Chick Skaters (who skate better than me)

Fat Friday 2 - Pure, unfiltered full cream 100% fat decks

Another Friday rolls around and I do have much to say about "learning to drop in again". That's the easy part - but I'm fully slapstick when it comes to rock to fakies so let's not even talk about it until I have either cringeworthy pics and video, or until I've successfully completed this simple old skool trick.

In lieu, have some pics of even fatter fatty fat fat old skool decks than the last Fat Friday!

First up, as promised last time - the Dogtown Bigfoot:

The iconic Hosoi Hammerhead - possibly the most Ninja-like deck shape ever!

A Zorlac Fire Demon (both sides shown):

And finally, the fattest of them all. This is like if Hummer made boards. I don't even know what this Sims monstrosity is, it was sent to me on email to pwn my claim of the Dogtown being the widest deck I could think of. I stand corrected Sirs!

And so ends another useless ramble. Until next time, Peace! BB.

Taking it b-b-b-b-back in time ... to the 80's

It's done. I didn't need a time machine to retcon my KFD Pool Deck as a full-on 80's setup.

Using some old truck bases as a guide helped me drill four extra holes to accommodate the old skool hardware I pulled from the donor. I've had some Grind King Bridge Bolts for years and years now and I always knew they'd come in handy again! They're clever little U-shaped mounting pins so you only need a spanner or skate tool to take them off and on. No screwdriver or allen key. A bunch of us oldies getting back into skating went for a session on the mini ramp at the Pavilion skatepark last week and my gooeys kept biting into the deck so now I've put ALL the risers I own between the trucks and the deck and at around 40mm long, the Bridge Bolts fit them snugly.

Somehow I seem to only be able to take really crap photos of this latest monstrosity but I'll try again soon to get some good shots of the beast from different angles.

The Donor Part 2

The Donor proved fruitful!

I was very surprised to discover that beneath the purple paint job, my sister (then aged 17) had carved in the Hanson logo and an old boyfriends name. Equally interesting was that between the expected trucks - one Indy, one Pirate Skate, remember? - and the deck were Santa Cruz Cell Block 1's! STOKEMON.

They were "the stackable riser" back in the day but fat chance of getting my hands on more of them. I had completely forgotten I ever owned them.

What I really wanted the The Donor to yield was my old wide trucks - especially the Indy cause I've been dead keen to see which modern size it equates to. It's the 169 now but back then it was 1-size-fits-all. All 10" wide decks, that is.

That skull leering at you in the background, you'll recognise as one of the KFD Pool Decks I rambled on about a few posts ago - I finally chose one of the four shapes in the series and as usual, Ping at [R]EVOLUTION hooked me up. It's a beaut, so naturally I screwed lumo orange rails into it!

It looks hella long to me but it's some sort of gnarly hybrid of modern performance with old skool single kick - I can't wait to try it out. Don't ask me where The Donor fits in amongst the great skateboard shape timeline but look at how small it is! Yes, the grip is blue. Yes, that IS leopard print grip on the KFD.

Bad taste to go with my bad blog formatting.

Cheers for now, BB.

The Donor

While busy packing up the house with my wife for our big move into our new house, I realised I have enough bits and pieces to assemble four different skates! That's ridiculous, especially since I'm currently only into cruising on my weapon of choice, the slasher.

That blue Powell board is all set up once again and even has an old skool style grip job thanks to Ping at [R]EVOLUTION. I took it out into the driveway for a push on some really crazy old wheels Ping found lying around in the shop - they're like 64mm and only slightly harder than a jelly baby. I now know why we used to have such thick risers back in the day cause one simple turn and you get the gnarliest wheelbite as the jelly babies make contact with the deck. Needless to say, the blue bullets are back on but to me they are just too rock hard for anything other than a skatepark. In my humble opinion anyway.

The other two "setups" are a well-thrashed Iron Fist that I just bought off a mate (I just wanted the trucks and whatever else I could scavenge from it). I think besides being ridden hard, it was stored in a bucket of water in the middle of a hot tin shed in the kalahari cause the deck is warped, full of stress cracks and has razor-tail at both ends. Any takers?

The final board is one that's being lying around in our old band room for about 6 years, and I'm calling it:

THE DONOR

This is probably even older than the Powell cause it's wide but the ends are kind of squared off like a freestyle deck. We painted it purple and covered it in blue grip years ago so who knows what brand it started off as?

I haven't even seen this thing for the last few years but what I do know is that it has my old trucks on from my very first board (the one covered in really dumb stickers) and they're juuuuust the right width for a fattie!


Watch this space.

