Dangerous Decks SE10 review

At the end of last year I finally had a go at tech sliding and realised how much fun it was... There was nothing for it, I had to get a tech slide board. I knew pretty much straight away that I wanted a Dangerous Decks SE10, and after months of making do with a set up that I'd swapped for unwanted skate gear I finally got one.

look at the shiny

My first thought when I first opened the package was “ooooooooh pretty!”

I had spent a bit more on a board with a carbon fibre layer on the bottom (pink carbon fibre no less) and the finish was beautiful. In fact I know how much effort went into it as Will, the guy who builds them, spent a few extra days re-doing the finish because he wasn't happy with it. Now that's craftsmanship.

The SE10 is 34” long, 9” wide, and has wheel base options from 15.5” to 17” adjustable in 3/4” amounts. There are decent sized kicks (7” with the shorter wheelbase) and an aggressive tub concave. The cave flattens out at the kicks so you have really nice pockets to lock your feet in. The board was designed around Indy 169s, I wasn't able to get any because I'm extremely poor and I had to swap more unwanted skate gear to get some suitable trucks. I ended up with a set of 9” Gullwing Mission 1s, which are slightly taller that the 169s, but seem to work fine set up without risers. For the wheels I went with the ubiquitous Earthwing Slide A in 62mm... Which are epic, somehow managing to combine (possibly through witchcraft) zero hookup with a lovely smooth (and fairly quiet) slide. Like I said... Witchcraft.

no hand HS drift

The deck is very stiff with minimal to zero flex and had a decent about of pop, and as mentioned the combination of aggressive concave and kicks really locks your feet in when your going sideways. Basically it inspires confidence to try new stuff, first time out I was managing to do hands down 360s without even thinking about it. Early grabs magically improved as well... the usual pathetic couple of inches was magnified to over 6... Yes size does matter, especially when it comes to getting air. I also tried a lot of stuff I would never have attempted soft wheel sliding, like laybacks, switch colemans and even hands down blunt slides. Admittedly they all ended badly and I now have a nice collection of bruises, but I was trying.

Nathan trying a blunt slide

The SE10 is also fun away from the hills, the kicks mean you can do all manner of flat land tricks and there's even enough space to do some board walking (I managed a peter pan, but failed at cross stepping). Stick some soft wheels on and it's great for cruising round town or going on a beer run to the local shop. Speed was also handled well, I never felt out of control and the board felt solid under my feet when foot braking.

Overall the SE10 is a solid deck, it may have been designed as a tech slider, but it's certainly versatile enough that you'll want to use it all the time, and certainly with soft wheels it makes cruising round town a lot more fun. This said there were a few down sides... The carbon fibre, while looking pretty, is already pretty shredded (I have abusive relationships with my skateboards), in hind sight I think the plain birch version would be the better choice (it's also the cheaper option). I also managed to delam the nose attempting a kick flip. It's nothing serious and easy to fix but worth mentioning. Despite these minor issues I still love the deck and would gladly hand over more of my money for a new one when this one dies.

Madrid skatecation - part one

so a bunch of us went to madrid, here's what we got up to

proof of how awesome I am

Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do with skating, but I recently promised my girl friend a tattoo… she had it done today and it rocks.

Yeah, I know… I rock.

Brand Loyalty?

In my defense, I have been back to the tattoo studio two further times in the week since I got this.

Good for a Girl

Here's a question for any female skaters out there…have you ever been complimented on your skating to have the suffix "for a girl" screwed on the end? For me it rankles just a bit, which doesn't mean I want put on my man hating dyke hat, lace up my DMs and kick the offending complimenter, because it's almost always meant sincerely…it's just the unthinking and misguided misogyny behind it that gets me.

Yes guys…there's sexism in skating. 

Now, before I get tied up and burnt as an evil feminist witch at the next freeride I go to…this isn't an attack on any of the guys I skate with, because believe it or not I'm just as guilty of the kind of unthinking misogyny I'm talking about.

