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For this logic to “work”, you’d need to have a standard to compare all others to. I feel like it’d be much easier to compare actual wheelbases. This would require a tape measure however or knowledge of how much a truck adds to the wheelbase. Maybe someone should make a table. And a simple way to calculate what kind of a board you might like with Thunders if you normally ride Aces and so forth. It’s not really that simple though as there’s much more to how trucks perform than just wheelbase. 🤔
As you said, a measurement table would help but at the end of the day the amount of variables that change are more than just axle to axle wb with a truck change. If you ride Indy's on 14.25 wb, you can achieve the same axle to axle wb with Aces on a 14.5 wb. But that's the only measurement that will line up. Your tail is still gonna hit earlier and with less effort on Aces, the nose will feel lighter (paradoxically despite Aces being heavier). The placement of your popping foot will have to change to achieve the same pop feel as your Indy's, but that could throw off your front foot placement in the process. Or how levelled out your tricks are. Or manuals... The variables are endless.
TLDR: You will absolutely drive yourself up the wall trying to get specs and feel to match up between different truck brands. I did for a while, not fun.
Im literally going through this rn but the only reason is that I got fucked over by buying a weekend board with a 14 ³/₁₆ Wheelbase and I’m an Indy guy so I found with the steep kicks and it sucking my wheelbase up to under 14” it makes it awfully hard to get used to or get most of my tricks back consistently or even acceptable my my own standards..so I’ve got a pair of aces which are the same whe it comes to WB as indys pretty much, and I’ve got a a couple different boards to choose from ( ZERO 8.5” w/ a 14.5” WB @ 32 ¼” length) , ( the wknd board I stated above that’s 8.5” w/ a 14 ³/₁₆ WB @ 32.75” length) , ( Local shop [Granduer] board 8.38” w/ 14.38” WB @ 32x” length) , and last and somewhat least as it’s fairly old compared to the others is a ( Baker 8.475” w/ 14.25” WB @ 31.5” length) my overall question is which of the following would match best with my new aces for a similar pop feel as indy?
As Ok pointed out, your actual wb (axle to axle), would be, with that WKND board and Indy’s, 17 3/16” (I’ll again plug my own post for a reference on how to get this measurement,
https://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=88869.msg3065039#msg3065039 )
As for your overall question, not easy to answer. Or at least not an easy formula. Think of it like this,
Those three points, and the space between the points, are going to dictate a lot (but not all, as there’s still things like overall length, nose + truck weight etc.) about how your board feels when you pop.
Say you have a reliable setup you like, consider that your control, a standard DLX 8.5 and Indy 149’s, you get bored and throw Thunders on there. You like the way they turn but nothing else works right. Your truck is now 3/16” to a 1/4” closer to the tip of the tail. The overall height is lower.
All those points in the pic above are shifted. You’d have to alter, pretty radically, the other measurements to get back to what your Indy’s felt like on the same deck with Thunders, probably some combination of a). tail length (longer), b). tail steepness (mellower) c). wheel size (smaller..maybe), d). foot placement (moved closer to the pocket rather than tip), or e). fingers of flat behind bolts (more). Of course, this probably now means your board is longer, or your wheels and overall height smaller/lower, or your back foot is super tucked in possibly causing you to feel unbalanced on other stuff than a straight ollie.
Unfortunately there’s not going to be a specific formula to get there without taking all those things - wheel diameter, tail angle, tail length, fingers of flat, truck height, your personal foot placement on the tail - into account.
To me, not worth it to go through the mental hurricane of reconfiguring all of that for a deck that will be dusted soon enough. Fight the madness where/when possible. If you have those decks lying around, probably easier to just set them up one at a time and see if any combo clicks. It’ll be a truer test than figuring it all out on paper.