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I've been longboarding ever since I was little, however, I've just recently run into a problem that is disrupting my longboard flow. After bringing my longboard to school and using it as my main form of transportation around campus, I've started riding on wet roads; Something I never did before because when it was wet out, I just wouldn't go for a ride. Not really an option if you want to get around campus in a timely manner. The problem with water is that the wheels of my board fling said water up onto my legs and because the roads aren't clean, the water isn't clean. This results in the bottom half of my pants and shoes being covered in sand and dirt after a short ride. Showing up to classes with dirty wet clothes isn't ideal so I decided to do something to solve my soggy longboard conundrum.
Initially, I thought about bringing a change of pants, socks, and maybe even shoes to class. But that would be a lot to carry around and I would have to change clothes when I arrived and change back when I was leaving. Too much of a hassle. My next idea was to make pants and shoe covers; Also not a great solution as they aren't the most fashionable and, where would I store the wet covers after taking them off?
These were easy but ineffective solutions, and after a bit of pondering, I realized this was because I was trying to solve a consequence of the problem rather than the problem itself. The true problem is that water is flinging off of the wheels. So, instead of trying to protect my legs, I should try to stop the water from reaching my legs in the first place. Enter, longboard fenders!
I had a couple of goals for my design, including being easy to install and remove, good looking, cost effective, and sturdy. The two most important features were, of course, that the fenders don't interfere with riding and that they block the water.
To start this project, I had to do some benchmarking. I found two existing designs on a website that has lots of independently designed 3D printed objects called Thingverse. The two designs I found were pretty good starting points, just not perfect.
The first design was created by user jdnicholson. This design mounts on the outside of the wheels making it easy to put on and take off. The issue I had with this design is that it was very bulky and the sizes that it came in were too big for my wheels. Thingverse only has STL files for download so there wasn't an easy way to change dimensions of the design.
longboard fender design by jdnicholson
The second design I found was created by user deffysams. This design looked a lot better and came in many different sizes. It also slid onto the truck on the inside of the wheel rather than being mounted on the outside. This feature made it a little harder to install and remove the fenders; However, I decided that I was willing to compromise on this ease of use factor a bit because attaching to the trucks would keep the fenders in place and prevent spinning... or at least it should have. Unfortunately, these fenders were designed for Caliper trucks which are half square and half round as shown in the hole profile. This, combined with the fact that the wheel tolerancing was off and that they weren't the correct width made this design an "almost but not quite".
longboard fender design by deffysams
I printed the second design using the Maker Gym at my school (a space filled with different machines and workshop spaces that require training to access). This project was actually the reason that I got 3D printer training. The printer was an Ultimaker S5 and I used PLA with a layer height of 0.15 mm and an 80% infill. After printing, I installed the fenders on my board. Immediately I could tell they wouldn't work. The piece that is supposed to cover the wheel was touching the top of the wheel and didn't extend far enough out to cover its entire width. I tried riding the board with the fenders on only to discover that they would spin around with the wheel, creating a rather dangerous riding situation. Something that did work out was the general design and the truck attachment style which I liked enough to carry over to my custom version.
3D printed longboard fender, designed by deffysams
After experimenting with the version I found online, I was ready to design my own. The shape of the fenders wasn't too complicated and would be fairly easy to recreate in Fusion 360; So that's exactly what I did. I used measurements collected from the printed fender and my longboard to dimension my design and made the model parametric so that I could easily make changes if needed. I also fixed the tolerancing on the wheels, made the cover extend farther to cover the full width of the wheel, and wrapped the cover farther down the front and back of the wheel.
3D render of my longboard fender design in Fusion 360
With my model finished, I printed one copy with the same settings as before to test the tolerancing. The wheel tolerancing was great, but the truck tolerancing was far too tight. The tight fit worked well to prevent the fender from spinning like before but required major sanding and a couple whacks with a mallet to fully seat on the longboard truck.
front view of my 3D printed fender design (left); inside view of fender (right)
Overall, my design looks great, and won't spin but it could be improved. First off, I need to fix the truck tolerancing so that it doesn't need to be sanded to fit. It's not that much of a hassle, but it could be better. Second, I plan to print the final version in a different material, most likely PETG because it's stronger and more flexible. To fix the truck tolerancing, I will print a couple different sizes of just the hole that goes onto the truck and see which fits best. All of these will also be printed in PETG so that the rigidity of PLA doesn't mess up the test fits. After that, I'll print the full pieces!
front view of fender on board (left); side view of my fender design on my longboard (middle); inside view of fender on board (right)
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