BETA BOARD COMPETITION

By Brandon Steele, deck builder, writer, film producer

The Beta Board Competition was designed to unleash a new ROAROCKIT building technology into the wild. It’s called Pinch, a new process developed by Ted Hunter, which boasts the ability for structural manipulation of the layers of deck veneer. By literally creating a Pinch in the veneers of the board, the weight is reduced and strength increased. It’s a new way of building boards, where each layer has a different relationship to its neighbor through specific triangulation and corrugated patterns.

Using the Thin Air Press technology to laminate, pro builders Ted Hunter (Roarockit), Mike Bozinovski (BOZ Boards) and Brian Morgan (formerly of Feral Arts) apply the Pinch technique to six prototype decks.

Through submissions from the Silverfishlongboarding.com forum, a panel of esteemed judges decided on six non-pro riders to test the Pinch technology. Given that each tester is savvy in a niche style of riding, a deck was built to suit that expertise.

A new breed of longboard won’t evolve without a dialogue between rider and designer. It’s under the feet of the longboard community to nurture this whippersnapper and teach it the rules of the road. From the Beta Board Competition will come a new alpha-board – lean and mean, with a chiseled bone structure – just look at the pictures!

THE DECKS:

The first board built was Ted’s Dancer. He took an organic approach to this Pinch pattern. Long curved valleys running from back to toe crisscross where material has been Pinched, leaving strong mounded pockets that bump against one another. Although aesthetically pleasing, the design is far from random, and aims to test the overall flexibility of the board.

The second Dancer was built by Mike. It uses a repeating diamond pattern that mimics the lattice found in screening or mesh. Spines cross at right-angles, creating pockets of Pinched material. The symmetry of the spines aims to evenly disperse strength down the length and across the width of the board. Both Dancers rock a candy-coated carbon fiber finish.

The third is Ted’s Speed Board. Keeping with the traditional stiffness of these demons, he built four prominent spines running lengthwise to eliminate any efficiency lost through flex. Both truck mounts are angled parallel to each other at the same degree, which makes the front end turning highly responsive, and the back end less sensitive. Carbon fiber layers seal the deal top and bottom.

To add further variation amongst the fellow Pinch decks, Mike built a 1’’ drop, Freeride deck that stands to assess the Pinch technique without the addition of carbon fiber to the bottom. This way the strength of the triangulation of the wood veneers alone can be tested. As a compromise, he added a layer of biaxial fiberglass to the top for torsion stiffness. The pronounced Pinch spine system runs end-to-end on this one, pointing similarities to the pattern on Ted’s Speed Board.

Brian’s Hybrid board includes a mix of Pinched foam as the core, along with wood and fiberglass. This deck promises to provide the contest winner with some serious investigative testing!

Last comment:

A small percentage of the longboarding industry is actively pushing R&D. With the capability of Roarockit’s Thin Air Press to laminate Pinch decks from your own workshop, the evolution of skateboard design is in the hands of those who build what they like to ride. Tutorials on the Pinch technique are coming soon, (http://thinairpress.blogsome.com/) and stay tuned for the results of this testing.

Roarockit sends out special thanks to SilverfishLongboarding.com, Concrete Wave, Brian Morgan, and BOZ Boards. Without them a dialogue between designer, builder, and rider wouldn’t exist.