DLX boards now made in China

[Fifty8mm]

All I've been skating most of the year is DSM boards.  I brok one in 2 or 3 years. I had 5 BBS decks break on me within a month and a half or 2 months.  They did feel lighter and crisp though.

With that being said if i landed bolts everytime, all i would skate would be Gerwer or Cardiel boards.  China DSM are great boards but definately feel completely different from bbs decks.

[PatrickSkateman]

I’ve honestly liked the Choc boards I’ve been riding better than the BBS boards. BBS boards seem to get soggy and feel waterlogged faster.

Crail boards stay snappy.

[WideFeet]

Oh boy. For all the china wood haters out there, plenty of shops us generator wood.

Are you telling people to buy shop decks, or are you implying Generator is Chinese wood?

[Mbrimson88]

Debated putting this in the woodshop thread but feel like it deserves its own discussion.

The recent DLX prebook has about 70% of the boards listed as Made in China. They cost roughly the same as a pre-Covid DLX board while the BBS boards are 30-40% more expensive.

From our rep:

In a bold but completely logical move, Deluxe have set up an Asia based board manufacturer to counter the ongoing board price increases from their primary factory. These boards are significantly cheaper and are set up with Deluxe's custom shapes and molds. For the purists, favorites like the AH Classic Eagles are still made in North America.

How long until every company moves the bulk of operations to Asia?

I am curious to hear more.

What country are you in or continent are you on?


With some brands and distributors, certain countries or continents get different wood, but for DLX it has always been the one standard product for global release.

Guessing things are getting harder, margins getting tighter and all that too.


DLX product here in Australia has definitely gone up a whole lot recently, almost priced some people I know out of buying their boards, but it has always been easy to know what I was getting, when compared to any other brand.

[LebowskisRug]

I was told by a source that worked at Tum Yeto, Watson, and Generator at points in time that BBS apparently was having trouble sourcing glue. Apparently the glue they were using was somehow not cool with regulations (not sure if in US or Mexico) hence people reporting snapping boards and general supply issues during Covid. While this is just what someone told me and is unverified, I wonder if whatever factories in China are using has a higher QC, availability, and compliance.

With that said and shapes aside no one I know that has tried a current Crail or Chinese board has had anything but positive things to say.

[Richard Skidder]

It’s confirmed through our rep pretty much everything OP said. The only difference being our rep said they will be made “over seas” so exactly what OP said.

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

I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up. 

[breezy_again]

It’s only international shops that are getting the cheaper option of china made decks since the shipping cost to get them from mexico is so high.

[LebowskisRug]

I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[manysnakes]

Expand Quote

I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[Síota]

Not to turn this into a bike thread but I will gladly buy a USA made frame (S&M bmx), forks, bars etc over Taiwan. I have two so I'm probably a good for life.
I'm not American btw.

[munchbox]

are the misregistered eagles china made now?

[Mbrimson88]

are the misregistered eagles china made now?

I gather from what they said, all boards in USA are still BBS made.  Only boards in other parts of the world will be from China and even then it is some, but I don't know any details as to what, other than the usual eagles will stay all BBS for us here in AU.

Guessing it is Europe, Asia, AU and similar places that will get the mixed drops, as said USA still all BBS boards, for now.


Also I don't even know if those shorter molds will still be called or have graphics with "Misregistered eagles" as they had done the tapes graphic and then another one on the shorter shapes - curbs graphic or something I can't recall right this minute, so I am guessing you will have to check the certain graphics in each catalog for the shorter shapes.

Already I have seen some different graphics listed as the different shapes, so I am not sure if that is a shop error, or they are doing certain graphics on both tru fit / shorter boards as well as regular boards.

Something to watch and check anyway.

[LebowskisRug]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[S.]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[peterpenis]

In Germany the prices for dlx boards have steadily increased over the last couple of years and the latest dlx drop was priced at 85€. Many people just couldn't justify paying those prices anymore. A shop board while also getting pricier is at 50€.

