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Borrowed from dormant space shuttle fuselages, our new mounting hardware is here and ready to hold it down.
Our first consideration when we began redesigning our hardware was material strength. We saw plenty of chewed up and broken bolts popping off the setups of fervent freestyle fanatics and knew that there was room for improvement. After some research and testing, we selected an extremely strong variety of steel with incredible properties (very high elastic resilience and significantly higher tensile strength than Grade 8 rated hardware). Our new locknuts are also made of this material.
Next up was the actual bolt design. We have used washers with our hardware for years to more evenly distribute pressure on our decks and help prevent damage from overtightening, but washers added one more (well, eight more, to be more accurate) tiny component to handle while assembling completes.
To retain the benefits and simplify the assembly, we designed our hardware with a flange head, which in essence integrates a washer into the bolt itself. In addition to distributing the load from mounting, the flange design also eliminates washers (from topmount setups) and results in a lower and less obtrusive bolt head on the top surface of the deck (for reduced interference with foot movement and less chance of scraping if the board flips over). The hex key socket is also slightly recessed beneath the surface of the bolt, providing a small amount of material shield to be ground away before damaging the socket and making adjustments difficult. Finally, we looked at the thickness of our decks (and other boards we ride) and used this information to specify a non-threaded portion of the bolt that increases strength and creates a smoother and less damaging interface with the mounting holes of the deck.
Packaging is an ever-present exercise in balancing utility and convenience with environmental friendliness. Instead of using skimpy packaging to minimize waste after almost certain disposal, we chose to create a packaging system that was slick, robust, and useful. Our hardware casing features a removable insert (a separate insert allows us to use this packaging for our Jehu bearings as well) and can be repurposed to store extra bushings, washers, keys, kaleidoscopes, and broken fortune cookies.
Our hardware comes with an allen key and is available in three (color coded) sizes: 1” (green), 1.25” (red), 1.5” (grey). Jehu bearings and spacers sit snug on a blue insert.
