How we made the SkateMac

Hmm... Macintosh fun times or active outdoor pursuit? Why not both!

The concept is very simple as you can see, just get the trucks off any old skateboard, drill holes in the bottom of your G4 case and bolt them on. There are a couple of issues along the way though...

The G4 case alone is a hefty old thing, so to keep as much weight off those tiny wheels as possible we got rid of everything we could from the Mac's insides, leaving only the metal frames under the drive-bay and power-supply for total rigidity.

This [above] was the obvious place to mount the trucks in order to keep the base of each truck within the length of the case-bottom. This is the strongest way, but the high centre of gravity is a pain in the ass and with such a short wheelbase the Mac is prone to tipping forwards and backwards. For any sort of stability at speed the trucks-axles need to be extended over the edge of the case-bottom, pictured below.

The two bolts at the back weren't going to be enough, so to keep the trucks as stable as possible with them over the case edge we drilled an extra set of holes in each truck, about an inch along from the original rear holes, pictured below. Bunching the bolts together on the inner half of the truck isn't the strongest method, but it's the best you can hope for if you're after a long enough wheelbase.

Welding the trucks on in this way would be ideal, but there is also the problem of case flex. We initially bolted the trucks straight on to the case-floor, with only the plastic spacers from the skateboard on the inside and we noticed the bottom of the Mac was bending around the bolt holes after just a short test. Spacers under the case is out of the question because the Mac rides a little too high as it is. As a quick-fix solution we added two plywood inserts on the inside of the case-floor to give the bolts some extra depth and provide a little bit of suspension-damping, pictured below. This seems to be holding up superbly to the knocks and bangs for now, but I'm sure there's a far better way to mount the trucks for maximum shock-resistance in future.

Read more in this post - Skate Mac Redesign

Ride responsibly!

iBroke my rib on the Sk8Mac!!

Yes, unsurprisingly some would say, the Skate Mac has claimed its first broken bone! On its first real outing too!

I set off down the hill in my preferred lean-forward, legs-back position (like a superbike) to give myself the lowest possible profile and sluice through the air at top speed. Unfortunately my front wheels hit something (a small twig or a Rizla I think it was lol) and all that weight on the front sent me face first into the concrete so fast I didn't even have time to tense up for impact.

I thought I'd gotten away without injury, but it was so easily done that we decided to drop the lean-forward stance completely - so DO NOT try this one at home! That's what MOTOG4 are here for - to refine this sport and take it on the chin so you don't have to!

It was only after two painful days lifting at work that I decided to get checked medically. Turns out I've fractured a rib! I've been signed off work for 6 days and told to take painkillers, but apart from that I'm to just rest up until it heals enough to get the Mirror-Door rollin' again!

Here's the vid of me epic wipeout. Shame that the cameraman loses attention right at the crucial moment, it should be zoomed in, nevermind.

Getting a feel for the Skate Mac...

As you can see, the iSkate is now starting to earn some battle scars. We spent a few hours trialling it down some downward slopes today to try and get more speed, distance and basically more confidence on the thing. We had intended to take it to a skatepark in nearby Heswall, but it was full of young children with their parents and we figured that two grown men would ruin their Sunday afternoon by barging them out of the way and filming it.

We did find a nice quiet downhill path in a local park though and got rolling. After a horrific face plant however, we have decided that the leaning-forward / legs-back position is a total no go, if the Mac slows suddenly in any way you go straight over. Instead, the leaning-back position is a must to keep upright at any sort of speed.

** I will post the videos as soon as possible!!

Skate Mac 1st Test

Just a quick vid to show the skater in action, but it was dusk so its hard to see anything on the phone camera. Time for some serious downhill practice and big speed before we film some more tests in the daytime and we're scoping out the local skateparks to find a suitable ramp to get some air on the old mirror-door, maybe do a tabletop or something who knows.

Skate Mac Redesign

The iBoard looked the part, but it was a nightmare to ride. I'm no skater, so I put the trucks on to maximize the wheelbase and an informed friend told me I had them on back to front. I'd never have though it would make a difference, but you had to tilt opposite ways to steer. Leaning away from the corner means you just fly off, not that this would matter as the wheelbase was still too short to get any speed up without toppling forward or back anyway.

The real problem, however, was the severe lean to one side. It turns out that the steel-case isn't central to the overall Mac. The plastic sticks out half an inch on oneside for the door mechanism, but naturally when I made the holes for the trucks I measured dead-centre to the metal-case so even if you could get rolling for a moment you just veered to the left. In other words the thing plain didn't work.

To rectify things we had to measure to the centre of the entire case and move the trucks over. They also needed to be mounted the other way round, but this meant the wheels would be even closer together. They were already at the edges of the steel-case, so we were forced to have the trucks overhang at each end and put the four bolts less than an inch apart, making it not the strongest of designs, so we threw in a couple of strips of 5-ply wood on the inside of the caseand bolted the trucks through them. This should take a bit of stress off the case-bottom and may even soften the ride up a bit.

All in all the wheelbase in 2" longer and its a completely different animal to ride now. Much easier to ride straight, no jerky turning and you can steer now, although the centre of gravity is still so high that it'll take a bit of practice to not need a bit of feet down correction, so I'll post some test vids soon.

iBoard / Skat-E-Mac

Old 'Project Buran' Super-Macbike Pics

After a disasterous firstattempt at building a Pro-Stock skate Mac from the case of our trusty late 90's G4 'Sawtooth' Powermac we decided to step-up our efforts and debut the MOTO G4 series! This involved completely gutting the case and building it onto a mini-motorbike frame. We named the project 'Buran' after a space-shuttle the Russians spent billions constructing, but ran out of money before it ever flew. (NB: The bike has ridden once though so maybe 'Spruce Goose' would have been better.)

The pics below catalogue the ongoing conversion process of this astonishing machine from retro-Snapple to superbike.

This was the original concept on which we based the Mac-Moto - bicycle steering and the engine inside the Mac case. Turned out we were using an air-cooled engine so we ended up mounting the engine just in front of the case even though it would have fit inside. I would not advise fitting the engine completely inside the case unless you have a good duct system or a water-cooled motor.

First we removed all the plastic panels and cut apart the Mac case to fit the bike frame. This involved stripping everything inside the case, including the metal drive-tray and the Airport, down to a bare metal box. To make the hinged side-panel lift up instead of down we had to turn the case upside-down to fit onto the bike. This makes the plastic panel-fit not exact, but close enough to screw back on. Rather than have the back of the Mac-case on display at the back of the bike, with all it's sockets and fan holes, we also decided to turn the Mac round so that the smooth case-front would be on show.