Born in the ‘70s and growing up in the ‘80s means my youth was built on a solid foundation of The A-Team, The Goonies, Knight Rider and Airwolf.
Along with these classic movies and TV shows, my pastime of choice was skateboarding, primarily as a result of watching Michael J Fox rip his way through Hill Valley (I’m still waiting for a hoverboard).
All I wanted to do was skate; fuelled by the proficiency of professional skate teams (Powell & Peralta being my favourite) I was mesmerised by the amazing talent of Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero and co.
It seems, based on the picture at the top of this article, creating a skateboard guitar is a relatively simple process.
Rip off the wheels, trucks, rails and insert your neck, pickups and bridge of choice. A tweak to the intonation here and there, and your Tony Hawk deck from the late 80s is ready to rock.
Easier said than done I hear you cry, and you’re probably right. I’m sure in order to do the job well it takes lots of planning, patience and skill…
Don’t let that put you off though. Have a good look around the internet for inspiration.
For example, to keep things really simple, you could forget about using a guitar neck and stick with Diddly Bo approach; single string, pickup and volume control.
The exciting aspect of creating a guitar from an old skateboard is choosing which artwork to use.
The skateboarding community is blessed with talented artists, whose drawings are in many ways just as famous, if not more, than the professional skaters for whom they were designed.
Below is selection of some skateboard designs I’ve always been fond of and would be pleased to adopt as my ‘skateboard guitar’.
Do you have a personal favourite skateboard design that you’d like to be seen converted into a guitar? Let us know by commenting below.
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