If you skateboard, please help me

S

sak_collector

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Jan 25, 2005
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My son skateboards quite a bit. He enjoys it, but the boards do break (which is not good at 40 - 60 bucks a pop for just the board). Anyhow, do they make boards out of anything but wood? What I would like to find for his b-day is a board that wont break, or at least one really resistent to breaking. If there is such a thing, what are they made of and what kind of cost am I looking at? All help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
I may be wrong but I dont think they make boards that cant
be broken, I skated for years and still do from to time and have not
seen or heard of a board like this. But ya never know what will pop
up here. Good Luck

Zoo
 
Eventhough I'm not a skateboarder, I have wondered about the same thing.

I've wondered whether or not anyone's tried making one out of say....G-10 or G-11 perhaps.

The problem is the shape, since all modern skateboards I've seen have those two end parts going upwards slightly.
So you can't just take a flat board of G-10 and grind the overall shape of the skateboard, it would have to be epoxied and compressed in the right shape from the start.

What you could do is epoxy some layers of kevlar on the bottom of a wooden board.
That should make it quite a bit stronger.

If I were, for some unexplainable reason, want to make my own indestructable skateboard, I would just take a piece of G-10 board 6mmthick, epoxy layers of kevlar on both sides, and then shape/grind it.

It would not be the easiest thing to do though.
 
Let us know how you make out. :)
 
Libtech, I think they were called. It has fiberglass mixed in with the wood, it held up really well and has choke "pop" and it keeps it too. I think these were going for around $60, but the one I had I bought used and was probably the best I've ever had.

You might want to also try picking up the shop brand decks, I could get them for around $25-30 w/"super slick treatment." They seemed to last a while too.

Your kid's doing stairs or something? The most I was doing before I quit was an 8, and never broke a board, I just always stomped mine :D . I quit not to long ago. :thumbup:
 
CF, fiberglass and G10 will all fracture and or shatter to some degree when banged nose first into a curb. Wood is more forgiving in that respect. Wood is more likely to snap when bounced on.

Back in the Dog Town days, I had a G&S Fiberflex that was a nice mix of fiberglass laminated in alternating layers with wood (maple I think). It was durable but expensive even nearly 30 years ago. Damn thing got stolen when I was body surfing one day.

There is no such thing an an indestructible board deck that's still light enough to be responsive.
 
Maybe it's time for you to let him earn a new board when he breaks one. If he's old enough tell him to get a part time job.

If you're not keen on that you'll still have to be paying what you're paying 'cos wood is where it's at. I don't think any other material is gonna be cheap enough and perform well enough as wood. Even pros still use it. Unless you wanna shell out big bucks for that graphite board. Which somehow i'm thinking is gonna get stolen from your kid soon after he's used it.
 
many other materials have been tried/played with, but have never really made it, they are always too pricey or just don't respond the same as wood. Even a fiber glass layered deck is going to wear-out at the nose and tail any way. That graphite deck looks interesting for halfpipe, but the cut-outs in the bottom will get hung up on things for a street skater. The gold standard is still laminated layers of hard rock maple.
 
many years ago, Santa Cruz made a deck that was fiberglass with a foam core. It was horribly expensive, and like some of the other posters said, first nose into a curb, and it's history. Boards have been heavier and lighter over the years, and have remained pretty resilient, except for a patch in 90-91 when they were so ridiculously thin they snapped like twigs. Skaters thought that this was funny, as you could "focus" someone's deck by stomping on the middle. Of course this was in many a skate video, resulting in a very expensive habit. The gradual wear down of the tail and nose is something else that sets rock maple apart from synthetics-it just does the job better. The suggestion of shop decks, or any producers "blank" deck would be a good option. I would look at a few decks of your son's and try to figure out why they're breaking- this may be difficult to do without some years of experience. I've been skating since 85-86, and loved it, so kudos to you. Skateboarding is a great hobby, and keeps many a youth out of trouble (like me). I'd even go so far as to say that I'd pay the dough to keep my kid in skating (obviously within reason). Man, I should go grab one of my boards now, but the neighborhood skate rats are outside.. :D

A few companies had experimented with "slicks" or other materials as a bottommost layer glued onto the deck- I have one of the Firm Decks (ray barbee) that has this, and I've owned that deck for~12 years. Hell, I still skate on it.
Maybe he should pay for his own, but I would hate to see him stop skating for lack of money and get into something that will inevitably be more expensive.

"Original Bones Brigade" fan and lifetime Indy rider, Joe

acc_patch_spec_rat_bones.jpg
 
Yep... I'm one of the many people who have scribbled that Bones logo onto a Pee-Chee folder in their youth. :)

There are a few companies that have recently tried to combine wood with tougher materials. Popwar "Drops" I think have a fiberglass insert in them. Foundation's "Pop Top" decks are wood with a layer of some kind of composite material. Santa Cruz "PowerLyte" boards are also maple reinforced with a high tech fiber material.

Back in the day, I had a deck with a layer of aluminum on the bottom. It was light and unbreakable, but it was also horribly dangerous. As the tail wore down, it literally became as sharp as a knife. :eek:
 
Maybe it's time for you to let him earn a new board when he breaks one. If he's old enough tell him to get a part time job.
Click to expand...

Not that his age or work status is relevent to the question, but he is almost 16. No, he is not going to get a part time job. His primary job is school. He works his tail off helping with the lawn, house work and willingly does all tasks given to him. He earns what he gets. Thanks for the advice though.
 
sak_collector said:
Not that his age or work status is relevent to the question, but he is almost 16. No, he is not going to get a part time job. His primary job is school. He works his tail off helping with the lawn, house work and willingly does all tasks given to him. He earns what he gets. Thanks for the advice though.
Click to expand...

As long as he is helping around that's alright. But maybe you could pay him for the chores so he buys the board himself. hehehe...

I also don't agree with working when still in school as i've never done so.

Anyway, there's just something wrong if the board breaks every month. It should at least last a couple of months. That's 1 buck a day for a board that breaks every 2 months. Not really that expensive actually.

I think probably you will have to just fork out the cash when it breaks. Just give him a buck a day and save up.
 
The main reason for board breaks in skating is inexperience. Tell him to stop sucking and it wont be a problem. :D

In all seriousness though, once he gets better he ll probably be able to go 4 or 5 months between boards. When i used to skate, I only broke like 5 or 6 boards over a 4 year period. I did buy alot more boards than that though, because I would frequently get pressure cracks around my trucks. So i would usually just buy a new board so I wouldnt have to worry about a harsh road rash on a landing...

Just to let you know also, bone breakage is also most common in the new kids. Once he learns to 'fall' correctly, the number of broken bones and bad injuries goes down quite a bit.

This whole topic brings back a lot of memories. I wish I was still able to skate, had to transition to inline because of knees. Anyways I hope this helps.

PS As others have said wood is the only proven material. You can get decks with more and/or thicker layers of maple though. You start running into issues with ability to skate some of the thicker boards though. I would suggest looking at the various companies and comparing their layering. If I remember correctly I always found Birdhouse to make thicker boards(I could never skate them though.) Good luck in any event.
 
My 15 year old has won his last two decks at skate competitions...but that carbon fiber looks interesting...if he is like my kid, he won't have any interest in it at all if all his other friends aren't using it, though. The decks are made the way they are because todays skater is more trick than skate, a lot of low speed flips and stuff. They have to pop, and flex.
 
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