California Blank
–BlankDecks.com – Blankdecks has become fairly known over the past couple years for having a huge selection of blank decks at low prices… People have come to think, why pay 3 times more for a brand name deck when I can just buy a blank?. Well honestly, brand name decks do tend to be of higher quality than a blank, they are usually shaped slighty different, may use special technologies…etc.
But let's get to the review!
First impressions were pretty good for this deck, shape isn't anything extreme, average concave, nose/tail steepness..etc, so everyone should be able to adjust to it.
Once we got skating on it, it became totally clear that this thing had a tiny problem… We were sticking to our flatbar rail. I've heard one person on our message board talk about this problem, and their message went something along the lines of "This board is a crayon." So it wasn't just our board, it has to be something with all of them. What happends is, the board, well it dents when you land on a rail, and you just sorta get stuck there. It's defenitly wierd, more speed when going into the trick or more wax on the rail didn't help. I don't know if I'd fully agree with saying this board is as soft as a crayon… Though at first it stuck, it wasn't honestly all that bad. After a while it seemed to stop denting and sticking and the issue was pretty much gone.
Strangely enough, even though the board seemed to dent and stick on our nice flatbar, the problem didn't carry over when doing any flip tricks or ollies. It had good pop, it didn't seem to wear excessively or anything like that, it was your average deck… Compared to the Blank Skate Supply deck, it did wear quicker on the nose and tail, so overall the wood must be slightly softer, but nothing extreme… What we did find though is it seemed to crack up a bit, we didnt get any pressure cracks around the trucks, but we did get cracks on the nose and tail going with the grain of the wood. It's likely going through only one ply of the wood so I doubt it would majorly affect the board, but they are defenitly there…
Overall the board is good for the price, despite the "crayon"-like experience, the slight increase in wear compared to other decks and the cracks, we still have to recommend it. This may sound odd, but honestly this board lasted a long time, and for 1/3 of a brand name deck, its very good.
Though I would have to recommend for you to try out the Blank Skate Supply blank decks aswell, they're both good decks at a low price, but the BlankDecks.com does seem to have a slight flaw.
