Inventing a skateboard trick is difficult enough but Matt Tomasello takes things a step further, creating custom boards that are part of the tricks themselves. Get to know the professional skateboarder (and amateur engineer) who’s reinventing the sport with his own wholly unique approach.
Special thanks: Fancy Lad Skateboards
Special thanks: Fancy Lad Skateboards
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TechTranscript
00:00 (rock music)
00:02 Inventing a skateboard trick is difficult enough,
00:06 but this man home makes boards
00:08 that are part of the tricks themselves.
00:10 - The most difficult board I've worked on
00:16 was the tri-fold 360 flip I did recently.
00:19 Yeah, that one I had to make
00:20 at least five iterations of the board,
00:22 and it would constantly break.
00:24 - Meet Matt Tomasello,
00:25 professional skateboarder and amateur engineer,
00:28 reinventing the sport with a unique approach.
00:31 - I think the board modification
00:32 just adds a layer of complexity
00:34 that kind of steps away from competitive skateboarding
00:36 and more into like an art form.
00:39 It's definitely, to me, the most interesting skateboarding.
00:42 There are no rules.
00:43 Probably skateboard as long as I can physically do it.
00:47 Now to fall on the ground.
00:48 Oh boy.
00:51 - Matt spends countless hours
00:54 testing any of his 50 plus boards,
00:56 all in a space as DIY as his own work.
01:00 - This is a semi-abandoned parking lot.
01:02 Me and my friends built some ramps here to skate on.
01:04 This one did not take me long to make,
01:08 but it took me forever to land the trick
01:12 that I intended to do with it.
01:13 You do half a flip,
01:15 and then it does one and a half flips back.
01:17 When I land on it upside down,
01:18 or it hits the ground upside down,
01:20 pops, and it can.
01:22 Oh God.
01:24 I knew that was gonna happen too.
01:25 I wanted to design a board where the truck
01:26 goes around the entire skateboard.
01:28 There's one spring loaded hinge
01:30 that should just propel the truck around the board.
01:32 This one took a while to figure out.
01:36 Freely flips both ways.
01:38 Done a few tricks where both sides flip at the same time,
01:40 and sometimes in opposite directions.
01:42 This one's probably my favorite.
01:43 I honestly would rather destroy my body.
01:53 I'm awkward.
01:54 (upbeat music)
01:57 As far as taking a beating,
01:59 the board will usually break
02:00 before I'm physically harmed enough to stop.
02:03 I think falling is the most important trick in skateboarding.
02:06 It's an inevitable thing that's gonna happen.
02:08 If you learn how to fall correctly,
02:10 you're gonna be able to just keep trying.
02:12 Always looking to test a new idea,
02:15 Matt volunteered to engineer a new board from scratch
02:18 in his bedroom workshop.
02:19 So this is my room,
02:20 and this is where I do my building.
02:23 Yeah, I got a little workbench over here,
02:26 and giant stack of boards,
02:28 usually donated from local skateboarders and friends.
02:33 So I've been thinking about this board
02:34 where half of the board falls down on cables,
02:38 and a lever brings it back up for you, land.
02:41 I have a sketchbook with a bunch of my old stuff,
02:46 but lately I've just been building like rough drafts.
02:48 Sketching it is way harder.
02:50 I wish I had like a CAD program
02:52 I could just test the physics on,
02:53 but maybe I'll get there one day.
02:55 Sometimes I get inspiration if I see a machine
02:58 or one of the boards,
02:59 I got inspiration by seeing a gate in somebody's backyard.
03:04 Draw a line, I think it needs to be cut.
03:06 I decide where to cut based on how long the lever is
03:09 and how much time I have for the board to come back together.
03:13 It's usually working with anywhere
03:14 from like a half a second to two maximum.
03:17 If it's just flat ground trick in the air,
03:19 you really only have like a half a second,
03:20 quarter of a second, calculated it.
03:22 Nothing needs to be perfect, just needs to work once.
03:28 Have a spare nose, might as well use it
03:30 instead of cutting up a new one.
03:31 Reduce, reuse.
03:32 So they overlap because this would never hold anyone.
03:37 It's all a balancing act,
03:38 like weight distribution from the front truck
03:40 to the back truck.
03:41 Nothing's gonna work if there's anything in between
03:43 that can fold in.
