With roots stretching back to the early 1960's surf and skate culture, Kingdom Boards® is a father and son founded brand. Officially established in 2012 and inspired by a journey of following our passion for both wood and creation.
OUR MISSION AND VISION
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OUR BEGINNING: A BRIEF HISTORY
My father (Vincent Domancie) was born in 1954 and grew up being very creative. He spent his time drawing motorbikes and surfboards during his school years and could always be found building another object with his hands such as small toy boats, surfboards and sea-inspired necklaces. This eventually motivated him to make his own skateboard from an old splintered wooden plank with some ball bearing roller-skate wheels he had nailed onto it.
This only fueled his passion for innovation in his 20s and after dropping out of drafting school to pursue work with Central Boating in the yachting industry, he cast his gaze towards his hobby and passion of surfing and worked his way into the Surf Industry alongside one of the pioneers of surfing in South Africa, late legend – John Whitmore. A few years later, he branched out and went on to Designing, developing and manufacturing windsurfing components under various brands, one more commonly known as: Off the Lip. Sadly due to apartheid and sporting sanctions against South Africa, his business which was exporting in the 1980’s was forced to shut down.
Confused and at a lost end for what to do, a good friend then introduced him back into one of his childhood passions – woodworking. This is where he has spent his last 20 odd years, doing a variety of different woodworking projects.
History of Skateboarding with roller skate trucks and metal bearing wheels. 
In 2007, at the age of 14, I made my first skateboard with my father in his factory, at the time I was working for a surf shop with dreams of becoming a professional windsurfer, when a sponsored downhill skater Richard Dweza invited me to watch one of his races at Fair Cape. It was then when I felt inspired and asked my father to help me make some long boards. We took some offcuts of Teak decking and maple from a yacht and laminated them onto some exterior plywood, making three classic longboard shapes. We then fitted some old Variflex and Randall trucks with “Cherry bombers” 76mm Kryptonic Reds wheels to the setups. I then spent my high school career, skating to friends’ houses, down to the shops and before or after all of my surf missions. This was a small seed planted which we were yet to realize would grow to become a business in the future.
By the time I was finishing up with school, I was at a lost end with what I wanted to do, I always had 2 evident passions, one would be my fascination with the ocean and anything related to it surfing, windsurfing, sailing, and lifesaving. The second being creative, designing and artistically creating boards.
My favourite subject at school was Arts and Technology, sadly there was no woodworking and limited design subjects available which left me struggling to pursue something that interested me. Nobody had ever told me or helped me unlock these passions, so after pulling my architectural studies application, I decided to take a gap year and pursue some travel and work overseas following the passions that had stuck throughout my life windsurfing, sailing and lifesaving. I had some of the craziest opportunities in front of me, yet I found to my surprise, nothing I had attempted worked out. I ended up teaching some windsurfing lessons part time and doing some lifesaving to make some money, during the same time, longboard skating in Cape Town started to become more popular and I had more and more friends asking about the boards I had made back in my school days. So with no intentions of starting a brand, I made a few boards on the side for some friends and during that process I unlocked my passion for woodwork. I found beauty in craftsmanship, the ability to select and work with unique pieces of timber that have grown over many years from small seeds, then machine and shape these timbers into idea's which I had in my head.
Daniel hand shaping the rails of one of our Classic Collection boards.
Kingdom Boards Shaping bay where every board is hand-crafted.One dream and project led to another and before I knew it we had turned our outside entertainment area and garage into a wood workshop, with templates, shapes and wood lying all over the place. My biggest advantage and blessing was being mentored and taught by my father, learning from years of his design and manufacturing experience, picking up on things you may want to call trade secrets or simple things you can’t learn from studying at a university. This made me realize I had skills I never knew existed within me and I really enjoyed the challenge of trying new things, being able to innovate my own ideas and put them into practice.
After 1 year of making a mess working out of the garage at home and walking wood shavings through the house, we moved into our own factory situated in Montague Gardens in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa. We have spent the last 9 years building out our manufacturing processes and doing research and development through different woodworking projects to gain the craftmanship skills we have to perfect the skateboards we manufacture today.
We now showcase and specialise in a wide, authentic range of surf inspired cruiser skateboards, custom designed longboards and carver style surf skates.
Let your journey begin by contacting us today or coming to visit us for a tour of our factory to see what years of craftsmanship and inspiration have led to.
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Daniel Domancie - Kingdom Boards