You call him DOCTOR JONES!!

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Wesley Tucker
1961-2013 (RIP)
1961-2013 (RIP)
Posts: 3279
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2002 2:00 am

You call him DOCTOR JONES!!

Post by Wesley Tucker » Fri Nov 25, 2005 2:25 am

Ever since I started slaloming again in 2002, I've been asking Rick if he remembered one of the boards he sold me in 1990. This was the same time I bought the wood core Ick when Rick was still living at King's Beach at Tahoe.

Anyway, flash forward to 2002 and I kept telling Rick he made me a board that was from what I could remember was a really unique shape compared to his other stuff. As best as I could recall, it was sort of a "Henry Hester shape" with a longer parallel section in the middle. I remembered the board not only because of it's unique shape, but because it broke the second time I rode it! If was just too flimsy for my 165 pounds back then. Rick had no clue as to what I was talking about and swore he couldn't remember making anything close to what I was describing.

Well, I thought I had broke it and threw it away. Last week, though, my dad called me and said he found a skateboard behind his work bench when he was cleaning up a little (you know work benches. They can be very cluttered places.) I thought he had probably found my old Nash or FreeFormer that I hadn't seen since the '70s. They really were completely forgotten after I got my Bahne. I told him thanks and I'd get it when I came over for Thanksgiving.

Imagine how stunned I was when I walked out in the garage and there was my broken Ick laying on the workbench! The grip tape was still wrinkled where the board cracked and it was CAKED in dust and dirt:

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Rick's little personal touch on the underside is still clear. My name is misspelled - that makes it even MORE personal:

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The board looks to be a standard cut away core with the nose filled in to make a more full nose shape. It's 29" x 8" and the rear cut away is a little sharper and less rounded than Hester's. It's the same cutaway on a standard Ick Cutaway (which makes it the same as the Roe Bottle Rocket.) Like I said, though, what really sets this off from Hester's Santa Cruz designs is there is a little bit longer parallel section in the middle. It almost looks as though Rick took the cut away core template and "shaved off" the parabolic curve outside edge to make a straight middle section:

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Also, it was Rick who double-drilled it for variable wheelbases. I had never seen this on a skateboard before and didn't see it again until I started slaloming again in 2002.

I don't know how many of these he made, but I haven't seen any others, either vintage or contemporary. Maybe the Badland guys have some, but I'd be willing to bet there's NONE here on the East Coast. It's a great shape that maybe Rick should look at reviving. With the success of Pocket Pistol's Mollica waist-tail cutaways and some of Roe's designs, this shape really has a lot of life left in it. With the "filled in" nose reinforcing the front of the board, the wheelbase can really be extended farther than on the cut aways. Also, with the Carreras Rick started working with concaves and wedged edges. Maybe some concave or a slight wedging along the rails on this board would work well to increase turning response.

Oh, and one other thing: even though there is a crack where I broke it, other than that the finish on the bottom is FLAWLESS in a robin's egg blue. Just a beautiful board. I feel like Indiana Jones and I just dug up the Lost Ark or something. I'll never ride this board again, but it feels really good knowing it's not lost forever. It also feels good proving to Rick I'm not crazy and really did have a board like this!
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