Skip to main content

Not Afraid of a Power Tool - Recent D.I.Y. Projects

Although I had a lot of assistants this ramp
was very much built by me - all with no plans.
Although I spend hours in front of a computer I'm still very much an old school, hands on, do-it-yourself kind of person who's not afraid to pick up a power tool and build something out of wood.

Probably largely due to my Dad, who built a lot of the furniture we had as I was growing up. I got to watch him work and, when I was old enough, use his power tools to build a lot of skate ramps.



Digital Artist, Student Desk Conversion


I was shopping around looking to buy an artist's drawing table but couldn't find anything smaller than the full sized professional desks. Similar to that pictured on the right - which start from around AU$198.00.

Knowing that I wanted to use the desk as an angled surface for my WACOM graphics tablet as well as regular drawing I expected I was going to have to improvise in some way to stand a monitor behind it.

In my search I happened to come across a $20.00 adjustable tray table that you'd normally place over your lap whilst sitting on a couch (or perhaps sitting up in bed?) . The tray had a metal frame and was just the right size for both my tablet and as a general drawing surface. It occurred to me that I could just build it into my existing table and gain a drawing surface whilst still having room for a computer monitor at just the perfect location.

So I dragged my standard student size desk out into the garage for it's second conversion (the first being the addition of a keyboard drawer). As you can see from the photos below. It all work out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

You can see the original tray table in the top left 'before' photo.
The bottom right image shows the desk back in place.

As usual I didn't draw up any specific plans. I started out not knowing exactly how I'd combine the two so there was a very real chance I was about to ruin a perfectly good desk.

Fortunately it all came together. I even painted the exposed wood, where I'd made cuts, with black paint to make the whole thing look like a professional conversion (just don't look too closely at my less than perfect cuts).

It was well worth doing as the newly converted desk has helped me be just a little more productive and has certainly helped make using my graphics tablet more enjoyable.

Mini Skateboard Quarter Pipe


The following weekend I started another DIY project to make a mini skateboard quarter pipe. I've been trying to get my skills back with skateboarding - I've pretty much lost almost everything I could do. Back in the day, one of the fastest ways to learn was to build your own ramp and skate it daily.

So that was the plan. For this project I had a lot of wood just laying around the garage so I decided to build the best ramp I could from it. In the end I only had to buy wood for the ramp surface and caps for the coping (i.e. pipe across the top of the ramp).

You can see the various stages of my handy work in the image below.

Mini Quarter Pipe from start to finish. About five Saturdays of work.
Technically the ramp isn't a true quarter pipe - probably closer to a one eighth pipe - but it's designed small so I can relearn basic 'lip' tricks without falling too far if things go astray.

Again I built it with no plans and even the curve for the transition was hand drawn by eye (no improvised compass to get it exactly right).

The PVC pipe coping should be interesting. I've only ever heard of people using PVC pipe filled with sand for coping (to reduce noise) but never actually skated anything with it installed. I used PVC because it was all I had. I suspect I'll have to replace it with metal pipe eventually.


So there you go. Two recent projects. It was nice to actually build something with power tools again. I really should do this more often. Nothing is more satisfying than being able to use something that you built yourself.

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de

Review: FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes

FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes I first saw FP's FINO skate shoes in a video by YouTube channel, Braille Skateboarding, titled, THE FIRST EVER NON NEWTONIAN FLUID SKATE SHOES!? As someone whose feet hurt and bruise relatively easily just from the basic tricks of skateboarding (Ollies, Pop Shuv-its etc.) the 90% absorption of impact energy selling point seemed like an ideal solution for minimizing my injuries. A day later I placed an order through FP's website . ​​ Ordinarily I wouldn't mention Customer Service but I can't let the lack of communication on my order slide. FP's website says to expect delivery within 7-14 days of your order. After close to two weeks, my order was still marked as being processed. I sent an email asking for any kind of update, to no response. A day or two later my order was marked as completed but still no signs of shoes in my mail? About two weeks later (just over a full month of placing my order) the shoes arrived. I'm sur

Can You Learn Skateboarding Basics on a Cheap Skateboard?

$20, Mambo 31" x 8", Department Store Skateboard. Over the years I've watched many high profile YouTube skateboarders repeatedly create videos where they purchase a cheap, department store skateboard, ride it like they would their regular professional skateboard, until it breaks (usually within an hour or so), and claim that as a reason for steering clear of these products. ​Inadvertently what they're doing is creating less demand for cheap skateboards, meaning it's less likely department stores will stock them, resulting in no easy way for first time skaters to 'test the waters' to see if skating is really for them. Even worse, parents looking to get their children into a new sport, may not even see skateboarding as an option as they browse through the department store sports section. At the time of writing, Australian department stores have shelves filled with many different brands of scooters, alongside a small shelf or two of skateboards (and

Movie Review: Air (2023) Amazon Prime *No Spoilers*

I imagine the general story of how the world's greatest basketballer, Michael Jordan, was signed to Nike doesn't sound all that compelling on a surface level. From his point of view it was a few meetings and making the right choice of which shoe company to sign with. However Air fleshes the story out by finding the key players at Nike and showing the behind the scenes drama that enabled them to take a risk on, what was then an exciting, up and coming rookie, who already had a choice of two leading shoe companies to sign with. Matt Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, the visionary at Nike who saw the future potential of Michael Jordan as a sure thing. He knew Michael wasn't just a great basket ball player but had to find a way to convince his CEO, Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), to make a winning pitch to the Jordan family, and particularly Jordan's mother (Viola Davis), that Nike had their son's best interests at heart. From what I understand both Ben Affleck and Matt Damon did

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) *No Spoilers*

If you've enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1 and Volume 2 then  Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3  will not disappoint. I would almost go so far as to call it the best in the series... except seeing the first movie for the first time is still one of my best memories of the MCU. While it's not essential to the story if you didn't see the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on Disney+ it does kind of lead into and set up where the Guardians are at in Volume 3 quite nicely. In this installment Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still not coping with the loss of his timeline's Gamora (Zoe Saldada) when suddenly the team is attacked leaving Rocket (Bradley Cooper) in a very bad way. From then on it's a race to save Rocket as we learn quite a bit about his origin in the process. This movie is slightly darker than the first two and, if you're concerned about the animal cruelty that is causing some people to not want to see the film again, keep in mind, it's j

How I Lost Rock-to-Fakies (and Tried to Get Them Back) - A Skateboard Story

TET, Rock-to-Fakie attempt No# 43 (maybe?) Rock-to-Fakies, the act of riding your skateboard up a ramp, hanging half your board over the lip, then lifting your board back into the ramp, and riding out backwards, is one of the most basic ramp tricks. Bored Monkey Classic Popsicle Skateboard . See more deck shapes . Yet I can't do them anymore. At one time I could, without giving it any thought - even on my home 5' high mini ramp with an extra foot of vert extension added to the top of the transition. But as my skating got less, and skateboard spots with ramps diminished through the mid to late 1990s, I got out of practice. I did have a two foot tall, driveway mini, quarter pipe (with coping) I used to practice my mini ramp tricks on. Then one fateful day (I say that because this is scarred into my brain) I tried a rock-to-fakie and the tail of my skateboard dug into the pave stones at the base of the ramp as I came down, throwing me, hard, back into the ground