A Quick Story about moisture Content

have you ever wondered why skateboards in the large sporting goods stores and discount toy stores are so horrible? why they have such a dead feeling? Why within a few 100ths of a second after picking one up you know instantly it wasn't made in the US?...its such a bummer because the price is so right on those cheap ass decks....the problem isn't that lack of good wood or poor molds to do the pressing...

During the start of the tony hawk era, the wood coming out of china was from local trees, that didn't produce solid decks, and the skaters passed on them quickly...However the big corpos saw a profit and continued to produce decks....Their next big idea was to pack and ship real maple veneers from northern America. They stuffed all the wood they could into those massive metal shipping containers. The plan was to take the quality wood and just glue and press them in the China. However, it wasn't that simple, the moisture content of the wood changed during the long shipping process. The maple would dry out past its optimum moisture content, giving the wood a dead feeling, which translated to a soggy deck, with no live pop! I studied moisture content in a strength of materials class back in college, and my professor spent time talking about moisture content of wood, and how it related to the wood strength, he even mentioned that a residential house needs moisture, and ironically too much moisture could ruin it too, and that it was a very fine balance, practically magical...very interesting stuff....now think about this, the greedy corporations, aren't giving up, their latest idea is to ship the entire logged maple tree, bark and all, they believe if the bark stays on, the wood will retain its moisture. Then a local chinese plant would mill it into veneers...my personal assessment is, if they are willing to go through all that effort just to make skateboard decks, and still make a fat profit, the only place left to cut corners is in worker's wages...they must pay those sweatshop labors nothing, i mean really nothing .....pennies at best..to make it cost effective...which is very sad....

on a happy note, at december we touch every veneer by hand, the quality control is automatic, because there are no glue machines, sorters and stackers, I would have to close my eyes to miss something, every piece of maple, is sanded, checked for imperfections, sorted by faces, cleaned, glued, and pressed by hand, then followed by shaping, sanding, sealing,and screened by hand...even my resin is sorted out by hand, by a major snowboard manufacturer, and mailed to me in blank shampoo bottles with hand written mixing ratios on them, and thats the only instructions on the bottle(written in black sharpie) and I love it!!!! our skate projects are very hands on with the absolute highest quality materials, my epoxy has been proven for years, before i ever mixed it...and my classic rock maple comes to me due south a few hours, it's the prettiest stuff I have ever worked with, and if you have a deck from us back two years ago, those veneers in your board use to lye under my bed where the temp and moisture was the most stable place I could find.....I baby the materials so you can beat the hell out of them....email me at decembersnowskates@gmail.com if your looking for a custom skate deck this summer, we can do something one of a kind, or if your interested in discussing a deck for the upcoming snowskate season..

thanks
kevo