The Thunder Thread

[LebowskisRug]

I don't think people are necessarily unhappy, but like any product Thunders have some minor flaws that can be easily fixed such as extending the baseplate a bit. I don't think they're going to end up like another Indy especially if it is just working on small details such as the baseplate or fine-tuning the turn.

[Frank and Fred]

Trucks should evolve as skateboarding evolves and sometimes devolves.

Thunders were always a quicker turning. more stable alternative to Indy but were a very different beast when they came out.

Prob too far-fetched but I'd love to see an old Thunder reissue in the spirit of the Indy Stage 4 reissue. Shrewgy from Ace designed two stages of Thunder I believe. There is some rad history there.

Shrewgy on Skull and Bones https://www.skullandbonesskateboards.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=105448&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10
Hi Guys-
Glad to see you're having some fun with Thunder Truck chronology. I designed 2 stages of Thunders during my tenure at Deluxe c.87-91.

I can see from all the pics posted that there are some very early ones w/o Terry Nails earrings embossed on the baseplates. These were available in 2 sizes I beleive a check of any early Thrasher should have an ad for direct mailorder of Thunders from Deluxe or another SF P.O. Box #. They came in raw or black.

The original Thunders were believed to be the same geometry as Stage 2 Indys. Lord Mofo would be helpful in confirming any of this. Of the original baseplates there were lizards, swords, skull and cross bones, skull with top hat ,and daggers, if I am not mistaken.

Eventually a narrow "freestyle" width was added with a flat pedestal across the bushing boss on the hangers, designed by Per Welinder (Eggman-stepford13 posted a pic above this with one of these).

The original baseplates made it into the Stage 2 (X-wing) design as well, which I think only added a fingernail-shaped dimple in the bottom of the baseplate for weight reduction. X-wing Thunders were available in raw, black, blue, red adn white.

These trucks were fully designed by a guy named Andrew Borgy who visited San Francisco from New Zealand. I believe he had cast trucks from scratch there and also brought a very thick teflon type material coper over with him that were produced here, I may even have one of them. Borgy spent a lot of his SF time at Ron Posners' Concrete Jungle skateshop on Waller Street. Borgy has since passed away and he was a forerunner of what we now call "crust punks".

The 3rd stage of Thunder is where my design came in. I simply took the Borgy X-wing and ground off everything I felt a truck did not need to function well. Fausto and Eric seemed so shocked by this because I did it all by hand and without adding any materials to work off of that they fired Brian Ware, whom had been managing Deluxe since its inception within 3 hours of seeing my design! Oh I should have taken note that day of what kind of businessmen they were, but I was oh-so-young and unknowingly naive. My design philosophy was simple, I was riding Indy, they wanted me to ride Thunder and act as the team guy so I changed the truck to suit my tastes. The biggest struggle was the one to stop painting the trucks and allow them to be anodized same as Independents were at the time. The anodized truck shown in the photos here is a color referred to by us as "root beer", we did blue and black also.

The 4th stage or T-4 as it was christened came about during the advent of small, really small wheels. I figured why was all of that clearance necessary with the tiny wheels and wouldn't you be more stable closer to the ground? Once again I broke out the handy die grinder and Dremel tool at my childhood friend Eric Lindorf's parents home workshop and went to town. Once again without any guidance from the braintrust (sic) at Ermico I redesigned the truck without the use of Bondo or any other agent to allow reshaping of the original metal casting.

During this period we would spend plenty of time at the Visalia YMCA Skate Camp where I met Jonas and Jeremy Wray along with their pal Jason Dill. Jonas and Jason turned me onto drilling the front holes of their trucks back 1/4" to keep from dragging the mounting hardware on all of the noseslide variations that were in vogue at hat time. Thunder quickly brought this simple adjustment to market and new boards were double-drilled to accommodate this feature.

Until now, I have stuck only to the story of Thunder Trucks not alluding to the many things in play around the Deluxe offices and Ermico Campus as a whole. To finish my Thunder story factually though I am going to have to mention Venture Trucks at this time. Venture is a highly profitable business for Ermico and had not had any major design revisions since their inception. It was decided by Fausto and Eric that Venture would be the first company to produce and market a "low" truck. They tried to justify this to me by saying that Thunder just released the "6 hole baseplate" and was riding high on that.

