How This Guy Invents Crazy Skateboards For Custom Tricks

[upbeat rock music]

[skateboard thuds]

[Narrator] Inventing a skateboard trick

is difficult enough but this man home makes boards

that are part of the tricks themselves.

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The most difficult board I've worked on

was the tri-fold 360 flip I did recently.

Yeah, that one I had to make at least five iterations

of the board, you know, it constantly break.

[Narrator] Meet Matt Tomasello, professional skateboarder

and amateur engineer, reinventing the sport

with a unique approach.

I think the board modification just adds a layer

of complexity that kind of steps away

from competitive skateboarding

and more into like an art form.

It's definitely to me the most interesting skateboarding.

There are no rules, probably skateboard

as long as I can physically do it.

Now to fall on the ground.

[Matt thuds]

Oh boy.

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[Narrator] Matt spends countless hours testing

any of his 50 plus boards all in a space as DIY

as his own work.

This is a semi-abandoned parking lot.

Me and my friends built some ramps here to skate on.

This one did not take me long to make,

but it took me forever to land the trick

that I intended to do with it.

You do half a flip and then it does one

and a half flips back.

When I land on it upside down

or it hits the ground upside down,

it pops and it can, [skateboard thuds]

[grunts] Oh God. [chuckles]

I knew that was gonna happen too.

I wanted to design a board

where the truck goes around the entire skateboard.

There's one spring loaded hinge

and that should just propel the truck around the board.

This one took a while to figure out.

Freely flips both ways.

Done a few tricks where both sides flip at the same time

and sometimes in opposite directions.

This one's probably my favorite. [chuckles]

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[Matt thuds]

[Interviewer] Is it a lot easier on your body

just talking about it?

I honestly would rather destroy my body.

I'm awkward. [laughs]

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[Matt thudding] [skateboard thudding]

[skateboard clattering]

As far as like taking a beating.

[skateboard thuds] The board will usually break

before I'm physically harmed enough to stop.

[skateboard thuds] [Matt thuds]

I think falling is like the most important trick

in skateboarding. [Matt thuds]

It's an inevitable thing that's gonna happen.

If you learn how to fall correctly,

you're gonna be able to just keep trying.

[Narrator] Always looking to test a new idea.

Matt volunteered to engineer a new board from scratch

in his bedroom workshop.

So this is my room and this is where I do on my building.

Yeah, I got a little work bench over here

and giant stack of boards usually donated

from local skateboarders and friends.

So I've been thinking about this board

where half of the board falls down on cables

and a lever brings it back up for you.

Land. [upbeat rock music]

I have a sketchbook with a bunch of my old stuff

but lately I've just been building like rough drafts.

Sketching, it is way harder.

I wish I had like a CAD program

I could just test the physics on,

but maybe I'll get there one day.

Sometimes, I get inspiration if I see a machine

or one of the boards.

I got inspiration by seeing a gate in somebody's backyard.

Draw a line. I think it needs to be cut.

I decide where to cut based on how long the lever is

and how much time I have for the board

to come back together.

It's usually working with anywhere

from like a half a second to two maximum.

But if it's just flat ground trick in the air,

you really only have like a half a second, of course,

of a second, calculated it. [chuckles]

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Nothing needs to be perfect,

just needs to work once. [skateboard piece thuds]

Have a spare nose, might as well use it

instead of cutting up a new one.

Reduce reuse. [skateboard clacking]

So they overlap because this would never hold anyone.

It's all a balancing act like weight distribution

from the front truck to the back truck.

Nothing's gonna work if there's anything in between

that can fold in.

And I'm just gonna drill the holes

where the cabling is gonna go. [drill whirring]

Probably spent like hundreds of hours

build different boards in here.

Just tinkering with things.

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The first part I built,

I think it was just a single hinge attached to the truck.

I'm pop in the momentum causes it to do a heelflip late.

I saw the physics get altered from the moving part

and I was like, Oh, this is interesting.

You can use it to your advantage.

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I've been in Boston my whole life.

There's not many spots.

There's skateboard, so you gotta work with what you got.

I think that's just natural progression.

How can I find a way to adapt to my environment

and make it interesting?

[skateboard scraping]

This is the self-Natas board.

There's this check on a skateboard called the Natas Spin

invented by Natas Kaupas.

He ollied onto a fire hydrant and grabbed a pole

and spun around and this is like way, way back.

Yo, Andy, what year did Natas do the Natas Spin?

[Andy] '86, '87.

Okay.

This one when you ollie, the back truck

is attached to a metal bracket.

You can stall and you can spin around

even manual down a bank.

This one just took a while to figure out the proper angle

for the stop on the L brackets and spring load tension.

[skateboard truck thuds]

as you want it to hit as soon as you're at the peak

of your ollie 'cause otherwise it's gonna kickback

and then just fold right back under.

This board is kinda like a book [chuckles], I guess.

The only trick I've ever done on this is a kickflip

where in the air it will open and close.

The momentum of it closing kind of finishes the last

like quarter of the flip.

It's pretty impractical for anything else. [chuckles]

This one actually did not take me long to make. [chuckles]

It's just cut in half with a spring loaded hinge.

Essentially just wind it up and you do a trick.

It's just release. [skateboard clattering]

You can flip the front or the back depending on

where your foot is, you can adjust the tension

so it'll close faster, slower, depending on the trick.

The other ones you saw where it was mostly

like flipping two coins,

the timing, it's impossible to stop it.

This one's actually more on track,

still working on this one.

It's supposed to do one and a half flips

and then bounce off these compression springs.

Can't quite figure out the timing of it

until a work in progress.

My success rate is probably, [tongue clicks]

I'd say about 20%, maybe 25.

[upbeat rock music] [skateboard thudding]

Gonna build a lever.

Luckily, I have some leftover parts for that.

We're gonna use some metal cabling

to bring back the second half of the board.

Threading the cabling through the holes,

giving in its track to reel back on.

[skateboard thread scraping]

My foot will essentially be on the lever

while I'm doing the trick and then it's going to slide off.

The reel's gonna retract when the lever closes

and that's what's going to cause the board

to come back together.

So now I'm just securing the cabling.

This clamp I made out of some old metal brackets.

It doesn't come flying off.

[drill whirring]

Now, I am gonna set the tension of the spring,

control how fast it's going to close,

and I usually adjust it like at the spot based on, you know,

how long the trick's taking. [chuckles]

[wire whizzing]

Not bad at all.

[Narrator] With his success rate in mind,

Matt returned to the skate park,

hopeful to make his new creation work.

[upbeat rock music] [clapperboard thuds]

So we're at the skate spot.

Just gonna try this board out.

I'm gonna try to slide down here,

have the board drop while sliding,

then reel back up [skateboard thuds]

right away.

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Oh my God.

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[skateboard thuds]

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Yeah, I can't get over it.

You need weight in the front.

Might just have to take a different approach at it.

[skateboard scraping]

[skateboard thudding]

[grunts] That was close.

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One slide didn't work, but luckily 5.0 worked out.

I think that's it.

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[Narrator] No matter how many tries his boards can take

Matt loves the freedom of the process.

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They're trying to make rules in the Olympics

and everything but you can do absolutely whatever you want.

Nobody can throw a flag on the field and say, [chuckles]

you know, you didn't do it right.

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