PROJECT: Making a longboard

Florian Meigel with the finished longboard. Photo: Maresa Eger Fotografie

Words, process photos and diagram: Florian Meigel 

Surely, I'm not the only one who grew up with a yearning for adventure, nature and speed? I grew up in the rural south of Bavaria, Germany, and spent every day in the surrounding forests and mountains in search of freedom and adventure. In my old age, I’ll look back and shake my head, but hopefully with fond memories.

The connection between nature and my profession is a daily companion for me. Whether in everyday urban life or on the open road, a longboard offers a unique opportunity to experience this freedom. I am happy to take you on an escapade – making a longboard in a minimalist workshop where I have learned how little it takes to achieve wonderful results with the joy of experimentation.

Florian Meigel combines his woodworking hobby with his sporting passion and produces high-performance longboards from a small workshop with basic equipment.

Work or sport?

What began in early childhood as simple handicrafts, I underpinned with further studies as a master carpenter and state-certified interior and object designer. Today, I work full-time as a planner and designer in interior architecture and product development. After my apprenticeship, I was lucky enough to work my way through several skills competitions to the World Skills Championships, where I was able to prove my trade in front of a global audience in 2019.

The competition is a sporting discipline in itself which requires months of training. It demands maximum speed and precision over  four days with just a few hand tools and machines on a 15m2 workspace. This time influenced how I still like to work today: with hand tools, in the smallest of spaces and with attention to detail – not least because I simply can’t afford a larger workshop and expensive machines. The woodworking hobby is and remains as one of the more expensive luxury sports for me!

Customised dimensions, top mounted trucks (wheel assemblies) and grip-tape applied in a decorative motif feature on the longboard. Photo: Maresa Eger Fotografie

Longboard design

A longboard is a skateboard variant which offers more stability at higher speeds and consequently has to resist more force. It doesn’t just have to look good; it has to work and be customised. Your weight, height and a sense of balance are considerations when you form the veneer and fibreglass. For design motivation, imagine the deck breaking under your feet at 50kph... I’ll now show you one of many ways to make a longboard in a moderately equipped workshop.

It’s all about the templates

My way is to combine simple tools with templates to make other templates from which a two-part mould is made. In principle, we will press our own ‘high performance plywood panel’, which is formed in two orientations.

For this board, I chose a stiff double drop deck and top-mounted trucks so it can be used for downhill and freeride. The mounting position of the trucks and the downward curved shape of the deck shift the rider further towards the ground for more riding stability.

The board is also designed to be particularly stiff, as too much flexibility with an already low ground clearance will allow the board to scrape the ground from time to time when riding. Especially when building your first longboard, the motto is: it's better to go for a thicker and more stable board than one that is too thin and flexible. That’s why I use harder wood and a fibreglass reinforcement.

For a self-built and designed longboard, stiffness and form can be as needed. Here they are not based on measurements, as these are too individual. With my parameters of 1.75m height and 80kg weight, a deck dimension of 960 × 230mm is a comfortable reference point (fig.1).

Start with a sketch

Our project starts with a 3D drawing in CAD or in the imagination, as made with which other parts can be machined quickly and accurately. The template is a critical part of the process and can take longer to make than the actual product. well as MDF strips that form the raw shape of our longboard as a block. The advantage here is that the boards can be processed repeatedly and with simple standard tools. Machining the large block would only be possible with greater effort. Along with the ‘drop’ (longitudinal bend), there is a ‘concave’ (crosswise bend).

Contours without CNC

The drop can simply be milled on each board strip, however the concave is produced when they are joined. The template will be the length of the deck with 20mm extra on both sides. The width is the sum of the material thicknesses and should not be narrower than the finished board width with 5mm added both sides (photo 1).

There are two ways to achieve clean cut parts without CNC technology. For both, a master template is first made with which other parts can be machined quickly and accurately. The template is a critical part of the process and can take longer to make than the actual product.

Templates for templates

One option is to glue printed shapes onto MDF and sand to the markings (photos 2, 3). One fact should not be ignored – circular radii, such as those on the drop of the longboard, cannot be milled identically on both form templates. With the material that is pressed between the moulds and later forms the deck, the radii will taper and increase by exactly the thickness of the moulded part!

Small stop blocks on the sides of the template help with quick positioning on the board strips. The shape is then transferred and roughly sawn out. The template also specifies the position for four drilling holes, which are initially used to hold the shape in place when cutting and will be used again later (photos 4–7).

A shop-made router table with a powerful router has proved its worth in my small workshop over the last few years. Ergonomic working, better dust extraction and the lower noise level compared to stationary machines make working in the late evening hours pleasant (photo 8).

I can enjoy my woodworking hobby  mainly at night. My workshop is in a basement with only a small window to tell me if it’s day or night and I quickly lose track of time during ‘meditative’ work.

The cut and layered strips of board give an idea of the longboard shape after a short amount of work. If you are observant, you can see that the two shapes cannot yet be stacked inside each other (photo 9).

To work out the concave along the width after clamping the individual parts together with threaded rods (photo 10), we 24 need extra material on both forms.

For the concave, we need another template. The idea is simple. The concave is a segment of a circle routed off the MDF block with a large groove cutter. I attach round guides which run on two higher- mounted board strips (photos 11, 12).

The round guides can easily be made using a router and curve template, as an alternative method to printing out and sanding the form templates (photo 13).

I also calculated the radius in CAD. When planning, this follows the same principle as the drop. Guide radius = actual radius concave + distance of the higher mounted board strips to the upper edge of the mould template. Clean work is immediately recognisable in when the concave is flush with the lowest point of the drop. 

