Cf-105 Skurfskate, (suggestions/consulting)

[Chris Barrett]

So I'm in the design phase of the board I'm planning to bring to North Carolina in november, I have some questions that I thought maybe I could pick your brains to answer. I'm aiming at making this a hybrid board, as I want to limit the amount of gear I'm bringing down. Luckily I have Cividingus and Sydia up here to lend me some advice, but I thought I'd increase my sample group.

The board is a maple/birch hybrid which will have several layers on uni-dir glass and carbon fibre stringers (if we can get ahold of it). I'm thinking of making it an 83.8cm (33inch) long by 22.86cm (9inch) board with w concave and a slight s camber. I'm liking the idea of the S-camber as I have a bit of a habit of placing too much weight forward, which has resulted in some chirping and close calls.

The board is the first of a line of boards we're (me and my associate, Aviv) making to get boards out to the growing community here in Ontario, and Canada in general. And while we won't be offering this board to everyone (it's somewhat expensive for us to produce, and its a shape that I love, but others tend to find too out there) we'd like to use it as a prototype for some idea's we have. Here's my questions for you cats.

-The board utilizes a hard-wired "riser" stringer down the bottom center of the board. This is in one part to reduce weight, increase the section modulus, and to provide the rider with a riser thats always there. Most of the guys I've talked to run tall setups, and I noticed it provides alot more leverage through the
turn. Before I stacked a second riser ontop of my wedges my front wheel (either one) would come off the ground in a hard turn, Sydia told me this was providing poor traction and response, I tend to agree. Is this something worth putting into the board permanently or is it better to just allow the user to customize at his/her discretion?

-What wheelbases would you reccommend to make this an "all weather fighter" so to speak? I want it to run the gamut from TS to GS.

-The S camber of the board was done blindly, without any pre-knowledge. You can probably tell. Should I drop the back half of the board even further? Or is the nose suitable to provide more weighted leverage to the back half?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks for providing a community where noob-slalomers like me can ask stupid questions and get legitimate answers.

[Paul Howard]

Hey, I think you're on a good track. Check out the deck I ride from www.subsonicskateboards.com under the "future" icon. Your shape and my shape share a lot of similar "footing" aspects which I think is very important. Keep the shape, keep the concave (I would recommend staying within 5/16" of concave depth), and keep the camber as little as possible. Camber is good, but in my opinion, most of the wood core camber decks have too much, keep it at 1/4" or less, preferably less. This will make your deck more consistent in feel from one course to the next and more consistent in feel from one wheelbase to the next AND faster in response. Even going flat or to s-l-i-g-h-t rocker will feel good. Again, do not go overboard on rocker, stay within 1/4" max or better yet, stick to 1/8" or 3/16" and put the bend smack-dab in the middle. Too much rocker is like too much camber- it will work against you if you're style does'nt revolve around it (a great counter arguement FOR high camber is Gary Fluitt with his 3/4" camber Roe Wood core and he's WAY faster than me, but most of us do not pump like Fluitt does).

The board I ride from Subsonic has put me on the podium this year more more times than any deck I've ever ridden though it lends itself toward T/S and hybrid more than G/S but it will do G/S well enough(it's not my specialty). That's my B-Division opinion so take that for what it's worth.

[Chris Barrett]

Hey, I think you're on a good track. Check out the deck I ride from www.subsonicskateboards.com under the "future" icon. Your shape and my shape share a lot of similar "footing" aspects which I think is very important. Keep the shape, keep the concave (I would recommend staying within 5/16" of concave depth), and keep the camber as little as possible. Camber is good, but in my opinion, most of the wood core camber decks have too much, keep it at 1/4" or less, preferably less. This will make your deck more consistent in feel from one course to the next and more consistent in feel from one wheelbase to the next AND faster in response. Even going flat or to s-l-i-g-h-t rocker will feel good. Again, do not go overboard on rocker, stay within 1/4" max or better yet, stick to 1/8" or 3/16" and put the bend smack-dab in the middle. Too much rocker is like too much camber- it will work against you if you're style does'nt revolve around it (a great counter arguement FOR high camber is Gary Fluitt with his 3/4" camber Roe Wood core and he's WAY faster than me, but most of us do not pump like Fluitt does).

