening to the wood, I laid the two halves on top of each other to check its fitment.

Now that the mold was complete, I needed to press the board; however, I didn't have anything to physically press it with. My one friend suggested using a lot of heavy weights, but I didn't think that would provide adequate pressure, especially spanning across the entire board. Hand clamps would have been the easiest to use, but I only had two, and I was not ready to drop over $100 on clamps for this project. I decided to make my own clamps out of some 2x4's and carriage bolts with some nuts and washers. I now prefer this clamp over the handheld clamps because it provides equal pressure across the width of the board, maintaing pressure to the middle of the board where a hand clamp would not reach. I also allows me to really crank the clamps down as the foam begins to lose its shape. I ended up making 6 clamps by the end of my project, and they cover most of the length of the board, giving me great coverage.

With the mold and clamps done, the press was finally complete! The only thing left to do now is press it. In the photos shown to the right, the board sits between the two halves of the mold, while I placed my homemade clamps towards the ends where the most force is needed to bend the wood. I used hand clamps in the middle to ensure the wood stayed tightly pressed together. This would later be changed to add even more clamping pressure through the entire press.

My Board

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse