Here's what's happening

Today I made you a board.  I made you quite a few boards. All of them are well beyond good enough to skate.  Brace yourself.

Status:

here we are...

We have a mold working. It's making pretty epic boards...

We have our screen room coming along, and it looks good to go this week on screening and spraying the boards...

And our new store is ready for product to sell...

So it looks like we'll make a May release.

But at the same time, we are happy to have to hold you off for another minute or two to offer another concave, or make an improvement here or there...

And I've been thinking about it a lot, since our prototypes are coming out Bomb-Proof...

You all need to get a load of this wood. I mean the GLUE actually HOLDS them together! The Press-Time, and the curing times actually make the boards HOLD UP really well...

Right now we are experimenting with a concave that is a mellow, curved, thing of beauty. If you look closely you can see evidence of the hand-crafting of the mold... I mean, we looked around and youtube doesn't tell you how to hand-carve molds that will make great boards. Old Lew is kind of stoked...

At the same time, we get it why so few undertake this. It has been a pretty consuming passion for going on 5 years now.

Old Lew never would have done this if Fickle could have simply purchased reliable wood from someone else. We never set out to be some kind of pioneers back to the old days, or iconic whatevers...

We are only doing this because we HAVE to, unless we want to base our company on what picture is on the board, and just let you eat the difference on wood quality. We are stoked to bring you hand-crafted boards off our workshop press...

Please just be patient with us while we work up quantities that can keep you riding. And please be gracious with any "marks of handmade authenticity" you may find in your boards. These are boards made by a guy and his friends.

Thanks to all of you who keep hitting us up and checking in on us. We are working to become your wood shop!

Lew

Boards In May!

We want all of you to be in the know. We just quadrupled our pressing capabilities... that is, we just made these new molds out of ninja materials, and have cured them for days and days... They will go in the press right away...

with these molds, we will create shreddsickles in higher quantities, at a quicker rate...

Each one will still have a minimum of 4 hours in the press, with a good portion of them pressing overnight.
Each one will still cure for 96 hours (4 days) after pressing, letting all the little molecular bond buddies do their thing...

And they are coming out in sizes that you can skate hard and fast. Just like our last line, our shapes run a hair longer in the wheelbase so you have control at speed.

And our new concave combines the curved kick that we love so much, with a slightly mellower presentation, allowing for a board with curves and hips, that skates street every bit as well as tranny.

All of this to say, Look for us at shops in May, follow our facebook fan page, and check out our webstore once we announce it.

For real, by mid-May we should be in something like "full swing"!

Enjoy.

molds molds molds...

Well, we're powering our way toward a strong May for you. Matt and Lew are spending extra time in the shop making new molds this week. We are looking at shorter molds, longer molds, and special custom offsets and other technical mold jargon...

All boards are in the press for a minimum of 4 hours--that's enough time for them to REALLY set up. And they are cured for 4 days so the wood is crisp and the bonds are proper before drilling, cutting and sanding.

All of this means that our boards are going to be a little more rare, and of a lot higher quality than what you are used to.

enjoy!

fools in the workshop!

Old Lew and Matt Simpson in the lab about a month ago, working on a prototype... These are turning out really well, but it'll be a minute till we are producing a large quantity.

To date, we've been pressing boards with on-purpose flaws and they're holding up amazingly well under punishment. That's because of good glue and long press-times. Soon, you'll have a store on here to order your own, or you can head to Woody's or the Galaxie, and other fine skate shops, to get yours!

pretty hyped...

As you can imagine, we're pretty hyped, here at Fickle HQ. We are getting amazing wood out of our press because we are committed to pacing ourselves at 4 hour press-time minimums, and at least a 4 day glue curing before any high-vibration processes, like drilling, cutting, or sanding...

You see, the high-tech way that the Lion's Share of boards are made today doesn't let the glue set. And while the glue is still soft, they're drilling, cutting the edges, and sanding the crap out of the top and bottom plys... That's where you get the edge and pressure cracking issues so commonplace today.

Now, we're not saying that you'll never get a board from Fickle that pressure cracks. After all, this is WOOD. Wood is a thing that until fairly recently, was alive and it has all these swirls and stuff and that means that sometimes you'll get a board that doesn't behave.

If you want something that will never warp, chip, crack or have defects--get an aluminum skateboard! or a plastic one! They exist and we are sure you'll hate them. But hey, NO RULES, and if you show up at the spot pushing mongo, sporting a hip-sack, riding your new Aluminum board with replaceable graphite tips, we're going to be stoked to be skating with you!

You know why?

Because hands-down, skateboarding is just about the single best thing to do in the world, aside from the Big 5.

(You can fill in your own top 5 any time--there just ought to be some things that are more important to you than playing on a toy)

...But the kids at Fickle will keep working to make sure that any StuntPlank you buy from our shop, whether direct online, or at some of the finest of skateshops, will be epic, solid, and your best choice of a thousand evils.

Now Go Shred.

we made this one...

an experiment...
34L x 15.126WB x 9.5"W x T7.126 x N8.0

This is one of the biggest shapes we'll be offering. You will be able to find them, as they are available, on our website, or at the finest of Skate Shops.

It is a prototype, but it took 7 hours straight of street abuse without even starting to show any wear beyond the surface...

what are you going to get with a Hand-Shaped, 4-Hour Pressing, 4-Day Cured Fickle Board? Solid-ness!

So if you're looking for a Punk Point, or an Old-School, or a Pool board, we are dialed in for you. We not only have the capacity to do a shape you're looking for... we have control over the veneer quality, Press Time, Curing, and all that right down to your graphic screening...

We are also working up concaves and shapes for your basic Rodney Mullen/World Industries mass production street popsicle, for those of you who want a symmetrical board, but for some mysterious reason don't want it double kicked? Okaaaay...

We here at Fickle Boards are too amazed at the sheer heaps of fun we're having to ponder the mystery of how the innovation of the skateboarding community settled on popsicles... Maybe Old Lew will take that one on in an article later...

Look for us in May for product at the Galaxie, Woody's in SAV, and other fine shops... For me, for now, I'm going to go shred this sled.

Some words...

Lew said some things...

An exciting Week...

First off, the guys are at Colerain's own Clippard Park today. Go shred with them. There's Josh Viles, Weston Vickers, Sunshine on the cameras, and Ben Osborne... Native Nik is headed there shortly, as well... So go shred with them there if you're in the Cincinnati Area.

Next, it's been a pretty memorable week.
Our first pressings of prototype boards have come out pretty sick. There are imperfections, but they are pretty danged radical planks! Here's a quick pic of the very first five boards ever to come out of the Fickle Workshop.

We are hopeful that we will be able to STOKE YOU on something made by hands that hand make the boards... Josh Viles and Weston, Ben and Nik, Sunshine and Browndog, Carrie and Forrest, Brumley and Matt... Big Joe in Savannah, Ian Brown on electric and Adam Sherwood on welding... And Old Lew Covered in Glue...

All of these guys here are getting their hands dirty and experiencing what it is to produce YOUR skateboard. There isn't a person here who isn't actually involved in the actual hand-making, hand screening, hand-packaging of YOUR skateboard. So you can expect a personal touch with the whole experience, no matter what!

We'll have a board ready for you in May. Spread the word and check back often!

And please, make sure you get out there and go FAST today. Enjoy.

New Lighting and Electric

The Fickle Workshop (Lew's Lair) got a makeover yesterday, while prototypes pressed in the "Squeezer". Ian Brown came down with "Johnny" (a wicked cool neighbor with a 5 foot tall indian statue in his front yard)... and they put in all new totally up to code wiring for sockets and mass fluorescent lamps and stuff for all the workbenches and stuff...

Basically, they set us up to cook with grease down there...

So that's how that went. It was pretty insane.

Now we're focusing on getting enough wood cooked up for Josh and Weston to go home with a stack of Prototype Testers. Each one will have scribble scratched pencil details on it about it's contents and process stuff... As soon as they break, warp, chip or whatever, we'll bring them back and take a look at how we can do it better... Its insanely fun stuff...

We aren't taking over the world... we're just trying to get under and lift a little. these boards should help you out. Look for us in May!

It's ON!

Today we pulled the first two Fickle Boards hand-made-by-hand out of the press... an eight ply dummy board and a 7 ply skateable.

Insane.

Glue lines are perf.
Concave is proper.
Mold survived and is pressing more tonight...

And we spent the day engineering a new top mold with offsets so we can have three per mold pressing up and running this week or next... That will usher in a high enough production for all of you to enjoy boards on the regulars, hand-made-by-hand in the Fickle Workshop, by the Bearded Madman.

And Josh Viles and Weston Vickers and Sunshine were there to help it all go down.

Seriously, the coolest thing is that we made our own concave design. It's not perfect, but it's definitely what we wanted! We will put a lot into developing new concaves and shapes and combinations of different stuff as we go, because we have the luxury of only producing boards for Fickle Boards! We don't have all kinds of orders to fill, or a rush to bag the cash. We are just making what we make with our hands for the joy of skating it!

Come enjoy with us!

Again, we'll start to offer our boards and stuff to the general public in May. Come be part of testing out what might become something epic. Maybe it already is. We don't know because it's just enjoying skateboarding, to us.

All I'm sayin is...

On Saturday, Josh Viles and Weston Vickers arrived for a spring break week of skating in our area here... That's the general Cincinnati area...

Josh blew off the Florida Bowl Riders competition for it... a comp that you know he could have used to climb the ladder to the higher echelons of skateboarding industry reputation glory... Josh really appreciates all the good folks who encouraged him to go and clean up down there, as do all of us here, but MAN, the shredding that is going on among the brothers here in the Fickle Camp.

Make sure to get a session in with the boyos this week, all. These guys are an outpouring of joy, and joy gives strength. That's the fact! Skateboarding is an amazing, dynamic combination of movement and thought... and enjoying that is our top number one priority...

So get out there and go thirty... and get out and skate with the Fickle weirdos.

Oh, and did I mention that our press is going to make the first prototype board, today? Yep.

