Get to know Carpenter, Woodworker and Skater, Sam Gosling. Combining his passion of skating with his Furniture Design degree, Sam chats to us about making it into the industry and the projects that got him hyped.

“I’ve skated for 15 years and when I left University with a degree in Furniture Design I wanted to get a job where I can build stuff and do my favourite pastime - skating. We founded The Ballroom DIY 6 or 7 years ago and it took us 3 years to gut the place. Since then we’ve been building ramps and I was lucky to meet the right people which has enabled me to do this although I have skills with fine woodwork and work on projects with big brands creating displays.

I’ve made more contacts and progress in my life through staying out and having beers with people. As long as your sound, you’ve got a board, you’ve got a smile and you’re happy to get involved that will prevail out of everything. You could turn up in a potato sack and speak scandinavian and as long as you’ve got a smile and a board you’re gonna make friends and contacts. If you wanna do something, do it for yourself. Persistence is key, don’t give up. I’ve got a workshop that I’m ripping out and redoing. Nobody is paying me, I’m doing it for myself. Big believer in taking advice but don’t do something unless you 100% think it’s the right thing to do.

Some of my ideas come to me in my dreams but the project that most resembles me is when I created a fake pub for Nass Festival called Bump to Bar. People at the festival could skate over a bar and the more tricks you did the more free pints you got. I love building something which people get hyped about when they skate.”