hi there my name is Benson and right now I'm going to show you how to put together a skateboard so when you start putting together board you're gonna want to make sure you've got all your parts wheels Hardware riser pads bearings shita griptape got trucks don't forget your board and then tools that you'll need are just some type of skate tool and a razor blade and when you're using the razor blade just use a little bit of caution make sure you're safe with that tool cause it's really sharp so let's get right into it the first thing you want to do is grip your board so all boards come with this plastic covering what you're gonna want to do is just take that off so just go ahead and rip that off you can throw that away the best way to put on grip tape that I like is to start from the middle kind of center of the grip tape and start at the middle and then go to the outsides push it down so what you're gonna want to do is take off this paper backing go ahead and do that right now and save that paper backing because I'll show you why you'll need it in a bit so all you're doing is making sure that this square sheet of grip tape fits over this oval skate deck so as long as you line it up what I like to do is use my fingertips to find the tail and the nose center it just make sure everything's covered and you'll see the middle of the grip tape touch the board and then it's kind of centered and I just lay out the rest so once that's on top all I'm going to do is push from the center and push out so doing that go both ways make sure all those air bubbles are pushed out and what you can do with the piece of paper that came from the back of the grip tape is take it put it on top because the grip tape was you know obviously really gritty and rough you don't want to do this without the paper you can just go ahead and push down the grip tape to make sure everything is nice and pressed out remove that make sure there's no air bubbles doesn't look like there is so we're done with this sheet of paper the next thing you're going to do is file the edges of the board what this does is it creates an outline for you to cut so this tool has a nice little rough section kind of like a file that I'll use to make an outline so I'm gonna go ahead and do that right now what you can see is the actual outline of the board so just make sure you do that around the whole board alright so now that you have the outline of the board you're gonna take your razor blade and from underneath you're going to cut the grip tape and pull the razor blade all the way around so from the underside put that razor blade through you'll kind of kind of see but there's a razor blade that's popped through and I'm just gonna pull it all the way around and while I'm pulling the razor blade I'm also be putting pressure on it towards the board so you'll get the closest cut possible so what I'm doing is I'm pulling at the same time that I'm pulling I'm also pushing the blade a little bit towards the board again please use the utmost safety and caution when you are using sharp razor blades so just go around the whole board once you're done pull that grip tape off and your board is now gripped some people like to use the extra grip tape to sand the sides on the edges of the board what this does is it creates it just makes it harder for the grip tape to peel off so you can sand either the nose and tail go along the edges some people like to do it some people don't kind of your preference so once your board has been gripped the next thing that you're going to want to do is you can either put the wheels and bearings onto the trucks or you can put the trucks onto the board and do the wheels and bangs after that so right now what I'm gonna do is put the trucks onto the board so you can take any type a small screwdriver and you're just going to poke through the bottom of the board through the mounting holes this way you can put the hardware through the top of the board and put the trucks on when you're putting on the trucks the only thing that you need to remember is that the kingpin needs to be facing the inside of the board so if you were to put the trucks on like this it just wouldn't work you would turn and you would lean to the left and your board would turn to the right so when you're putting on trucks just remember kingpin goes on the inside this part this yellow part the hangar that faces out so once all these are put on there's just four pieces of hardware that for each truck so you've got four nuts and bolts for one truck and four for the other so what I'm going to do is take just a trusty screwdriver and my skate tool and just tighten up these the hardware when you're putting on the hardware you want to make sure that the the top of the bolt doesn't go through through that you want to make sure it's flush with the top of the deck if you tighten it too much the actual head of the bolt is gonna go in too far and it could split the deck and create what's called a pressure crack and those would be small cracks that you'll see come off from the mounting hole so just make sure you don't over tighten your bolts when you're putting on the hardware so let me do the last one just give the other ones a little tight and down so you've got one truck on I'm gonna go ahead and do the other one okay so now that you have both of your trucks on your board again making sure that the kingpins face in the hangers face out so when you turn when you lean to the left you turn to the left the next thing I want to do is put your bearings into your wheels what you can do is take your trucks you can actually use the trucks to install the bearings what I'm gonna do is take one bearing most trucks come with these little speed washers they're just tiny little washers you're gonna want one on each side of the wheel what you can do is take your bearing put it on your truck axle take another bearing put it on your truck axle take your wheel and just push straight down so what I'm doing is I'm just going to push straight down lift up and my bearing is in the wheel so now I'm flipping it around same thing just push straight down then just give it another good push on either side and I've just successfully put in bearings into a wheel using nothing other than the axle this is also a good technique if you want to remove the bearings what you can do is you're not gonna put the wheel in all the way because what you're gonna want to do is twist the wheel you're gonna want to put the bearing about just to the top of the axle and then twist what I just did is the bearing will stay on the axle and pop out of the wheel so I've just taken the bearing out of the wheel so if you ever want to switch out your bearings or you want to clean them that's a good technique to do that so let me put that back on and just go oh sorry don't forget speed washer on either side put that on the axle give that a little tighten tighten it down what I like to do is tighten the bearings until they just barely pinch the wheels so it doesn't spin what this does is it kind of compresses the bearings inside the wheels to give it a nice flush fit and then I just loosen it up a little bit so those bearings been nice and smooth so go ahead and do that for the other wheels and then pretty much your board to put together