an idiots guide to a skateboard v1.3

While i dont know much about military gear and whatnot I do happen to know a little bit about skateboards, so I'll tell you what i know.

 Skateboards are not only a form of passtime and expression, they are a valuable form of transportation(and a handy form of self defense) and therefore should be taken seriously when building them, getting your hands on good parts is what its all about. but to define a good part we need to know what the part should do.

first we start with the basic mechanics of a skateboard

I would say there are 4 main parts to a skate board, the wheels, the bearings,the trucks,and the deck.

the wheels contain bearings that ease the movement and effect the speed of the board, the trucks provide turning capability and the deck is ecentially a standing platform. 

1. wheels

self explanatory. (i hope)

skateboard wheels look like this

they come in diffent sizes mesured im mm or milimeters 

2. bearings

these go inside the wheels and are mounted on the trucks, they're what make your wheels spin smoothy. their performance is measured on a scale of ABEC's I personally have no idea what that stands for but i do know the higher the ABEC the faster and smoother the wheels generally spin.common abec ratings are 1(bad) 3(average) 5(good) 7(nice) 9(superb) 11 (amazing)  although 9&11's are uncommon they are sometimes availible on ebay they ussualy look somthing like this. with diffent faceplates and such.

3. trucks

these T shaped metal things are mounted onto the deck and are what make your board able to turn rather than to only be able to move forward they look like this. truks com in different widths for diffent size boards, wider ones for long boards narrower ones for trick decks. they have two parts, the slider and the base, inbetween them is a bolt know as the kingpin, 2 pivot cups and small peices of rubber or various plastics know as Bushings. when turning the slider places pressure on the bushings causing them to squish, an adjust the angle of the board and therefore turn, bushings come in various scales of hardness, so you can immagine the harder ones will resist being squished and therefore not turn as easily, and of course softer bushings turn almost excessivly easily. different body weights should be taken into acount when installing bushings, a 100 pound scrawny teenager like me will probably need the softness of the bushings more then a say 150ish adult who might find that the softer bushings give his board a tendancy to wobble uncontrollable while going at a moderate speed.

4. decks

these are the things you stand on, they're what you think of when you think of skateboards, its basically a very fancy peice of plywood with some sandpaper like tape stuff on one side. they come in two general categories, trick decks and longboards, as the name implies trick decks are generally used for pulling of "tricks" and are also as the name implies shorter than "long" boards. they usually have cool artwork on the underside to show off to people and also knock up the price. theyre usaully 7 ply canadian maple. trick boards usally come slightly bowed along the width, this is called concave, it basically acts to keep you on the board, some people after skating on trick boards too long find that  longboards without concave feel unsafe or unsecure, or a sensation that they are going to fall off of the board. this is an example of a black natural trick deck.

afterword

those are the 4 basic parts to the board, extra items such as spark plates and rail guards can be mounted on the board to give it extra features.  I plan to update this in the future but untill then send me an email if you have any questions or would like any clarifications or advice on building your deck. you can reach me at

thekid150539@gmail.com 

or

thekid150539@yahoo.com