The intersecting edge between the drop and the concave must be rounded for a smoother transition (photo 14) to complete the first mould template. Many DIYs form the template with plaster or moulding materials at this point, creating a negative shape. This is perfectly legitimate for small mould radii.

However, with very tight radii where the material thickness of the finished longboard has not been taken into account, an exact negative cannot distribute the pressure evenly over the entire pressing surface, which often results in faulty bonding and predetermined breaking points. Another gluing option is using a vacuum press, which only requires the lower part of the mould but the pressure is often too low. A lower and upper template ensures the best possible functionality.

A challenge that arises when producing the upper negative template is the intersecting edge between the rounding of the drop and the concave. On the first side of the lower mould, this was a protruding edge that could simply be sanded round. Now there would be a recessed edge that would be difficult to finish. I came to the quick solution of simply cutting it out generously with a groove cutter to the depth of the finished concave (photos 15, 16).

This results in a clear separation between the drop rounding in the longitudinal direction and the concave. This can then be worked on without any problems, starting with the drop. I also like to use a router with a template here and work my way forward step by step (photos 17, 18).

What cannot be reached by the router is reworked by hand (photos 19, 20).

For me, the beauty of using only hand tools is the direct contact with the workpiece and the feeling of having constant control over every step of the process. Although stationary, digital machines and CNC-supported machining processes speed up a lot of work, increasingly they also take away intellectual work.

At this point, the procedure is identical to the previous one and the concave is shaped with the guide template. I also adjusted the radius of the guide rails to match the thickness of the finished longboard (photos 21, 22).

The temporary grooves on the cut edge between the drop and concave are closed with a two-part filler and sanded flush (photo 23).

To cover small imperfections, 1mm thick cork can be applied to the inner surfaces of the templates. A board is attached to both template parts so the pressure of the clamps is well distributed later. The templates are now finished (photos 24, 25).

Determining the thickness

After countless attempts to calculate the material thickness, I arrived at this method: just give it a try! Get some commercially available veneer plywood boards in thicknesses of 9, 12 and 15mm. Cut these roughly to the finished longboard dimensions. Place them on blocks that are the same distance apart as the trucks will be later. Now you can stand on the board and simulate the skating movements by bouncing lightly. The thickness of the board, which provides the right amount of strength, serves as a reference for the later thickness of the board.

Arranging the layers

When building up the layers the underside must be tensile; the middle section should not twist easily and the top should be able to be compressed as little as possible. This resulted in a 10mm thick core for my board, which is to be made from a long-fibre wood. Here I used maple (photo 26).

To achieve the best possible stiffness, the central veneer layer is rotated 90°. To do this, the veneer must be glued in width to achieve the required size.

Longboards may be made entirely of wood, but I prefer to add fibreglass. I use 700g/m2 thick fibreglass fabric top and bottom with a few layers of 0.6mm thick maple veneer in lengthwise orientation. The top seen veneer layers here are smoked pear wood. In the middle, cross and lengthwise layers of maple veneer alternate. A further layer of glass fibre is glued in there.

Prepare for glue-up

For all further work on the board, I use thin gloves, safety glasses and, if necessary, a face mask, as the fine glass fibres are highly irritating to the skin. To prevent the threads from coming loose when cutting the fibreglass, I fix them with adhesive tape (photo 27). 

All surfaces must be clean and free of dust and grease, otherwise the individual layers will separate from each other. You can now get everything ready for gluing (photo 28). The layers are sorted in advance, clamps prepared and their positions are marked on the template. This will ensure a well- structured glue-up and even pressure.

I use a two-part epoxy multi-purpose system with a processing time of 25 minutes and follow the manufacturer’s instructions (photo 29).

Cling film on the mould surfaces prevents the resin from sticking (photo 30).

Since the actual ‘curve length’ of the longboard is longer than the template, the individual layers will pull back into the template with increasing pressure. It is therefore important to apply clamps first in the middle and then evenly outwards (photo 31).

If possible, leave the resin to harden for two days before the exciting moment of opening (photo 32). The workpiece should now be handled with care, as some of the resin-soaked fibreglass edges are very sharp. 

Post-processing

Use the gluing template to find the centre of the board. As for the first template parts, I now sand a template in the shape of the longboard. This is then screwed onto the board. The holes used for this are later used later to mount the trucks (photo 33). Now the rough overhang is cut off a little oversize and then routed flush along the template (photos 34, 35, 36).

A final protective layer of thin fibreglass fabric is applied to the board and trimmed (photo 37, 38). At this point, the surfaces are pre-sanded. The resin for this has a very short curing time and adheres directly to the surface. After the resin has hardened, the rougher feel of the fibreglass and the natural structure of the pear veneer remain.

Before finishing the surface with an elastic boat varnish, I cut the slot for the selected truck mounting (photo 39).

All that’s missing now is the finishing touch that makes the longboard unique. Using sandpaper-like griptape, there are no limits to the design of the pattern that can now be applied and will also give a good grip (photos 40, 41).

About a week later, the longboard is finally ready and looking forward to its first test ride. No matter how many of these I build, the first ride is always something very special.

First published in Australian Wood Review, issue 24, September 2025. Florian Meigel appeared on the cover of the same issue.

Florian Meigel’s Chaise Longue Brillance with Wall Lamp was the winning World category entry for 2023 Maker of the Year awards. Florian Meigel @_meigel lives in Germany and works as an object and interior designer while maintaining his woodworking and sporting pursuits.