Skateboard Manufacturing

Point started supplying custom skateboard decks in 2004. Since then we have refined and perfected our processes to offer a few programs to best serve our customers needs. For business customers: Want your products quick? Our ‘In-Stock’ program is probably the way to go. The ‘In-Stock’ program(for B2B customers) allows for lightning fast turnaround on custom skateboard printing for our most popular sizes, shapes, and concaves. We accept orders as small as 25 decks(even smaller orders are accepted but not as cost-effective). We now offer a ‘one-off’ custom printed deck option for samples.
Print Types Info Link
Our ‘Build to Order’ program(biz customers only) is for the company that wants to fully design a custom skateboard product from the ground up. If you are looking for custom shapes, molds, or more, this is the program. We also make non-skateboard products that might use the same production methods and materials. Please note that the ‘Build to Order’ program requires larger orders and may also require tooling and sampling charges.
Build To Order Info Link

Anybody/Anytime: We have a newer website that allows anybody to upload artwork and order a custom deck all online: https://pointdistribution.com/custom_skateboard

Print on Demand or Drop Ship Custom Skateboard Decks: Single custom printed skateboard decks shipped direct to your customer.  Check out: https://skateboarddropshipper.com

Unless stated otherwise all of our decks are constructed of 7 plies of 100% American Maple AKA Canadian Maple (many different names for this wood but only one species: Acer Saccharum and grown around the Great Lakes) with skateboard specific glue. Occasionally and on specific request we use Bamboo, other veneer and exotic materials but the tried and true 7 ply Canadian Maple is by far our most popular construction.

We only make top quality custom skateboard decks for professional use.  All of Point’s skateboard decks are cold pressed. This method takes more time than a hot pressed deck but does not subject the wood to high temperatures that can weaken the wood fibers. Careful attention is made to the fine details like veneer moisture content and the uncut decks are allowed to cure for 4-7 days in large stacks before finishing.

How our decks are made: 7 plies of premium maple sourced from the Great Lakes region are ran through a glue application machine. These veneers are put into a hydraulic press containing the mold top and mold bottom(mold determines concave) for 1.5-2 hours at room temperature(known as cold pressing). Post mold the laminated rectangle blanks(uncuts) are allowed to cure for 4-7 days in large stacks. Truck hole drilling and shaping by template or CNC router happens next. Edges are routed and then bladder/balloon sanded. Surface sanding is next and then a coat of lacquer. Lacquer is allowed to cure and followed by more sanding and a final lacquer coat. This how a premium professional skateboard deck is made.

All skateboard deck manufacturing is North American based; decks laminated in Mexico and printing done in USA.

Choose one of our existing molds to cut your custom skateboard shape from. An illustrator file(or other vector format) with the deck outline and truck holes are required. Sample charges and minimum order quantity apply. More info for custom skateboard shape

Custom molds are quite difficult! A cad file is required and tooling charges apply. Minimum deck order required. We have quite a few molds that are not listed. Check with a rep for more info.

Veneer colors, wood burn, bamboo and other options are available please contact a rep.

INK CHEMICALLY BONDED TO WOOD IS THE ONLY WAY WE PRINT A SKATEBOARD DECK. NEVER A STICKER, DECAL, VINYL, WRAP, OR SOME WEIRD PLASTIC LAMINATE

This process involves direct screen printing to the bottom of a custom skateboard deck. The print area and size are limited because of the curved surface of the deck. Smudging and registration problems can also occur. Direct screen printing can be an economical alternative to transfer printing for companies that are looking for a lower cost and small ‘mini logo’ type print. 14″x7.5″ maximum print size between the truck holes. We recommend this type of printing for smaller, less detailed one or two color graphics or top prints.

Actual picture below. Small 1 or 2 color print usually for top prints or mini/small logo/graphic prints. This type of print works well with our stocked background colors when trying to have a variety of colors in a smaller production order.

More info on background/bottom pass colors.

For a spot color transfer a screen is made with a stencil for each color in the graphic. Each color is screen printed to the carrier sheet in reverse order. Four color process/CMYK are printed in a similar fashion with a screen made for each of the C,M,Y,K, and white ink colors that come together to form the graphic. The inks are highly specialized and contain compounds to chemically bond with the lacquer that seals the skateboard deck. Choose this method if your graphic is full board and 1-2 colors but not too fine of detail. Sometimes if you are doing 100s of the same graphic this might also be a more economical choice with more than 2 colors.

