Skateboards - Canadian hard rock maple

What is it, where do you get it and what's the connection between skateboards and pancakes?

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum), sometimes called hard, or hard rock maple, is one of the largest and more important of Canadian and American hardwoods.

Sugar maple is restricted to areas with cool and moist climates particularly in the north east of the United States and the south east of Canada. These trees can reach 300 to 400 years and stand 90 to 120 feet.

The sugar maple tree is the principal source of maple sugar although I wouldn?t be boiling up your old skateboard to put on your pancakes.

Skateboard Construction

The logs are shaved into veneers and dyed if needed, the veneers, usually seven (4 lengthways 3 cross) are then put through a gluing machine and then pressed together in a metal form or mold. These molds are available in various concaves and shapes, and are made to a very high precision with a CNC machine.

After curing in the mold the decks are then cut to the required width, length and shape, precision drilled and sanded.

The final process is to screen print or heat transfer the graphics to the skateboard deck.

OK But Why Use Canadian Hard Rock Maple in Skateboards

Canadian hard rock is the current choice for quality skate decks, it's a hardwood, it's tough and has low moisture content. The more moisture a wood has the more flexible the board will be, less moisture means less flexing, more pop, extremely low levels of moisture mean breakages.

Some brands just refer to Maple skate decks. Generally turns out to be Birch or a similar wood, nearly all entry level skateboards are made from this softer material and are made in China.

Not that made in China is necessarily a bad thing, most of the Brand name boards are manufactured there these days, but at least they still use CANADIAN HARD ROCK MAPLE.

Union Standard skateboards and decks exclusively use Canadian Hard Rock Maple