The Pagoda

After building my first deck in a high school woodworking course, I was hooked. I started designing, building, and selling longboard decks. Before long, I had enlisted several friends to start the small custom longboard company: Karma Tech Industries. Over the years I developed a line of five decks for which there was more demand than we were ever willing to supply (we were too busy riding our own decks).

The Pagoda was the last deck I designed at age 18, the crown jewel on our collection of decks. Each deck I designed informed the next through countless hours of user testing. The combination of the drop-down, lengthwise camber, and widthwise concave creates natural "cockpits" for each foot, ergonomically designed to fit the rider's foot size and stance width (as long as their stance was within an inch or two of mine as I was the reference). Secure footing, cut-out geometry, and a stabilizing drop-down make this deck ideal for free-riders, carvers, and cruisers.

Years later, this deck looks a lot like other commercially available free-ride longboard decks, but in its time the Pagoda was unlike anything on the market. To this day, it is still my favorite deck. Karma Tech taught me business, engineering, human-centered design, prototyping, and much more. It is why I became an engineer and product designer.

My Personal Deck

This is the first deck off the press nearly ten years after it was made. The curves have relaxed a bit, and its quite beat up, but considering the abuse it has been through for the past 10 years, the deck has held up well.

Artwork

The artwork was done with a combination of acrylic paints and chalk pastels covered with a layer of tri-axial weaved fiberglass.

CAD Renderings

These CAD renderings were made years after designing the Pagoda, and were based off of the original sketches and dimensions. I've included them to illustrate the curves of the decks in a way my photos can't.

CAD Renderings