Last year our local entertainment expo brought the cast of Back To The Future to town. I was bouncing around the house in excitement when I first heard the news since that’s my favorite trilogy of all time. Seriously just so good. I re-watched the trilogy, introduced it to my kids, and then got down to business.
2 months and an 80’s punk makeover later, I was Spike, a member of Griff’s gang from 2015:
The Hoverboards
Planning the hoverboards was one of my favorite parts of making this costume. It gave me a chance to geek out in Illustrator with an attention to detail that warmed the cockles of my heart. I started out with just creating the 2 hoverboards my husband, daughter and I needed for our costumes:

Once I was on a roll though, it was hard to stop. After the “odd man out/the
Download the hoverboard graphics
Want to make your own hoverboard? I’ve recreated the graphics and put together a high-res JPG of each so you can print them off yourself. Each hoverboard has a black line around the outside that you can trace on to your foam or plywood to get a perfectly even edge around the graphic.
For a full-scale hoverboard just print off at 100% on a 24″ x 36″ sized poster. I ordered mine printed at Vistaprint with a coupon code that made each print about $20.
How we made our hoverboards
Once I had the graphics designed we ordered them from Vistaprint. While we were impatiently awaiting the mail, we went out to Home Depot and picked up a sheet of 1/2″ thick insulation foam (Foamular C-200) for $10.
We cut the foam to the shape of the outer stencil included in the poster, painted the edges to match the movie hoverboard, and glued the graphic on the top and bottom. I’ve included a few photos of my handy helping husband to show the general process:
Once the board was assembled we picked up and spray painted some disposable plastic plates for the silver circles on the bottom. The rest of the pieces were 3D printed using Imirnman’s models from

Noteworthy hoverboard resources
Now that I’ve shared how we created our hoverboards, I wanted to mention a few other makers with great tutorials in case one of those is more your style.
I came across some beautifully crafted hoverboards for purchase online – solid wood, and as close to the originals as possible. They’re above my price point, but if you have some cash set away I’d recommend checking out the hoverboard replicas and kits at GoldenArmor.com.
DIY Prop Shop also has a pretty great tutorial on making a plywood hoverboard, along with graphics you can print at home, for the classic pink Mattel model:
Also worth checking out if you have access to a 3D printer, Imirnman created all the parts for the pink Mattel hoverboard and posted them for download on Thingiverse. There’s also an option to order them printed, which is ideal if you don’t have a 3D printing champion on your team yet.

5 replies on “Making hoverboards, Back To The Future style”
Hi Martha,
your Spike costume is breathtaking. So detailed – respect!
I guess I would be too lazy to be so accurate. 😀
The hoverboard graphics also look stunning!
I wanted to ask if it would be possible to get them in a higher resolution and less compressed? (Maybe via E-Mail?)
The ones posted here are quite small and sadly have some JPEG compression artefacts.
It would be great if that would be possible.
But I guess I´ll first try to make your skyway sign for my BTTF vitrine.
Thank you very much in advance!
Kind regards from Munich
Alex
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the kind note about my Spike costume! It was a ton of work so I totally understand not wanting to put that much time in to make it accurate. But it was a ton of fun and I’m so glad I did it. I’ll have those photos and memories forever.
You’re right, thanks for letting me know that the images linked from this post were small and low resolution. I’ve taken a minute to update the hoverboard gallery on this page with links to higher-res versions. If this isn’t high enough quality for what you were thinking, let me know and I can email them over to you as well.
I’d love to see pics of your BTTF vitrine when it’s done – what a great idea!
Martha
hi Martha,
congratulations for the job. I noticed that in the image with the letter D you wrote 3d printed parts from thingiverse.
I tried to search but those pieces don’t exist. there is only Marty’s hoverboard. where could I find those kind of handles?
thanks and congratulations again
Hi Simone – I used the bottom parts from Marty’s hoverboard (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1750752) for the other hoverboards as the bottoms are similar on all of them. The graphics and cutout shapes I used for each hoverboard are linked in the post. Hope this helps!
Hello again Simone. I just remembered that Marty’s hoverboard doesn’t have the side grips, and that my husband designed them and put them on his Thingiverse page for free download. Here’s a link right to it: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4035907 and here’s the link to the circle stomp pad on the top of the board: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4034081