The board I ride from Subsonic has put me on the podium this year more more times than any deck I've ever ridden though it lends itself toward T/S and hybrid more than G/S but it will do G/S well enough(it's not my specialty). That's my B-Division opinion so take that for what it's worth.

Ha! Believe it or not, thats one of the decks I used to model my first prototype design! How funny is that! thanks for the advice, Paul! As per your camber advice, what I'm really trying to do is ween myself off the forward-weighting. I've been told that lowering the back foot tends to settle the rear foot and allow you to focus less on my stance and more on my cones, would you recommend just rockering the back slightly?

[Paul Howard]

Hey, I think that might help, I'd definately like to know the effect whether it helps or not if you do it so let me know what you come up with. My deck has a really wide front end so I can have the ball of my foot over the front truck for T/S and get more leverage from my front foot toes. One of my biggest complaints of most decks and T/S decks in particular was they did'nt have enough deck under the front foot. Mollica got me into the front foot usage more and it definately paid off for me in all forms of racing but especially T/S.

I also have had the "Too heavy on the front" problem with loosing traction in back, I just put my back foot a little farther back and try to be concious of where my balance center is to keep equal weight. I'm at work-Gotta Go-Paul

[Paul Howard]

Hey, I also started thinking that by riding with my feet pretty much over the truck, camber was'nt doing a thing for me except making my feet wander toward the ends and make the deck slower reacting, and since I wasn't flexing the deck, a flat stiff but concave deck did me the most good. If you are riding with your feet between the trucks(or at least the front foot behind the front truck) then camber and flex help, if both of your feet are over the trucks(or if the back foot is behind the back truck like Luca Giammarco and occasionally Cliff Coleman), then camber and flex aren't doing that much if anything for you and possibly conspiring against you. That's where a smidge of stiff rocker comes in, it helps your feet stay put and maybe it's my imagination but it seems to add traction or something. S-Cambers are sort of a combination as I see it. Again, I think less is more on that issue, some will help, but too much will become apparent with a board that feels hard to work through the cones. Related but sorta different is Richy Carassco's SkateKings Axe. Again, everything I'm saying suits my riding style, and Gary Fluitt is a good examle of high camber working for him. Adios-Paul

[Chris Barrett]

Hey, I also started thinking that by riding with my feet pretty much over the truck, camber was'nt doing a thing for me except making my feet wander toward the ends and make the deck slower reacting, and since I wasn't flexing the deck, a flat stiff but concave deck did me the most good. If you are riding with your feet between the trucks(or at least the front foot behind the front truck) then camber and flex help, if both of your feet are over the trucks(or if the back foot is behind the back truck like Luca Giammarco and occasionally Cliff Coleman), then camber and flex aren't doing that much if anything for you and possibly conspiring against you.

This is what I'm riding right now. I can see what you mean about concave and camber being an enemy more often then not. I guess theres no real easy answer to a stance problem except practice eh?


Skurfskates cf-101 W-concave min-camber hybrid
Manx 80/88, grippins 75/78 (I switch it up sometimes)
geezered Tracker rt-X front
Indy 109 rear.
Khiro wedge-kit wedgies
radikal bushings

The new board is just an evolution of this one. I do find the w concave to be quite comfortable.. and I'm liking the whole stringer solution.

I'll for sure share any impressions I have of this method.

[Paul Howard]

Hey, That deck looks pretty cool. Yes, the only way to tell is to put it through some cones. I like the dorsal stringer forming a ridge down the mid line. What is really funny about that is about 3 years ago, I was riding some Pumpkin longboards I cut down into hybrid-G/S decks. These decks were concave and I found that the concave was "pulling" the ball of my foot to the centerline bottom "well" of the deck and not letting me keep my toes of my back foot on the edge where I like them. To cure that problem, I stuck some approx 1/8" x 3/4" x 5" pieces of wood lengthwise down the mid-line of the deck under the grip tape in the foot placement areas so that the ball of my feet(especially the back foot), would get "trapped" in place and stay where I wanted.-Gotta go again-Paul