Skateboard Display Rack

You can buy a Skateboard Display Rack at big box stores and skate shops. Many of them are made out of plastic and won't last long. The ones that are made to last generally only hold two or three skateboards. Well for The Geek Pub, that just won't do. We need a heavy duty skateboard display rack designed to hold at least ten boards! And I'm going to show you how to make one!

Before you follow this Instructable, it will be very helpful to watch the video I put together on the making of this rack. After you watch the video, head on to step two!

You'll want to choose a very durable material for your skateboard display rack. You could use MDF, plywood, or dimensional lumber (a 2x10 for example). I chose plywood for a couple of reasons. It's very durable for one, and my son also kind of wanted a grunge look to it, so he wanted the end of the plywood plies to be showing.

I always recommend using a clamping straight edge with a circular saw. This will make sure your cuts are straight and almost completely eliminate burn marks. You can pick up one of these clamping straight edges at any home improvement center for less than $15.

You'll need to cut out two side panels. In my case, I wanted to hold ten skateboards, 6.5" apart. This translates to an 82" tall, by 9" wide side panel.

Since the two side panels are exactly the same and I want to save a little time and make them identical. I used some double sided tape and stuck both side panels together. This will allow me to only mark the top panel, and then drill, and cut them both together.

I wanted my son's skateboards to be 6.5" apart. This will make room for just about any type of board he wants to store on the skateboard display rack, and it will also make sure the don't bang into each other when taking the boards in and out of the rack. The slot for the boards are 1.25" wide, and 4" deep.

I decided I wanted the display rack to have curves at the back of the slots. In order to accomplish this, I used a 1 1/8" Forstner bit to drill the center of the rack at the back of every slot. Draw a line down the middle of the rack sides, and the drill a hole every 7 3/4". This will become the end of the slots.

Be sure to put a scrap board that you don't care about under the sides before drilling them. This will keep the back side of the plywood from blowing out and chipping. And of course, prevent your workbench from getting holes in it.

After you've drilled all the holes, its a pretty simple process from here out. Use a jigsaw to cut 20 degree slots connecting to the holes you drilled. This is going to leave you with a slot, with a rounded back. I like to use compressed air when running a jig-saw to keep the dust off of my line. Just hold the nozzle in front of the saw as you go.

If you don't have a router, you can definitely stop here. If you have a hand file, you can also do this step, but it will take a lot longer. I wanted to make it a little easier to slide the skateboards in and out. To do this I used my router and put 1/4" round-over on all of the faces and the slots. This turned out looking really sweet.

The final step is really easy. Cut out four 6" x 10" stretchers. These will be the back and bottom supports for the skateboard display rack. I cut mine out on the table saw, but you can use a handsaw or a jigsaw. I also decided to put the same 1/4" round-over on just the faces of the stretchers, purely for decoration.

I used 1.5" wood-screws to assemble everything. Generally for a project like this I like to use glue and brad nails. In this case, I wanted to be able to take the rack apart in the future, in case my son wanted to make it wider, or smaller for some reason. All you'd need to do is use different stretchers in that case.

We left the wood unfinished because we had a family dinner to attend that night. But I suspect at some point in the future we will paint or stain it.

The rack is more than capable of standing on its own. However, for safety reasons I attached it to studs on the garage wall with 3" wood-screws... just in case.

All that was left to do was for my son to put all of his skateboards onto the rack. Within a few minutes he had every slot filled with a skateboard! Amazing!

If you liked this Instructable, there's a good change you'll like some of my other projects too. Also, be sure to check out my website at TheGeekPub.com and my YouTube channel at YouTube.com/c/TheGeekPub!