Most skateboard decks today are made up of about seven layers of wood, depending on the quality, glued together and compressed in a vice-like mould. Using design tools Rhino and Grasshopper, the Cavity Boards team built their first board up layer by layer, not dissimilar to the process of traditionally manufactured skateboards.
3D printing this skateboard had a scale ratio of 1 to 1; the printed object wasn’t just a tool for representation, but came out of the printer as a functional piece. This was made possible by Solid Concepts, using the Fortus 900mc industrial 3D printer, the largest FDM platform available.
Their first Cavity deck was printed in ABS and, as you can see in the video it works well, but the team plans to produce their next prototype in laser-sintered nylon, which is much more flexible and much stronger. Then, they’ll start getting their boards out onto the streets with a wide range of models.
