Glossary

A
Letter that comes after the digits specifying the hardness of a wheel or a bushing, e.g., "95 A" or "101 A". Strangely, the A stands for “durometer”, the normal measurement for the hardness of plastic and rubber products.

 

ABEC
A measurement of ball bearing precision. The higher the ABEC value, the rounder the balls in the bearing. ABEC is not a measurement of the durability of ball bearings.

 

Base plate
One half of the trucks. The part attached to the board and that holds the trucks’ moving parts – the hanger.

 

Bearings
Ball bearings are necessary to allow your skateboard to roll, and each wheel should have two ball bearings. There is a wide range of price classes for ball bearings, but they are all the same size, no matter which wheels you choose.

 

Bushings
The bushings provide resilience for the trucks on turns. Bushings can be purchased separately at different levels of hardness depending on how loose you want your trucks to be. Bushings are made of the same materials as skateboard wheels and have the same hardness scale, with 101 the hardest. Bushings are sometimes called “grommets”.

 

Core
Wheels can have a core that is made from a different material than the outer urethane casing. You can find wheels with a softer core than the rest of the wheel, and vice versa. A softer core provides a more comfortable rolling feeling, while a harder core provides a more distinctive response for tricks. Different core technology can help significantly reduce the weight of your skateboard wheels.

 

Grip tape
Grip tape is an adhesive anti-slip tape applied to the top of the skateboard. The quality of grip tape can vary, but at Junkyard we only sell tape with the highest grip and the longest durability.

 

Hanger
The other half of the trucks. This is the movable part of the trucks that holds the wheels and allows the board to turn. You glide on the hanger when performing the different grind tricks.

 

Hardware
An abbreviation for "mounting hardware" – put simply, the bolts that keep the trucks attached to the board. These are most commonly bolts with an Allen head or screws with Phillips head. You can also find bolts that can be tapped into place, e.g., Randoms, eliminating the need for an Allen key or Phillips screwdriver.

 

Kingpin
The centre bolt in the truck base plate, which determines the limits of the hanger movement. Kingpins may sometimes break during hard turns. Although it is very easy to buy a new kingpin, it can be difficult to remove the old one and assemble the new one. You could ask an experienced skateboarder to show you how to do this, or ask the staff in your local skating shop for help.

 

Nuts
A correctly assembled skateboard should have 14 nuts in three different sizes: Two for the kingpin, four for the wheel and eight for the mounting bolts. All these nuts are kept in place by a plastic string fitted around the outer edge of the nut. If you keep tightening and loosening the nuts, this “lock” will wear down and the nuts will come loose. It’s therefore important to make sure your nuts are in good condition to avoid losing a wheel during a jump or in a downhill race.

 

Pivot
The point where the truck’s hanger and base plate are interconnected, normally via a spike on the hanger that connects with a pivot cup in the base plate.

 

Pivot bushing
The gasket in the base plate’s pivot cup that keeps the hanger in place. The pivot bushing can be exposed to wear and tear and may crack, but is relatively easy to replace.

 

Riser pads
Pads mounted between the trucks and board, often to allow space for larger wheels and to reduce the risk of wheelbites.

 

Spacers
Small aluminium cylinders inserted over the wheel axle to act as a link between the ball bearings inside the wheel. If you tighten the wheel nuts properly, the spacers will allow the ball bearings to perform better and last longer. If you screw them too tight, however, nothing will work.

 

Wax
Used to make rough edges glide.