So...

[Martin Siegrist]

casey: no you should not space it out!

for the whole standard talking: it's a swiss hanger so we produce metric threads. btw i'm using a tracker tool to change my wheels, the metric nuts fit. can't you buy metric nuts in america? 70mm wheels, 95mm trucks, 8mm axles. inchy nuts? nope - one day someone might come up with a wheeldesign that maybe has bigger bearings. why not? stop innovations because they don't fit into standards? magun trucks do have a different hole pattern. we don't care about standard drilled boards. if you want the trucks you'll have to redrill your board or have a board made that fits. that's how it goes in my eyes.

[Casey Franklin]

Sorry to thread hi-jack but im getting a Airflow 95mm for TS/HS, could I space it all the way out for GS? What does it space out to?

[Wesley Tucker]

It's not hate. It's a question of standardization.

Last year Marty Schaub picked up some new kingpins he found at a hardware store. We joked about it later because at the same time he was getting the bolts I was typing online how standard hardware is like 20 TPI compared to our standard 24 TPI for bolts. None of Marty's lock nuts would fit his new king pins.

Now comes along axles with metric treading. That means for all the trucks I have now I have some lock nuts but for some other truck I have other lock nuts. We'll let the fact that metric nuts use different sockets slide for right now because regular sockets will work if not yanked too hard (nothing is harder fix than rounding off the six sides of a nylon lock nut.)

Should the standard be whatever the standard is in America (I think it's 24 TPI) or should it be whatever the metric standard is (10 per cm? I don't really know.) I don't know. I just know I'd really like it if all my trucks used the standards for all the applications requiring a tool.

Can you imagine the melee' ensuing if some wheel started shipping requiring something other than a 608 bearing? It might be the world's greatest wheel ever imagined but to use it means changing everything. Would it be tolerated?

[Ramón Königshausen]

Well, do you really hate the metric system so much?

rmn

[Jim Weatherwax]

Martin wrote "Airflow vs. Splitfire... the only thing i can say is that gary fluitt bought 10 Airflow OS trucks about in 2004. then we didn't here anything from him ever again. half a year later he released his own truck which basically looks like an airflow."

Looks can be decieving...the pivot on the splits was lightyears ahead of the TTC and Airflows socket head screw, and the axle material in the Airfow was weaker than Randall, and Splitfire used uber expensive, far superior axle stock, and made everything compatable with mainstream US truck parts...no more worrying if the nut you were going to put on an axle would be the right one or not...

other than that I guess you can say all you want

[Martin Siegrist]

Airflow vs. Splitfire... the only thing i can say is that gary fluitt bought 10 Airflow OS trucks about in 2004. then we didn't here anything from him ever again. half a year later he released his own truck which basically looks like an airflow.

[Steve Collins]

the Airflow followed the TTC and solved some of its problems, such as too much material, lack of bushing seats and bad pivot.

The Splitfire R1 was almost an exact copy of the Airflow, with better axle material and a slightly better pivot.

I don't know if Airflow has improved their axle material or pivot to compete with Splitfire. I do have an Airflow that is about 3 years old that I still use all the time. It's an excellent truck. If you need a back truck, I highly recommend it.

[Ron Olsen]

Yeah, what Wesley said, and with Splitfire unavailable at present, I'm sure Sk8kings was looking for an alternative rear truck to offer.

From what I've seen the Airflow is most like the Splitfire R1 - the tracker based baseplate model. Also, as noted several times on forums - unless they have changed this, the Airflow uses metric threads and nuts, so the axle locknuts are unique and not interchangeable.

RonO

[Wesley Tucker]

In 2002 Turner Downhill introduced the TTC: Turner Traction Control truck. When Howard got out of the business and sold his inventory to Dan Gesmer, the TTCs went along. Dan, however, had a vested interest in another truck (ahem,) so the TTC withered on the vine.

Almost immediately two "clones" came on the market to capture what the TTC accomplished: Split Fire and AirFlow.

If you like the SplitFire rear or the TTC, you'll like the AirFlow. If you like the AirFlow, you'd like a Split . . . etc.

Of course there are differences. Probably a degree of angle here, a millimeter of width there and so on. But in the end the AirFlow is pretty much a TTC derivative: a heavy milled hangar centered on the King Pin with precision axles.

[Lenny Poage]

I saw that Sk8kings is now offering Airflow trucks. I've heard of them, but haven't heard any reviews, good, bad, or otherwise, about these trucks. I'm curious. What're people saying?