I got my trampa about a year ago, and ever since I bought it all the Fellas were saying that I should cut it to make it lighter and more “pimp”. But I liked like it the way it was and I put it off it for long time. Then finally the day came when I decided to do it – cut my trampa board my self. I didn’t have any idea how or what to do or how to even start but as usual my friends from Westfellas came to the rescue.
I asked roi about it and he suggested a couple of links to look online for inspiration and see if there are any cuts which I liked and see what other people have, of course after looking at his lovely board (which Fabrizio cut for him). It proved to be a very, very useful tip because I tried to have a look at different boards and I will tell you it not easy to find pictures, it’s almost like people are hiding their boards because they are their precious. Eventually after long search searches I found it – a cut I liked. Down below are a couple of examples of boards from the interweb and the Westfellas.
I think your first step should be to – decide what you want to do with it, how to cut it, because then you have clear idea and it’s good to stick to it.
Like this

and like this

Board owner: Westfellas – Casinovison
Or like this

Secondly – tools.
To cut my board I just simply used a hack saw, metal filers, elbow grease and that’s it. If you choose to do it this way buy some good blades for your saw, other wise you’ll break blades really easily and you get really angry with it and you would wish never did it this way.
A good metal filer is great idea too since it will make the smoothing and rounding of the corners really easy and also to get in close to your design’s lines. The downside of cutting your trampa board without power tools or the proper setup is that it will take you a long time and will demand lots of nerves and patience.
That is picture of tools I used :

the easiest way is to just use an electric jigsaw, like Casinovision did with very nice results. His tip is to use blades for wood and cut it very slowly. Of course if you have possibility and access to more advance tool just go for it, you will save time and money.
I started by removing all the parts from my board until it was naked.
Then I drew some corners of my design on it like this:

I had problems drawing accurate end points on the board until I decided to make a paper template which I then flipped used on the other side, this way making sure either end is the same.

This is what my trampa looked like after drawing the lines

You will notice from amount of holes in my board that I moved trucks bit more down / closer together so that the deck would be stiffer after cutting. I drilled the holes before cutting board, but I think it doesn’t really matter when you do it.
So, after this initial drawing I started to cut it like this

It was hard and long work and through out this labour of love and at different stages I thought – “what I’m doing” and “I should do it a different way” and stuff like that but you can see why I was slightly freaked out.

After roughly 2h of cutting my board looked like this:

As you can see that is a very rough cut, just because I used a hacksaw and I had to cut it at different angles to get to my design as close as possible, which is brings me to my next important tip:
Cut as close to the line as possible. This means less filing later
It took me another two hours to do it but finely I finished and my board looked ok but I still wasn’t too happy with it. This is what it looked like

I couldn’t wait to put all the bits and pieces together on the first cut to see what it looked like:

But like I said before I wasn’t really happy with the look so, I decide to do some more work on it. When I got my next Saturday, and there was no wind in Gunnersbury park, I stripped off my board again and start to cut and file and also ripped off the old deck tape. After some riding I also wanted to move my bindings.
It took me another four hours to do it but finally I finished – Finally I was happy with it. And here it is, the fruit of my labour, sacrifice and patience.


I know is not the most beautiful board in the world but it is MY cut trampa and I like it. I think that for my first attempt at customising a trampa board it’s pretty good, and some time in the future when I’ll get another deck I will know exactly what do to with it.
My board is made up of:
Trampa deck
MBS F2 Bindings
MBS Pro TI Trucks
Twistar Hubs
MBS Tyres
Below are some pictures of the Westfella’s boards.

From the bottom boards of
- roirizla
- Andy
- Fabrig
- Franz the man
And here is a link to kitecrowd’s pimped board thread where some guys put their ideas.
A final note on Trampa boards: They are virtually indestructible and you will be surprised with the amount you can hack out of them. Remember that the more you cut off, the more flexible your board will become.
Thanks for reading and if you have any pictures of your board or have any questions, please leave a comment.
Mr Strong