Nanoparticle Skateboards

by Steve Lenhert

1 November 2000

There is something sad about the way that skateboards wear out. If I were to buy a complete skateboard, everything will last pretty much forever compared to the deck and bearings. Unless I break the deck [1] the tail will wear out after about a month of intense use. I then have to pay about 60 USD to replace the entire deck. The bearings are usually the next part to wear out, costing about 20 USD. They will usually last about three months. However, in the last month they have noticeably more friction. The feeling of fast new bearings often motivates me to replace them sooner.

Imagine if there were a way to keep the tail and bearings from wearing out. The skateboard industry might suffer, but the average skateboarder would have an extra 65-70 bucks per month to spend on snowboarding. To illustrate my point, consider this analogy between a skateboard and a person. Most people today die of heart disease. If they don't die from that then they will probably die from cancer. If one could find a way to cure heart disease and cancer, then the average person would last much longer. Wearing out the tail is like skateboard heart disease and wearing out the bearings is like skateboard cancer.

Of course people have tried hard to preserve the tail, but all attempts to date have failed for one important reason - they reduce the "pop" of the tail. Pop, the springy property of a wooden tail that allows one to ollie, is essential for modern skateboarding. The classic example is the "skid plate." This is a piece of plastic that you can screw into your tail and make it last forever. When the skid plate wears down, you can just replace it. Unfortunately, the skid plate takes the "pop" out of a tail; thus, nobody uses skid plates anymore. A few years ago, my brother and I tried several methods of preserving the tail with the hope of retaining our pop. We attached various substances to our tails including polymers, glues and even metal. However, all the attempts either failed to protect the tail or reduced the pop. Finally we gave up and continued to wear out our tails like normal skateboarders. Bearing lifetime is even more difficult to preserve. Even if one buys Swiss bearings (that can be openned and cleaned) and dust protectors, they will still wear out.

With the advent of nanotechnology, there may be a solution to this problem. Tungsten disulfide nanoparticles impregnated into machine bearings have been found to increase lifetimes by a factor of 10-100. This technology could be directly applied to skateboard bearings. Molybdenum disulfide nanoparticles have recently been found to act as solid lubricants. That means that they prevent wear between two solids rubbing against eachother in a dry environment, such as a that of a tail rubbing against the pavement. These particles are so small that they could be dispersed in the skateboard glue that is used to hold the plies of a skateboard together. To conserve nanoparticles, they could be put only in the glue that is used in the areas of the skateboard that wear out. Since its the springiness of the wood, and not the glue [2] this method should not reduce the pop.

Any skateboard manufacturers interested in using this technology, please email me and I will see about getting you some nanoparticles. I'm especially interested in people with homemade presses (I might make my own if I can find some time), since major skateboard manufacturers are probably quite happy to recieve my 60 bucks per month for replacing parts without nanoparticles.

[1] Breaking a skateboard should not happen if you use it correctly. If you land with your feet over the trucks it will not break.

[2] My brother and I determined that numerous glues do not have pop, including wood glue, super glue, model glue and others that I forget.