Roughly six months after Venture released their "low" truck Thunder was allowed to come out with the T-4 available in "high" and "low" heights.

I hope this all helps rather than confuses the subject.

[Mbrimson88]

Trucks should evolve as skateboarding evolves and sometimes devolves.

Thunders were always a quicker turning. more stable alternative to Indy but were a very different beast when they came out. ..

I always find this sort of thing fascinating.

Thanks for posting.

[Frank and Fred]

Me too. I think I find truck history and evolution more interesting than any other skate component. I have some Stage 2 131s sitting on a shelf for that reason. Would love some anodized Indy Stage 5s and Thunder Blasters.

[Xen]

I remember getting Stage 1 thunders (and ventures); the skulls and shit (skull and top hat, OG lightning bolt, Sword, Salamander, etc.) and that fucking rad baseplate design (front part below the yoke; very gothic vibe) were so cool.

[j....soy.....]

I think shrewgy was involved in Ace as well....and he designed the weird pivot on furys......

Wasn't thunder originally marketed as an edgier brand than indy?  it had like bondage girls and Natas or something like that....

[Frank and Fred]

Shrewgy is one of the Ace head honchos. Along with Joey T and Joey P.

[j....soy.....]

dude is the paul schmitt of trucks....

[diplodocus]

I hated my Aces with conical fulls and fucking love them on my Thunders. In the same vein, I hate classics on my Thunders and love them on my Aces.

[LebowskisRug]

I don't follow this- why is a wheel better or worse on one truck than the other? I don't think I've ever had a specific wheel preference for a specific truck just get used to whatever is on there.

[Frank and Fred]

Because Wheel shape and contact width influences the feel of a turn. We had this convo already and it went south pretty quick with dismissive talk of "My buddy is a race car mechanic."

[rawbertson.]

i am finding that thunder is maybe the best truck for slappy possibly... ?
i am slappying stuff i had a hard time on indy's or ace's cause it feels easier to get them up on 2 wheels... i dont know. or maybe i just got better at slappys?
then it got me thinking would ventures be even better in that case? 
it might be also cause i have tiny 51mm classics on here but they are really worn down now, i dont think it matters much at this point

[LebowskisRug]

Because Wheel shape and contact width influences the feel of a turn. We had this convo already and it went south pretty quick with dismissive talk of "My buddy is a race car mechanic."

You seem really hung up on this for whatever reason. I'd really advise letting it go whether it be the fact that you didn't like my response, don't like me, or don't like that you cannot actually rationalize the idea. It doesn't matter and its time to move on and stop finding ways to bring it up especially since you are not the person I was responding to.

[Frank and Fred]

It remains pretty amusing to me but thank you for the counseling.  Also, its still a topic of convo so I'll keep jumping in, thanks.

[diplodocus]

Idk to me it seems like they can get out of grinds easier because of the responsive geometry? Conicals on aces made me feel stuck.

[LebowskisRug]

It remains pretty amusing to me but thank you for the counseling.  Also, its still a topic of convo so I'll keep jumping in, thanks.

Best to let it go. I'm not going to engage in the argument again mostly because its a waste of time, but also because I didn't present my own point well and came off pretty lame and would rather use it as a learning experience and move on then rehash.

[Frank and Fred]

Expand Quote

It remains pretty amusing to me but thank you for the counseling.  Also, its still a topic of convo so I'll keep jumping in, thanks.

[close]

Best to let it go. I'm not going to engage in the argument again mostly because its a waste of time, but also because I didn't present my own point well and came off pretty lame and would rather use it as a learning experience and move on then rehash.

Totally respect that.

[notinternetfamous]

I don't follow this- why is a wheel better or worse on one truck than the other? I don't think I've ever had a specific wheel preference for a specific truck just get used to whatever is on there.

i prefer classics (52mm) on my Venture set up; i prefer conical fulls or bigger wheels (53mm+) on my Ace set up. I can swap them sure and get used to it, yes, but do I want to? not really. since Ventures have a heavier pop feel, its nicer imo to have a skinny or more nimble shaped wheel.

although when i was on Thunders, i wasn't specific on wheel shapes

[Kombuch-A-Holic]

I hated my Aces with conical fulls and fucking love them on my Thunders. In the same vein, I hate classics on my Thunders and love them on my Aces.