Springtime!

Well its springtime, and you know what that means!

Hoodguys dumping clips of ammo at each other half-a-block from our warehouse headquarters! Yeah, we love it here on the bleeding border of Over The Rhine and The West End, Cincinnati. Everyone but Old Lew has been outdoors shredding, then coming in for night sessions in our HQ Ramp Room, lately.

Lew?

Well, let's just say that Old Lew has almost got us completely up and running. Its looking like wood will become abundant in MAY, 2011! Keep checking back.

When you see our website get real good, like a whole new skin on it and all...
...and when you see our sweet online store, so you can get Fickle Stunt Lumber, even if your closest skate shop in 200 miles away...

You will know that Fickle Is With You.

Now go push that stunt lumber.

Go Thirty, Always.

Sweet Savannah Vibes from Woody's

Check out Woody's. These guys are the real deal. We'll be visiting Savannah for years to come, guaranteed. There is no scene that throws a party for a ragtag band of stranger. We posted up over there for days and days, sleeping on floors and shredding all day!

how can we say "Thank you!?"
By following through and making the best hand made (by hand) stunt lumber we can.



By the way, we popped out our first official mold today. Stunt Lumber Prototypes will be issued to a select few in the coming weeks.

Fickle Boards Is:

...a bearded crazy man locked up in his workshop lab, cooking up stuntwood to blow your mind.

...a feel-good crew of creative souls on a mission in your town...

...wood hand made by hand by skaters who love this so much that we make it by our own hands...

Stripping it down to roots!

We're taking it back down to roots. Keep your eyes peeled for fresh stuntwood from the Fickle Workshop! Prototypes dropping in April.

Mold

Here's a picture...

Last night, Forrest Hagedorn and I busted the Plaster Casting off this mold. It is pretty much perfect.

We spent the time dreaming and talking about dimensions and shapes for the wood we'll be pressing off this mold. A lot of our riders have gotten really excited about being able to really explore dimensions and shapes that they've wanted for years.

Now, don't get us wrong, we're not going to do a lot of custom orders. This is going to roll out pretty normally.
But we are definitely excited as a crew because we get to experiment on new shapes that WE make.

Because The Fickle Workshop is slated to be the only place Fickle Boards are made, we only have a few hundred boards to make for our customers, so we can continue to mess around with other stuff...

...There isn't a plan to become a factory...
...There's no path to providing blanks, shop decks, or pressing for any other brand...
we are planning to keep it to one workshop, one brand, hand made by hand...
Our hope is that eventually, a Fickle Board will be identifyable as a really fun experience, from concept to concrete. And that the quality of a 4-hour pressed, 4 Day Cured board from Fickle Labs will keep you stoked as you go 30.

Where do we go from here?

sitting at the Sidewinder Cafe in Northside Cincinnati, Old Lew is pondering the path of Fickle Boards...

all we are about is getting a local skateboard-producing workshop up and running to crank out decks that get you stoked to ride... This is what Fickle Boards is about. A crew of people who love skateboarding so much that they lock themselves up in the lab and make it happen to their best ability... to keep skateboarding stoked!

It's been a journey and a process to get to this point, and as we are looking at our first prototype-pressing this week, we want to fill you in with a little retrospective.

so for the next little while, we'll point out some points of development...

Making Molds: Concaves are rad...

It was always our intention to create a company that actually pressed boards, supplying a product over which we have total control and for which we can take total responsibility.

We never have minded that we may offer fewer boards to the market, because of the incredible STOKE of riding something that we MADE!!! it stokes us to no end to see our own molds, crafted by casting, chiseling, sanding, re-casting, re-chiseling, re-sanding, re-casting... then pouring concrete on it and creating a prototype "mirror mold". from there, we evaluate3 the wood product, tune the glue, re-shape the concave and continue casting new prototypes...

...it is a never-ending process, the creation of new concaves. This has been a passion of Old Lew for years, and it STOKES us to work on it, no matter how many setbacks there will be.

while we're waiting...

while we're waiting for the photo and video goods to be released from the shop... Ole Lew here is going to try to just post up some rhetoric to whet your appetite to shred...

winter is peeling back off the area here in Cincinnati. The sun is up waaaay earlier, and the below-freezing temps have retreated till next year, for the most part.

Our unheated warehouse HQ training facility is a great temp for sessions and the umpteen concrete parks are clear and ready for afternoon sessions, when the temps are up... when the skaters are up.

Streets are still grimy with salt and sand from winter storm weather, but it won't be long till street sweepers are out....

And Old Lew is downstairs in his Santa-Style Workshop, laboring over molds to put in our new press to make boards by hand for you. we haven't set a true "release date" but we are definitely looking at a flow of truly handmade boards coming out this spring, with increasing quantities available into the fall.

we are hopeful that this winter will see us expand the workshop, possibly to our findlay St. Location, and have all our stuff rolling out strong for years to come...

Until then, we want to tell you to get out there and skate. Skate hard. Go Fast. Get some wind, if not air. make a schralping noise and don't stand in line.

Until soon.

Lew