 | About our boards
No Wood. No Foam.
SkunkTech Boards are handmade in our Oxnard, CA workshop. Each custom deck features aerospace-grade aluminum honeycomb wrapped in the highest quality carbon fiber, with composite hardpoints built in for mounting trucks. They are, simply put, the finest and strongest decks available today.
Read below about our construction process and why our skateboards are so strong.
We currently have three deck styles available. Our latest release is the STB_Wester_Pro_Topmount, designed by Kyle Wester. The Project One (P-1) - our dropthrough board - and the Project Three (P-3) - a topmount - are also available, with other designs currently under development.
Order your deck now by calling 970.445.8980. Why our decks are so strong
SkunkTech achieves our lightweight board strength in a couple of different ways. Before we start filling your brain with techspeak, let us first clarify a few technical terms:
Prepreg - Prepreg is short for pre-impregnated. Prepreg carbon fiber or fiberglass is impregnated with the exact amount of resin needed for lamination before it leaves the factory, is then wrapped in plastic film to protect it, and then stored in a freezer (in most cases) to prevent the resin from curing.
Structural integrity - This one's easy. Structural integrity is a blanket term meaning the degree to which something is sound. There are ways of building parts in the composites industry that inherently guarantee structural integrity, and ways of cutting and laying carbon fiber (or whatever your reinforcement is) so that the joints or bonds between layers are strong enough to resist de-lamination (self destruction or destruction due to outside forces.)
Using prepreg carbon fiber allows for more perfect parts to be produced since the carbon fabric can be cut to the exact size and shape needed for the job. Putting the exact amount of resin into the fabric ahead of time also keeps the weight of the part down. However, the prepreg process requires a machine and involves a good bit of wasted material setting the machine up, which makes prepreg expensive. (A 100-yard roll of dry carbon fiber can typically cost 50-75% less than prepreg.)
SkunkTech has come up with its own way of impregnating carbon fiber with the exact amount of resin for the job, but without the expense of prepreg, delivering aerospace quality for less money. Our process still uses the same techniques and other materials needed to work with prepreg, which helps to maintain structural integrity.
We also have improved our construction methods. The first prototype deck delivered to Rob McKendry was made with our first construction style. After making the second deck, initially intended for Steve Doman to race, we instead decided to destroy it to see how our construction held up under the feet of Doman. It took Steve twenty minutes of stomping, jumping, and speed pumping to break one of the ends of that deck. After he did, we peeled it apart to see how strong our construction was. After that destruction, we saw that we could do it better and completely changed how the decks were assembled – not only from a materials standpoint, but also in our methods. (McKendry's deck, by the way, is still going strong despite its construction and assembly in the prototype stages). We now have increased the binding materials in such a way that the decks currently coming out of the factory are at least two to three times stronger than that first deck, or to be more precise, have greater structural integrity.
Questions? e-mail us.
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