Same with me. I love my Conical fulls on Indy but not on Ventures. Classics works best for me on Ventures.

[Monolithic Flick]

Sorry if stupid question or has been answered already--have not made it through entire thread yet.

I have some Thunder Hollow Lights 149s that I currently ride on a 8.5 quasi deck.  Looking at a 8.75 deck just for giggles and wondering if I really need to upsize the trucks to 151s as well.  I am a crappy old man rider (not like the good older dudes here yet) doing mainly flatground around the hood.

[tom]

Is the 8.75 a one off situation or are you going to be moving in that direction long term? Do you currently need new trucks?
I’d probably stick with your current trucks for now. I would skate 147’s on an 8.5 before they made 149’s

[baustin]

I agree, a little magic carpet ain’t bad especially for just skating flat

Edit: stick 2 or 3 speed rings on the inner side of the axle to help minimize the disparity if it gets to you

[Monolithic Flick]

Awesome, thank you both.   Great tips. Don't need new trucks now for sure.

[BurgerCop]

I just switched from Thunder to Venture after skating Thunders for, fuck...like 20 years?
It was a much easier transition than jumping from Thunder to Indy, the Ventures feel extremely similar in terms of stability, turning and weight.
I made the switch to test out the "baseplate issue" and, I gotta say, my tailslides are definitely sliding a lot easier and farther. I know a lot of that is on my form, but the Ventures seem to be more forgiving.
In terms of grinds it kind of feels like the Ventures might be a bit...harder? Hard to say for certain, especially because I've only skated parks on them so far, but it feels like my grinds are louder and I can feel more vibration coming through the board (I actually really like the feedback so I view this as a positive).

I think the Ventures may have extended the wheelbase a bit, the only difficulty in the transition has been that my flip tricks seem to pop a little different. I think with a few sessions I'll be able to adjust to that pretty easily.

So yeah, so far pretty happy with the transition.

[Fast_Freddie]

Since Thunder no longer makes the Team Titanium (yes they actually did) I put a set of team hollows on my Christmas list to devolve my Titanium lights back to Team Titaniums... I miss the height of the Indy, but refuse to use risers 

[diplodocus]

I just got a GX 8.5 with some mellow kicks, by far the most mellow board i've had in a while. i've heard good things about the pairings of mellow + thunders so i'm excited to set this bad boy up

[DarkPools]

I just got a GX 8.5 with some mellow kicks, by far the most mellow board i've had in a while. i've heard good things about the pairings of mellow + thunders so i'm excited to set this bad boy up

Interestingly I heard the opposite some time ago.  Heard steeper kicks and Thunders worked better, where Venture Hi and Indy are good  on mellow kicks/concave

[diplodocus]

Expand Quote

I just got a GX 8.5 with some mellow kicks, by far the most mellow board i've had in a while. i've heard good things about the pairings of mellow + thunders so i'm excited to set this bad boy up

[close]

Interestingly I heard the opposite some time ago.  Heard steeper kicks and Thunders worked better, where Venture Hi and Indy are good  on mellow kicks/concave

From my little brain of skate gear madness (learned mainly though ben degros)


Steep concave and kicks + short wb truck
Mellow concave and kicks + longer wb truck


The qualities of steep kicks work well with a short wb truck and vice versa.

I’ve heard that wide wb truck + steep can make it require too much power to pop and that too mellow and short wb trucks can make it feel like there’s no pop. Bottom line at the end of the day it’s personal preference.

[Xen]

Since Thunder no longer makes the Team Titanium (yes they actually did) I put a set of team hollows on my Christmas list to devolve my Titanium lights back to Team Titaniums... I miss the height of the Indy, but refuse to use risers 

This is the way.

[LebowskisRug]

Thunders pair well with any kicks. They're probably the most middle ground in every way imaginable. Longer than Ace/Indy but shorter than Venture. Proper mid height. Fairly generic design with no cool wings or thick ass hanger barrels. They rarely are a bad combo with a given deck even if they're not the best. That's why I love em.

If the T2 keeps this theme then we're at near perfection.