Fat Friday 1 - Pure, unfiltered full cream 100% fat decks

Until such time as I have either decent, or funny, footage and photos of me attempting to skate again let me collect some of the finest fatties on the internet here for all to see. This is the first Fat Friday and in keeping with what's most familiar to me, herewith, a bunch of late 70's/early 80's Powell Peralta decks.

Beamer - this is before both our times, kids.

Look Mom, no Peralta!

Early spoon nose.

Ray "Bones" Rodriguez Pro Model.

Steve Caballero 1st Pro Model.

That's enough for now, if any groms checking these out think they look like UFO's or "filming boards", just wait until the next Fat Friday where I'll unleash the Santa Cruz Duane Peters model and the Dogtown Bigfoot!

It Starts

Hello internet peeps, I've been quiet on the board brain updates but I'm pleased to say it's because I was actually tick-tacking around and dropping in on my slasher, instead of just talking about it!


I sessioned the newly upgraded Durban beachfront skatepark with my mates Pee Man, Zong, Skeg and Woogy this last weekend. The new additions didn't "bowl" me over until I tried them out and now I'm sold! As soon as the world cup is over I think we'll get together and make a little concrete surfing video.


In the meantime, let Steve Caballero aged 15 show you how it's done:

Yes, he's 15 here - if you don't believe me go check out his blog in the SICK LINKS to your right ...

KFD Pool Decks Part 2

I'm absolutely stoked to see the full range of KFD skull decks (pool series) online, if you didn't read me rambling about them about 4 or 5 posts back then let me reiterate:

These are SICK!*

*SICK = Extremely rad, unequalled

Mr. Ping wouldn't believe me if I said I want/love/need a board like this so much that I couldn't care less about the new iPhone, in fact I'm being somewhat disloyal to my earlier allegiance to 80's giants Powell Peralta and Santa Cruz - I'm totally day dreaming about these new/old/pool/anywhere fatties from local stick syndicate KFD. Check out the range below, available from all real skate shops:

In my quest for fatness, I'm kind of drawn to the middle two - but see which one you think suits me:

(click on images for much larger view)

Go spread some love on KFD's site, they're kind enough to think Board Brain is newsworthy, so they're alright by me! http://www.kfdskateboards.com/

The Slasher's Legacy

This blog is getting to be a bit too "bloggy" and for that I apologise!

It really was supposed to be about me rediscovering skateboarding and sharing the graphics that I geek out to, with you five loyal readers. In the spirit of the latter, please enjoy these great Pocket Pistols decks which satirize Jim Phillips famous Slasher graphic (you'll remember the slasher from earlier posts).

"Eyepod" (7.75" x 30.50"), eyes like Kate Bosworth.

"Piggy" (9.25" x 32.75"), looks like a Jimbo Phillips graphic.

"Porker" (12" x 32.75"), a Jim Phillips/Matt French collaboration.

Pocket Pistols Skateboards are one of the sickest new era companies in my opinion, because they are the current champs of putting out decks and graphics which really make great fun of the old skool style. They also often make very limited runs of decks for "guest" riders such as Geoff Rowley. These are just a few of them, there are many more Slasher inspired sticks, believe me!

Have a surf via the SICK LINKS to your right ...

My First Skateboard

My mate Rory and me with our rides.

This is my first proper board.

Like everyone else I had a "Skika" first, which was basically a cheap complete spoon nose like the ones you can still get in Makro and Game. They were always white with a secondary colour like blue or red and everything from the grip, to the wheels would be this secondary colour. They had a huge tail skid which looked something like an apple mouse stuck on upside down. Before that I had what we called a banana board - which was a small plastic Dogtown looking toy skateboard with rollerskate trucks and wheels. Number one cause of broken arms in the 80's!

One Christmas my ballies* gave me this blank (allegedly Powell Peralta) deck and I added the tail skid, rails, nose bone and everything later, bit by bit. I can't really tell how old I am here but I don't remember those trucks and wheels at all. I managed to get one hand-me-down Independent truck and, thanks to a cheque from my dad and a trip to Island Style in Pickering Street, added a Pirate Skate truck on the back and four green slimeballs knockoffs,which were the last things I had on that setup if memory serves. I rode that thing in rain or shine until about age 13 when Chris Cormac's famous backyard halfpipe was finally torn down in favour of a pool which no one ever swims in.

I'm surprised that apart from that skull one, I put such lame stickers on my board! Maybe the really rad Jim Phillips stickers were always sold out, or too expensive?

It was a rad board though, what a pity I got rid of it to get that kak blue Powell in the post below ...

It's a shame there's no photo of the other side of it cause I had this siff transparent grip tape with barbed wire printed on it, and flies!

*Ballies = Parents