I thought I'd pass along a little trade secret. Anyone who has ever wondered just what goes into making a foam-core glass skateboard might find this interesting:
http://www.fiberlay.com
It's a retailer that supplies EVERYTHING for the glasser with dreams of greatness. If you want, you can buy graphite, Kevlar and fiberglas cloth by the roll, various thicknesses of foam and of course, all your resins and adhesives.
From what I found and a little rough calculation, it looks to me like most board makers are spending about 35% of their price on materials. (Sheets of 1/2 or 3/4" foam ain't cheap! And it looks like you can gets two decks from each sheet at 24" x 42".) Coupled with labor time and a reasonable markup for profit, I'd say what we're paying for top of the line decks is reasonable. I must say, though, that Chicken's incorporation of maple ply into his boards adds a curve that I can't quite calculate.
Letting a secret out of the bag
Moderator: Marion Karr
Interesting, thanks for the info.
It's really hard to fault slalom deck manus for pricing, it's amazing we have so much choice compared to a few years ago. Plus the fact that decks don't really wear out.
But the one problem is the beginner who doesn't have access to other slalomers and their setups. It's too bad they don't have a way of trying out decks before taking the plunge. Just trying to get a grasp on the varying flexes that can be offered within one model can be daunting. It's pretty big investment to buy blindly for the novice.
It's really hard to fault slalom deck manus for pricing, it's amazing we have so much choice compared to a few years ago. Plus the fact that decks don't really wear out.
But the one problem is the beginner who doesn't have access to other slalomers and their setups. It's too bad they don't have a way of trying out decks before taking the plunge. Just trying to get a grasp on the varying flexes that can be offered within one model can be daunting. It's pretty big investment to buy blindly for the novice.