HOW SKATEBOARD-FACTORY.COM WORKS

The world's best in skateboard, longboard, and cruiser manufacturing.

1. How to make skateboard and longboard decks

Our skateboard and longboard decks are made from different wood, fiberglas, and carbon fiber combinations.

Let's start with skateboard decks:
Our most common skateboard deck is made from 7 layers of hard rock maple from Ontario, Canada. The seven layers are glued with water based or epoxy glue, stacked, and placed in a skateboard deck mold. The deck mold is placed in our hydraulic skateboard deck press. To make a top quality skateboard deck it is important to only place one deck in each mold. At 50 tons the deck is pressed for 12 mins.
The wood is taken out of the press and is placed under our CNC cutting machine. This machine cuts exactly the deck shape required by our customer.
Skateboard brands can either choose from a variety of pre-made shapes, send us a sample deck to copy, or send us their prefered shape as vector file.
The deck then goes through 8 different stages of sanding to get a perfect smooth finish.
After sanding the deck, the deck is placed in a drying room. Later a thin layer of varnish is applied, the deck is being dryed a second time, before printing on the artwork with our heat transfer press.
A high quality deck needs to be presented the right way! In order to get that professional look, a customizable cardboard is being placed around the deck before placing both in a shrink wrap. The package is being placed into our pack packaging oven. The heat of the oven let's the wrap shrink to closely wrap the skateboard deck and cardboard.

Longboard decks are much more versatile then skateboard decks. Each production is different to the last.
While most basic longboard decks are made similar to the skateboard deck with the only difference of adding 2 more layers of maple, many other brands use a great variety of materials and combinations.
A high end longboard deck is often made by placing bamboo stripes between two thick layers of transparent fiberglas. To keep the beautiful bamboo-fiberglas look, a thin layer of a transparent glue is placed on the top layer and transparent sand is being evenly distributed. This way grip is achieved with a beach like look above a beautiful bamboo pattern.

2. How to make skateboard and longboard trucks

There are two common ways of making skateboard and longboard trucks: Die casting and gravity casting.
Both require two moulds with the shape of the preffered truck shape - a lower and an upper mould. The two moulds are placed on top of each other and fild with a aluminium metal mix which makes the trucks light, hard, and durable.
Gravity casting means that the metal is filled into the mould by letting gravity pull in the mix. In this process the metall is slowly dropping into the mould carefully filling each corner and preventing air bubbles from being created. While the process is very time consuming, the trucks are more durable then commonly die casted trucks. Die casting means that the metal mix is being pressed into the mould under high pressure. Die casting speeds up the manufacturing process and allows the metal to be squeezed into small corners that otherwise could not be reached.
Light trucks are often shaved down to the minimum of metal required. These trucks often come with very precise and thin edges and corners. These trucks can only be made by die casting.
We are one of the very few truck manufacturers world wide, that use a special technique of pushing in the gravity casted metal. This enables trucks to be made, with clean edges and small details, while not creating air bubbles. This makes our light trucks the lightest and the most durabel.
The trucks are then colored and printed on. The design is either applied by screen printing or by dipping the truck into a pool of liquid with a thin film of the preffered design on top. This enables a full truck print.

3. How to make skateboard and longboard wheels

Similar to the trucks, wheels are also made within a mould. Different mixes of poly urethane enable different hardnesses of the wheels. The poly urethane mix is filled into a wheels mould. After is has dryed the wheels is placed on a rotating stick enabling a precise cut. After cutting the prefered shape, the wheels are being printed on by dipping a cliche in ink, pressing the silicone transfer dipper onto the cliche and transfering the design onto the wheel.
The wheels are then placed in a cardboard and shrink wrapped to have the professional look.

4. How to make skateboard and longboard grip tape

A thin plastic-paper sheet receives layers of glue from both the bottom and top. Little stone crystals are evenly distributed on the top glue, the bottom is covered by another sheet of plastic-paper. Both the upper and the lower part can be printed on.
Some of the most important factors for a perfect grip tape are a thin but durable plastic-paper. Glue that really hold the crystals and crystals that each have the exact same size.

5. How to make skateboard and longboard nuts and bolts

Same as skateboard trucks, nuts and bolts are being made by inserting metal into a mould. Creating new nuts and bolts would require a new mould. However a customization of nuts and bolts can easily be done, by coloring the nuts and bolts and placing it into a good looking lastic bag with had card.

6. How to make skateboard and longboard bearings

An outer ring, an inner ring, a cage inbetween holding the metal or ceramic balls. two shields cover the bearing cage from both the back and the front. These shield are made from either metal or plastic and they are customizable. Especially plastic shields only require a small customized mould containing your brand name or logo. Plastic shields can be made in any color.

7. How to assemble a skateboard or longboard

The grip tape is fixed to the top of the deck, the trucks are fixed to the bottom of the deck using the nuts and bolts. A bearing is placed into each side of a wheel. The 4 wheels are then fixed to the trucks. Everything needs to be fixed firmly. Screws shoud be checked before every skate or longboard session in order to make sure that they are securely tightened.

How to differentiate between a high quality and low quality skateboard (or longboard)

high quality skateboard and longboard decks can be identified by looking at the wooden layers. If the wooden layers all have the same width and they are pressed evenly, the chance of the board coming from a high end factory is good.
Wheels should not only spin when holding a board in one's hands but also when riding the board. SLow quality skateboards have the wheels and trucks squeeze the bearing making it difficult to keep the speed. High quality skateboards run perfectly smooth - one little push can easily make you role through your local skate shop.

Any other questions?

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