Freestyle Skateboard Skidplates

Freestyle skateboards typically have skidplates (a.k.a. "tail-savers" or "tail-skids") to reduce the frictional wear on the underside of the deck nose and tail. Avoiding wear on the nose and tail is important for freestyle boards as there are many tricks that excert a lot of force on the ends of the board which, if worn down too far, will delaminate and ruin the deck. Freestyle skidplates are typically plastic or wood and are bolted or screwed to the deck. Plastic is preferred as it offers less friction. There are very few commercial outlets for freestyle skidplates, mostly from specialist skate shops in the USA and Germany.

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  Various Freestyle Skateboard Tailskids

Goals

• suitable for use
• cheap
• easy to make
• consistent quality
• sustainable

Prototypes

Materials: -

Material	Info	Laser-safe	Machinable	Price	Testing
HDPE	plastipedia wp	Yes but "melty"	Yes but slightly "chewy"	Low	Underway
Polypropylene	wp	Yes but "melty"	Yes (needs testing)	Unknown	None
Acetal (Delrin)	plastipedia wp	Yes (excellent)	Yes (excellent)	Fairly High	Underway
LDPE	wp	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	None
PTFE (Teflon)	wp	Unknown	Yes (excellent)	Crazy Expensive	None
Nylon 66	plastipedia wp	Unknown	Yes (excellent)	Unknown	None

"Milky-Milky" Recycled HDPE prototype 1

• Recycled from plastic milk bottles - See HDPE Processing
• Rendered in toaster oven at 230 degrees C
• Machined plate on Bridgeport to 8mm
• outline and fixing drill holes etched on laser cutter
• outline cut on bandsaw
• fixing holes drilled on pillar drill
• bevel (yet to be formed)

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  Almost Finished Prototype 1

"Natural-D" Delrin prototype 1

• engineering 8mm Delrin plate offcut
• laser cut outline at 7mm/sec
• testing in progress - going well!

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  Testing in progress