Let me explain… when you quite sincerely tell one of your many female skater friends that she is "good at skating, for a girl" you're judging her buy different standards. It's actually quite demeaning and a bit condescending, it kind of says that you think that the skater in question can never just be good… only good for a girl. Imagine if we all started saying this to skaters with red hair?

"Oh you're good at skating… for a ginger."

See what I mean? You wouldn't base your praise of a skater on the colour of their hair, so why do the same with their sex?

And what about my unthinking misogyny? Well at the recent Bristol board meeting Mark Short ended up holding an impromptu slide jam and I was the only girl skating the hill. When it came to giving out prizes a bit of me was hoping for something for being the only girl on the hill. Mark actually judged everyone skating on their ability rather than sex and the right people were awarded the prizes. I salute Mark, and I'll dedicate my next safety meeting to his wisdom, because the fact I didn't get any prize made me want to be a better skater. If I'd been recognised as being "good for a girl" it might have made me lazy, as it is I'm determined to up my game… not because I want to win lots of swag (though everyone loves free swag) but because when I skate a hill with a bunch of guys I want to be their equal. As things stand, that will never happen while people tack "for a girl" on the end of compliments.

So, do a skate… and stop judging girls (and gingers) by different standards.

Motherfucking DIY skateboards!

A while back I wrote about building my own boards…well, that dream is now a reality as my first blank is in the press!

As it's been ages since I've posted anything it feels like a good time to go through the whole process. At this point I can't talk about the finished board, but I've definitely learnt loads in the past week just by building the press and from laying up the first blank. I'm really excited to get it out of the press and to start shaping my first board.

Seeing as this was my first time building a board, I decided to keep things simple with the press, mainly because that meant I could easily change parts of the press design without having to build a whole new one. This philosophy has already paid off as I had to take a plane to the outer rails to reduce the amount of concave (I shaved .25" off so the outer rails ended up at 1") as I had erred on the side of caution a bit too much.
I made a very simple rail press, with angled outer rails on the top of the press to ensure there was enough pressure on the blank to ensure everything bonded well.

I had this built after a couple of afternoons work, and while compared to rib press it is fairly crude, it was quick and easy to assemble with the tools from my garden shed. Simples!
Once I've learnt more about building boards I'll build a more refined press, but for the prototypes this is more than sufficient…well in my eyes it is.

Building the press was the easy bit, at least you can un-screw it if you put something together slightly wonkey…gluing up the veneers and sticking them in the press is certainly more scary as there is no going back. Construction for this board is 8 plys of ash and maple, with two of those plys cross grain and two layers of kevlar for extra stiffness, dampening, goddess knows what (The kevlar is an experiment that I will have know idea if it worked until everything comes out of the press). I'm hoping that the resulting blank will have minimal flex and bugger all torsional flex…the final board is going to be a top mount speed board after all.

laying up…use plenty of glue

The main thing I learnt pressing my first blank is that you need to make sure that you use enough glue, especially if you're using wood veneers rather than plywood as the wood soaks up a lot of glue. I was a bit frugal on my first couple of veneers and had to re-glue them…no real harm done. 

Also if you are going to use composite materials like kevlar, fibreglass or fabric, make sure you get all the air bubbles out…I used a handy little roller for this.

Kevlar layer…pressing out the air bubbles

Once all the layers were glued up the whole thing went in the press and was cranked down hard…now it's just a waiting came waiting for the glue to set and then wait another week letting everything cure somewhere warm. Yes this may well come under the heading of overkill, but I've invested a lot of time and effort in this little project so far so I'd rather do it right, rather than rush and get something substandard out of the press.

Okay, that's it for the time being, I shall report back in a week when I have a finished blank in my hands and I'll get to see how much everything has relaxed once it comes out of the press, in the mean time do a motherfucking skate!

Find a Penny

Because plastic skateboards are shit…right?