03:45 Now I'm just gonna drill the holes
03:46 where the cabling is gonna go.
03:48 Probably spent like hundreds of hours
03:50 building different boards in here,
03:51 just tinkering with things.
03:53 First board I built,
03:59 I think it was just a single hinge attached to the truck.
04:02 I'm popping the momentum,
04:03 causes it to do a heel flip late.
04:05 I saw the physics get altered from the moving part
04:08 and I was like, "Oh, this is interesting."
04:10 You can use it to your advantage.
04:12 I've been in Boston my whole life.
04:15 There's not many spots to skateboard.
04:17 So you gotta work with what you got.
04:19 I think that's just natural progression.
04:21 How can I find a way to adapt to my environment
04:24 and make it interesting?
04:26 - This is the self-Natus board.
04:29 There's this trick on a skateboard called the Natus spin.
04:32 Invented by Natus Kappas,
04:33 he ollied onto a fire hydrant
04:34 and grabbed a pole and spun around.
04:36 And this is like way, way back.
04:38 Yo, Andy, what year did Natus do the Natus spin?
04:41 Okay.
04:44 This one, when you ollie,
04:46 the back truck is attached to a metal bracket.
04:49 You can stall and you can spin around,
04:51 even manual down a bank.
04:52 This one just took a while to figure out the proper angle
04:55 for the stop on the L brackets and spring load tension,
04:59 'cause you want it to hit as soon
05:01 as you're at the peak of your ollie.
05:02 'Cause otherwise it's gonna kick back
05:04 and then just fold right back under.
05:06 This board is kind of like a book, I guess.
05:08 The only trick I've ever done on this is a kick flip
05:10 where in the air it will open and close.
05:12 The momentum of it closing kind of finishes
05:14 the last quarter of the flip.
05:16 It's pretty impractical for anything else.
05:19 This one actually did not take me long to make.
05:21 It's just cut in half with a spring loaded hinge.
05:24 Essentially just wind it up and you do a trick.
05:26 Just release.
05:27 You can flip the front or the back,
05:29 depending on where your foot is.
05:30 You can adjust the tension so it'll close faster or slower,
05:33 depending on the trick.
05:34 The other ones you saw,
05:35 where it was mostly like flipping two coins,
05:37 the timing, it's impossible to stop it.
05:39 This one's actually more on track.
05:41 Still working on this one.
05:42 It's supposed to do one and a half flips
05:44 and then bounce off these compression springs.
05:47 Can't quite figure out the timing of it.
05:49 Still a work in progress.
05:51 My success rate is probably,
05:54 say about 20%, maybe 25.
05:56 Gonna build a lever.
06:00 Luckily I have some leftover parts for that.
06:02 We're gonna use some metal cabling
06:04 to bring back the second half of the board.
06:07 Threading the cabling through the holes,
06:10 giving it its track to reel back on.
06:12 My foot will essentially be on the lever
06:16 while I'm doing the trick.
06:17 And then it's going to slide off.
06:19 The reel's gonna retract when the lever closes
06:21 and that's what's going to cause
06:22 the board to come back together.
06:24 So now I'm just securing the cabling.
06:27 This clamp I made out of some old metal brackets.
06:30 It doesn't come flying off.
06:32 Now I'm gonna set the tension of the spring,
06:37 control how fast it's going to close.
06:39 And I usually adjust it at the spot
06:41 based on how long the trick's taking.
06:44 Not bad at all.
06:50 With his success rate in mind,
06:51 Matt returned to the skate park,
06:53 hopeful to make his new creation work.
06:56 So we're at the skate spot.
06:57 Just gonna try this board out.
07:00 I'm gonna try to slide down here.
07:02 Have the board drop while sliding.
07:05 Then reel back up right away.
07:10 (upbeat music)
07:12 Oh my God.
07:13 Yeah, I can't get over it.
07:20 Need weight in the front.
07:21 Might just have to take a different approach at it.
07:24 That was close.
07:27 One slide didn't work, but luckily 5.0 worked out.
07:38 Think that's it?
07:39 No matter how many tries his boards can take,
07:42 Matt loves the freedom of the process.
07:44 They're trying to make rules,
07:49 and they want to fix everything,
07:50 but you can do absolutely whatever you want.
07:53 Nobody can throw a flag on the field
07:55 and say you didn't do it right.
07:57 (horse neighing)
08:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]