After getting tired of heavy boards, in March, 2011 we decided to try and make a lighter board by only making it five plies thick, rather than seven, and maintain it’s strength by wrapping it with carbon fiber. In addition, the tips of the board had a Kevlar laminate underneath the carbon fiber to reduce wear on the ends (i.e. “razor-tail”) – making skateboards took time and we wanted it to last as long as possible. Unexpectedly, the board had better pop; and many other skaters in the park tried and confirmed it. Everyone was able to Ollie higher with this board. It seemed the combination of light-weight and the extra resilience from the carbon fiber was to thank. The thin, carbon-black board looked like a piece of shinny slate – this was the first Slate deck. But after weeks of riding, we discovered that the Kevlar laminate became soft, reducing pop, and that fraying carbon fiber is very irritating on the skin.

In June, 2011, soon after the first Slate deck, we attempted to reduce the carbon fraying by eliminating the carbon fiber at the ends of the board and replacing it with black ABS plastic tips. The ABS plastic had a slight improvement in wear resistance over a standard maple deck, but the tips would break off after a hard impact and the remaining exposed carbon fiber still frayed while doing boardslides and tailslides.

After many, many attempts at adhering a wide variety of different plastics to maple, using different layup techniques and pretreating the plastics in countless ways, we finally had a breakthrough in August, 2013. This new plastic, which we coined a Hybrid-Polymer, is a blend of a variety of plastics that has a high durometer (it’s very hard) and has incredible impact strength, wear resistance, and adhesion to maple. This board was ridden for well over a year and has withstood more abuse than any other board (maybe ever?). While skating the Mega Ramp at Woodward West for the Signal Snowboard’s Every Third Thursday shoot, this board’s nose split a sheet of Skatelite in half at 40 mph and only got a mere scratch on the bottom maple veneer… it truly has proven itself.