Two University of New Hampshire students have put their love for skateboards to work with their small business, Stage III Rides.

Longboards, to be specific:

Their first board was a heavy, downhill-style plank with deep cutaways for the wheels, a stainless steel veneer for looks and no flex whatsoever. Their next effort moved them toward their current pintail style, but flexed so deeply that it bottomed out and broke. Their third was better, and the fourth better still.

“He kept bugging me to keep making them,” Kusch said of Moran, and they decided they might as well make a project of it.

“You learn very fast what’s better,” Moran said, in part by borrowing other boards from friends and riding them.

They soon settled on two basic designs, a 39-inch and a 45-inch, both in the classic “pintail” cruiser design. The boards are made with 13 layers of birch and cherry veneer glued together while clamped onto a jig to give the board camber for a more lively “pop” as the board flexes underfoot.

Their story recently appeared in the Nashua Telegraph.