Actual picture below. Works best for 1-2 solid full length print colors & not too much detail, more colors than 2 then digital transfers are usually more cost effective

The highest level of detail is achieved using this method. In this process the graphic is digitally printed to a carrier sheet with proprietary techniques and materials. This is a big advantage for graphics that have a large amount of colors and/or really fine detail as it doesn’t require the screens (set-up fees) to produce the graphic although some screen printing is used to make the transfer. Specialized coatings are used to bind the ink to the skateboard deck. The final print adheres as good as a screen printed skateboard deck graphic. Single sample custom printed skateboard decks are available using this method. Choose this method if you are trying to print detailed or photographic prints. Most artwork is best reproduced using this method.

The pic doesn’t do it justice. Much better in person. Full board full color. Super detailed image reproduction. Spot color, gradient, and flesh tone reproduction excellent as well. More pics.

Professional pic courtesy of Wesley Powell (w.powellimagery@gmail.com).  He simply ordered a sample deck on his own and sent us the pics because he thought we should have better sample pics on the site.  Thank you Wesley! More pics.

REGULAR PRINT
This type of print has a full white underlay so all of the colors are true and solid colors. If you have had tshirts printed before this is similar to the white that needs to be under each color.

TRANSPARENT PRINT
This is achieved with our digital print method but without white under the colors. In the lighter colors you will see wood grain blended with the color in your graphic. In darker colors like black and navy blue the colors may look 100% opaque(no wood grain blend). Yellows and lighter browns are very close to the color of natural veneer so it is difficult to see these colors. White is not printed so all areas of white will be 100% transparent. A good way to mimic this effect (to get an idea of how your print will look) is to use the blend mode options in Photoshop or Illustrator. Blend mode ‘multiply’ looks pretty close to how the final print will look. Put your artwork in a layer above a layer that looks like natural maple veneer. Set your artwork layer to blend>multiply.

KNOCKOUT PRINT
This is achieved by underlaying each color with white but leaving areas of no color with no white underlay. This is usually made by silk screen printing. Silk screen printing requires a screen be made for each color. This can get expensive and has high minimums. There are some ways to print knockout with digital printing but there are many limitations and one of our sales people would need to see the artwork to see what is possible.

The artwork will determine the best method to use for printing custom skateboard decks. Below is an infographic of what method works best depending on the artwork.

For direct screen printing art has to be built with large amounts of possible print color shifting taken into consideration. Ink bleeding, shifting print locations from loose mesh, squeegee streaks, variable dot gain, and many other reasons make direct screen printing less than desirable.  Fine detail like photographic printing is not possible. The print adhesion of transfers is similar as direct screen and the cost for a full direct screen print is more than 3x as much. We don’t see a reason for less quality printing that costs more*.

Please know that other companies may say ‘screen printed’ when referring to the printing of the transfers and that does not mean ‘direct to deck screen printing’.

*There are some exceptions to this rule like a completely flat longboard deck or printing the veneer pre-pressing. Some just like the nostalgia, more power to you if disagree.

We do not sell transfers apart from a custom printed deck. We do not print on skateboard products that we did not produce.

Transfer sheets are what we get the most requests for.  These transfer sheets are specially created to work with the chemistry of the coatings on our skateboard decks and may or may not work with decks we do not produce.  For application of these sheets to decks not all transfer machines are the same.  There are certain settings that not all transfer machines can achieve.  Further it just does not make financial sense to sell transfer sheets.

We have a regular schedule of controlling colors and testing for color inconsistency. You may think that you ‘set it and forget it!’ when you have dialed in a digital process for printing but the truth is there is constant change, updating of technology/continuous improvement, and hard work to keep colors looking and matching great

Stock Shapes

• 7.5
• 7.625
• 7.75
• 7.875
• 8.0
• 8.125
• 8.25
• 8.375
• 8.5

Sizes

• 37
• 42
• 46

MINI STANDARD

Standard street with shorter wheelbase to accommodate shorter legs.

• 7.5

OLD SCHOOL

Longer wheelbase and made for closer to 10″ wide.  Updated old school mold has a deeper concave and steeper nose/tail than the original concave for the late 80’s.

• OS 10

FLAT

OG flatter street concave.

DOUBLE/SINGLE KICK LONGBOARD

Multiple lengths, drop-through, freeride, etc..

CUSTOM SHAPES

We make custom shapes all the time. This requires custom CNC and/or shape templates. Minimums are higher and turnaround times longer. Custom shape info
Link

CUSTOM MOLDS/CONCAVES

We have a variety of ‘open-use’ molds that we have used for various projects over the years that may work for you. Full custom molds takes tons of work and are very expensive. The molds have to be mapped in CAD, cut by a CNC machine, and tested. We usually require 100’s of decks to be ordered from a custom mold. Be prepared for significant investment if you go the custom mold route!

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