There's quite a few people out there who build their own longboard decks rather than buy an off the shelf setup. Lush started out by building boards in a basement with a jigsaw and sandpaper after all?

Pros of building your own deck

•   If you have tools and somewhere to do it, it can be cheaper than buying one.

•   You can make ANYTHING you want - that 8ft long drop-through speedboard with flames on you've been thinking about for instance?

•   You get to ride your own unique creation - pretty rewarding!

Cons of building your own deck

• It's often not actually as cheap as you think. All that wood, varnish and powertools add up!

• It's very hard to get advanced shapes and play with advanced materials - concave, drop-through, camber, composites and kicktails are not easy to make in a garage.

•  Unless you know what you're doing you could well end up building something that rides horribly. There's a reason no-one is making 8ft long drop-through speedboards - they don't work! Most people build a few decks before they find something that really works well.

•  It takes quite a while if you do it properly.

•   You have no-one but yourself to blame when it snaps at 40mph.

If all this hasn't put you off - here's a few tips for the aspiring board-builder.

•  Wear safety goggles! We've learnt this one the hard way too many times. Splinters in your eye hurt like crazy.

•   Materials choice is important. For wood, the best stuff to be using is high-grade birch ply - go for 12mm 9ply or 15mm 12ply. Birch is easy to work with, cheap and quite easy to find. Other hardwoods like Oak, Sapelle, Ash and Mahoghany are quite good as well. Maple and Bamboo are awesome, but hard to find and can be very expensive. Don't make it hard for yourself?

•   Composites are expensive and difficult to work with, but the reults can be worth it as it's lighter and flexier than wood.

•   Powertools save you time - but there's nothing like shaping something entirely with a rasp.

•   Read around and see what other board-bulders are doing before you start - have a look at the "Resources" section below.

•   Get your timber in bulk. Sheets of 8'x4' are easy to find and gives you plenty of wood to work with. If you need to, split it between a few friends. You'll need a van to get them home though.

•   Steer away from complicted stuff for your first deck. Aim for something nice and easy - flat, all birch ply. If you jump in straight at the deep end you're much more likely to make a mess of it and waste your precious materials. Keep it simple to start with and you'll soon be making all sorts of crazy stuff!

Resources

Lush "Build Your own" forums

Silverfish "Board Building" forums

Yellow Pages - essential for finding your local timber merchants!

Made a deck? You'll need some wheels and trucks to put on it - check out the "Setup kits" section of the Lush Shop for a few bargain suggestions.

Happy building!