How to Build a Skateboard Grind Rail

Skating over a grind rail adds more fun and thrill to regular skateboard trips. Having your skateboard grind rail enables the sportsmen to enjoy the adventurous fun whenever they want. You can keep it in your garage and take it out whenever it comes to satisfy the adrenaline rush.
You may find pre-made grind rails in different lengths in the market but making one yourself is a lot more fun and cost-effective. Pre-made grind rails can be quite costly and might not be durable enough to survive massive skateboards.

Following your preferences, you can make little amendments in the primary formation of the grind rail. To build your skateboard grind rail, you will need a couple of things. Start with the piece of rectangular steel bar of around 6.5-foot length. Then get two square steel pieces of 2 foot long and two more 3-inch flat steel pieces of about one foot long.

You can see that these all necessary materials are not that costly at all. Once you have gathered all the elements, it’s time to put them together to build the initial structure of the grind rail. Kids and parents can do this fun task together and use the welding tools with proper safety measurements to avoid the possible danger.

If you haven’t done welding together then don’t jump into this step so fast. First go through the welding instructions posted by professionals online and then follow their lead to carry out this critical job.

As far as tools are concerned, you will only need a welder to weld the steel and a grinder to clean the welding lines for a neat finishing. Make sure you wear the welding helmet throughout the welding process to protect your eyes and face.

Instructions in simple writing can be unclear for many newbies hence they can always take necessary help from the blueprints. Above you can find the Skateboard grind rail blueprints with all the details required to help you build an essential grind rail yourself. It’s all up to you if you want to follow these blueprints exactly or make little tweaks according to your preferences.

For beginners, it’s strongly recommended to go for short legged grind rails as it will help them build some balance. Also, learn how to maintain it while on the track. If you find thin base plates very complicated regarding preserving balance, then go for broader base plates. The length of the grind rail also depends on your requirements. You can build it longer than usual for a longer slide but then you will have to add additional supporting legs in the middle for more durability.

Once you have decided the details of the rail, it’s time to start cutting the steel bar accordingly. Use the more extensive steel bar for the feet base and square steel bars as the supporting legs of the grind rail. Cut them to your desired lengths because you cannot do it later after putting everything together.

You can always cut the steel with a metal saw but if you are new to it then don’t take a risk and ask the experts to do it for you rightly. The cuts have to be done neatly, and very accurately otherwise your grind rail won’t turn out to be the way you want. You can also make advanced amendments in the basic version of the skateboard grind rail.

Here are the blueprints featuring interesting ways of making your skateboard grind rail a lot more fun and thrilling. These advancements are not necessary at all but you can try them to make the best and better use of the grind rail.

The first way is to add angles at the ends of the rail to make sloppy edges. Curved ends will make it easier and quicker for the riders to come off the bar after a thrilling grind. You will need the small piece of steel bar to make the down curved ends. Cut the straight bar into two parts in a diagonal direction. Join the angled ends of the small bar to both ends of the feet base bar. After welding them correctly, you will have the final look of the feet base bar with downward ends.

One thing you have to make sure of is that the welded joints are appropriately finished with a grinder to create a smooth surface. It is necessary because you don’t want skateboard wheels to get irritated by the unsmooth welded joints.

Another way of making your skateboard grind rail more interesting is to make adjustments to the necessary length of the supporting feet. For newbies, this process can be little technical and sometimes complicated.

For adjustable legs, you are required to weld the foot base plates onto the bottom legs that are comparatively wider than the legs attached to the main grind rail.

These wider legs will not be fixed and has to be attached technically so they may slide over the thin legs occasionally.

To make it happen, drill holes in both, upper and lower legs and use nuts and bolts to allow the legs slide down and up.

Avoid making too many holes as it will make the sliding difficult and unstable. You also don’t want to give much height to the main grind rail for better maintenance. Make sure that the holes are also drilled at the same heights on all legs because a minor inaccuracy can lead to the unstable grind rail.