It’s amazing how unsophisticated skateboard graphics were in the early 80’s when companies first started to explore designs that were more than just a small logo on the bottom. Believe it or not, some people are going to be pissed off that I posted this picture of a rare old Neil Blender deck that is currently up for auction on eBay. They will say that we are somehow affecting the outcome of the final price, blah blah blah. I’m just using it as an excuse to embed a few Neil Blender videos from YouTube. Notice there is no link to the auction. I don’t want to encourage any (more) of the “Hey, check out my auction!” emails that we already get. After you are done watching these videos, head on over to Neil’s official web site The Heated Wheel.

Sean Cliver has a short interview over at Cool Hunting that is focused on his book Disposable. At the time he gave the interview he had no idea where and when it would show up. I’ve never really trolled Cool Hunting, but it seems like a site for people suffering from really short attention spans, the really lazy or terminally bored. It’s compilation of completely unrelated things that someone has determined “cool.” Disposable has been re-re-released on Ginko Press with minor cosmetic changes and factual corrections making it different from the last version published by Concrete Wave Editions. But of course, if you are a collector, you’ll need to get this one too. Cliver is working on a follow up to Disposable that he hopes will be released in Spring of 2008. Yes, much to my wife’s good humor, for the past 10 months I’ve been working on another follow-up book of sorts. This one will be more “collector” based, and my main intent is to showcase a big gallery of deck images from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and just a smattering of the 00s. I’ve pillaged/shot a number of heretofore unseen collections and archives, so I promise lots…

This Titan missile silo complex located one and a half hours west of Spokane Washington is for sale. $1.5 million dollars gets you 57 acres, three missile silos, thirteen other underground buildings and the most expensive street skating spot you can find. At least you won’t go to prison for barging it. Looks like a great spot for a photo shoot. [Source: Gizmodo]

K.D. Waltner was rolling some old-school custom quad rollerskates with wide trucks and sliding rails at Pier Park. He said he’d been out of it for ten years, but it seemed to come back pretty quickly. Must be like riding a bike. I think K.D. Waltner is German he’s working for one of the local shoemakers. You’ll probably see him around, he’s enjoying being back into it. Funny how rolling quads is okay when inline is not. The guy took his blades to Burnside and got heckled but went back with his roller skates and it was fine. Photo: Rich Burton

The easiest thing to try when “making your own” skateboard is to buy an uncut blank and cut out your own shape. That will usually suffice for most people. The next step requires building a mold and making a press. Instructables member Gregorylavoie has posted a pretty good in depth tutorial on how to make a skateboard mold and vacuum press. I’ve seen a various methods of DIY presses that don’t involve welding and hydraulics. Most of them involve clamps. The mold part is the most daunting of the two, and requires the most finesse. Professionally made molds are not just a top and a bottom cast together. That is to say, the top piece wouldn’t be a perfect fit to the bottom piece. Making the concave symmetrical along the vertical axis is a job best left for CNC machines or skilled shapers. Granted, for your own use you don’t have to be that picky. Using a vacuum press makes the job of the mold a lot easier, since you only have to make one side and the vacuum compresses the rest of the board against the mold. This is the same basic process that Roarockit sells as a home…

Juice magazine has a chunk of an older Jim Murphy interview with Ian McKaye where Ian talks about his skateboarding past. I always thought that Ian was in the Dogtown and Z-Boys documentary because Minor Threat was so important to so many skateboarders but he was idolizing that Dogtown stuff just like we were. Sounds so familiar. He mentions that he and Henry took a bus trip out to California to skate. That’s like, 2600 miles which would be several days on a bus right? Pretty hardcore for a 16 and 17 year-old. I wonder how they got around the release forms. The interview was in issue 50. You might be able to order a back issue from them if you want the rest of the interview. Ian still runs Dischord records and the prices are very reasonable and the service is excellent.

Top to bottom:bug’s eye view of the street section, back of the T.Rex, across the bowls to the big hubba, Gro-Magnon man and the big spinning top volcano, Burke finishing the dino. Tigard progress 9-21-07 Click here for a better look at the panorama. Steve Gump has more photos from Saturday here.

If you are bummed out about skateboarding not making it to the olympics, you can still get your roller-jollies from the the International Federation of Roller Sports. FIRS is planning on holding the first Skateboarding World Championship at an undisclosed location on an undisclosed date in 2008. Must be top secret. Here’s how they define skateboarding: This is a show of the emerging roller disciplines which are day by day reaching the same importance of the “historical” official roller disciplines. Much appreciated by young people, these sports are stylish, aggressive, acrobatic, in a word: modern sports for young people. SKATEBOARDING: Acrobatics on half pipes or specific skateparks on the renowned four wheeled platform. Recognised different styles: Freestyle – Aerials – Flip tricks – Slides and Lip Tricks. First FIRS world skating Championship is scheduled in 2008 Hmmm… I can hear the controversy now. Do we want our renowned four wheeled platform acrobatics performed in unspecific or specific skateparks? Thank god we are approaching the same historical significance as the other official roller disciplines. No word yet on who is on Team USA for skateboarding, but I hope they are as balanced as a certain Team USA figure skater who has…

I have better detail photos in my camera but I wanted to share this. Click here to see it bigger. The verdict: it’s not great work, in fact some of it totally sucks. But it is kind of fun. The park has lost some dignity. The town hired a non-skatepark contractor to put in wheelchair ramps and extend the park. The miniramp no longer ends in gravel. They did a good job adding a rounded hip to the end of the pump-bump. There is non grindeable metal coping embedded in the new stuff. The finish is bumpy and the shaping is pretty uneven. At least they didn’t mess up anything that was already there.