|
楼主 |
发表于 2005-8-30 16:38
|
显示全部楼层
<!--<a href="../index.html" target="_blank" >How-To</a> > --><STRONG>How to build a vertical roller skate</STRONG>
<HR>
<H1>The making of a Vertical Rollerskate</H1>So you want to build your own vertical rollerskates. You have to, because you can’t buy them off the shelf. You are determined, because there aren’t very many vertical rollerskaters. You have to invest quite some time (and probably money, depending on how much of the material you can get second hand) to achieve your goal. There isn’t a universal solution. Instead, I describe my own views and experiences. You have been warned.
<H1>Requirements</H1>A vertical rollerskate is substantially different from an ordinary rollerskate. One way to put the difference is: everything is harder, another one: everything is more robust. When doing ramp skating, you probably need much more control. You also need more protection. These properties can be seen as a reason for the above requirements: Hardness gives you control (the hardness of the wheels gives you speed in the ramp) and robustness gives you protection (you don’t want to hurt your feet when you slam in the ramp).
<H1>Materials</H1>Here is a concise list of the necessary materials. I will describe each item in more detail later.
<UL>
<LI>Boots
<LI>Base
<LI>Trucks
<LI>Wheels
<LI>Bearings
<LI>Sliders
<LI>Nuts and Bolts (M5)
<LI>Washers </LI></UL>Optionally you can attach stoppers and other things to your skates. But they are not really necessary.
<H3>Boots</H3>These are very important. They have a big influence on how much control you have and they protect your valuable feet. You shouldn’t use anything which doesn’t give you a comfortable fit, control and stability. You can try and look for some used ones (I did this one time) or you can buy some new ones. Be prepared to pay the equivalent sum of a very usable inline skate for a new one. I recommend a leather boot like the ones used by serious ice hockey players. They are made of very thick leather and fulfil our requirements.
<H3>Base</H3>The Base acts as the chassis where the trucks and the boot are mounted together. It could be called the "soul" of the skate. It has to be very stable so it won’t break when you do your liptricks or slam on you feet (which hopefully won’t happen too often!). I currently use an aluminium base which is approximately 5 mm thick. The thinner one I used before broke. You can also use something other very durable. Sawed off skies have been used successfully by other skaters. In the stone age of vertical rollerskating Tracker offerd a base specially made for vertical rollerskating. It was made of a 4 mm thick wooden core coated on both sides with 1 mm thick aluminium. In addition to its high stability it also was very light. You probably won’t find one of those gems any more.
<H3>Trucks</H3>I use some freestyle skateboard trucks from Gullwing. Probably any decent freestyle skateboard truck will do. Freestyle truck are scarce but you can buy them from freestyle skater Yoyo Schulz at yoyoskate.com. Alternatively you have to settle down for some other skateboard trucks and shorten them to your needs (I have also seen one rollerskater from Prague skating parallel style with wide skateboard trucks. Crazy!).
<H3>Wheels</H3>You can use rollerskate wheels or skateboard wheels. There are two things to consider: hardness and size. Harder wheels are faster but also more slippery. In my experience they should be harder than 97 A. The bigger the wheels, the faster they are. 66 mm is nice, but you can also use smaller ones.
<H3>Bearings</H3>Use high quality ones!
<H3>Sliders</H3>You will want to use some hard, durable plastic for sliding. Skateboard rails are quite useable. I have good experience with crow bars. I use some wood to put them in the right distance from the base.
<H3>Nuts and Bolts</H3>To bring all of the parts together, you need quite some bolts of different length. I use two nuts per bolt: one ordinary nut and additionally one self-locking nut. All bolts are countersunk screws.
<H1>Tools</H1>
<UL> |
|