Most of the bits have arrived for my custom roller skates!
I've got some DC shoes, Sunlite plates and soft Radar wheels.
Not-pictured - a sheet of aluminium to make the insoles from.
I need to grab some bearing spacers before I can build up the wheels.
I'll probably get some better bearings too because the cheap ones I got from a local skate shop don't spin very well.
Using spare toe-stops from my parts bin for now.
Cutting the insoles and fitting the plates at the hackspace tomorrow.
My main concerns at this stage are:
The shoes fit me and are not oversized. Over sizing is recommended for custom Vans skates to allow for the metal insole. Concerned they might be a bit snug! But, they're soft shoes so I reckon they'll be fine.
The plates are 2 sizes smaller than Sunlite recommends for this size shoe. Made this choice because the wheel base of these seems correct for my feet, but idk what I'm doing honestly.
I managed to cut two alumninium insoles last night, and sand one of them to fit in the shoe.
The hackspace's bandsaw was out of action ( for stupid hackspace reasons that are not "its broken" ) so I ended up using a jigsaw that was worse than the one I have at home, just because I'd gone to the hackspace so goddamn I was gonna hack.
Being able to use the variety of bench sanding tools was, however, very useful.
I might eventually re-cut the insole I did do because it is rather shorter in length than it needs to be.
On account of figuring out how best to get it to slide into the shoe *after* I'd been trimming material off. I reckon I could trim less off and still get it to slide in - resulting in slightly stronger shoe and an easier time fitting the skate plate.
But maybe I'll just see how I go and cut a new insole if the need arises.
Oh, I also need to get some toe stops. Because I can't find ( in my house ) the ones I was going to use, and these black ones are uh...end of life.
@s Spiffy ! 😃
I finished my custom roller skates last night!
They're very yellow and very good.
They are a little tight around the balls of my feet, but I'm hoping the leather will stretch a bit.
Other than that, they're really good! Plate placement is nice.
I need to cut a *third* right aluminum plate, because I countersunk the holes from the wrong side. But that isnt suuuper important.