If dlx is not able to offer boards from bbs for a price which customers are willing to pay, looking for a cheaper wood shop is the only way I guess.

Everything is getting more expensive and wages are not keeping up.

[LebowskisRug]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

[rocklobster]

My guess is that the DSM woodshops have way too much spare capacity since Dwindle shuttered Enjoi, Blind and Almost (probably on the cusp), and offered US brands very attractive rates and MOQs to poach orders from Generator. Plus they can ship direct from China to overseas distributors helping to lower the landed costs to distributors and shops.

[PatrickSkateman]

I wouldn’t be surprised if making boards more accessible skaters coming from lower income brackets.

Deck prices skyrocketing adds a barrier to entry for new skaters.

When Dwindle started having boards produced in China back in ‘02, they were able to charge $35 per deck when everyone else was charging $50.

[Gary Gloverberg]

Max Schaaf of Real

[S.]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[close]

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

I looked up emissions of goods transported on cargo ships vs emission of transportation by truck. You are correct. Trucks cause about 20 times more CO2 emissions per ton than large cargo ships do. Still the CO2 footprint of a Chinese deck has to be way higher. You still have to get all the wood to a port first and from Chine ports to the factory in China and back. Additionally for a Chinese produced deck you have more than 12 000 miles on cargo ships (take wood from USA/Canada to China and transport finished decks back to US).

[Pasta Monster]

Expand Quote

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[close]

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

[close]

I looked up emissions of goods transported on cargo ships vs emission of transportation by truck. You are correct. Trucks cause about 20 times more CO2 emissions per ton than large cargo ships do. Still the CO2 footprint of a Chinese deck has to be way higher. You still have to get all the wood to a port first and from Chine ports to the factory in China and back. Additionally for a Chinese produced deck you have more than 12 000 miles on cargo ships (take wood from USA/Canada to China and transport finished decks back to US).

Would they really transport wood? Guitars made in Asia tend to use basswood instead of maple and poplar that MIA guitars tend to be made of. Wouldn’t woodshops in China just source whatever wood is available domestically?

[manysnakes]

Expand Quote

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[close]

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

[close]

I looked up emissions of goods transported on cargo ships vs emission of transportation by truck. You are correct. Trucks cause about 20 times more CO2 emissions per ton than large cargo ships do. Still the CO2 footprint of a Chinese deck has to be way higher. You still have to get all the wood to a port first and from Chine ports to the factory in China and back. Additionally for a Chinese produced deck you have more than 12 000 miles on cargo ships (take wood from USA/Canada to China and transport finished decks back to US).

[close]

Would they really transport wood? Guitars made in Asia tend to use basswood instead of maple and poplar that MIA guitars tend to be made of. Wouldn’t woodshops in China just source whatever wood is available domestically?

DSM makes price point decks from other woods, but their high quality stuff is always Canadian maple. There’s no way that DLX is going to be selling top shelf decks made from anything less.

[LebowskisRug]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[close]

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

[close]

I looked up emissions of goods transported on cargo ships vs emission of transportation by truck. You are correct. Trucks cause about 20 times more CO2 emissions per ton than large cargo ships do. Still the CO2 footprint of a Chinese deck has to be way higher. You still have to get all the wood to a port first and from Chine ports to the factory in China and back. Additionally for a Chinese produced deck you have more than 12 000 miles on cargo ships (take wood from USA/Canada to China and transport finished decks back to US).

[close]

Would they really transport wood? Guitars made in Asia tend to use basswood instead of maple and poplar that MIA guitars tend to be made of. Wouldn’t woodshops in China just source whatever wood is available domestically?

They can also grow and farm trees. China is an insanely massive country with climates suitable for a large number of hardwoods.

I mean, a lot of times food at a Farmer's Market can have a higher carbon footprint than things sold in large retailers. Its not always intuitive at first. Like, we don't know what type of power plants power factories in Mexico or China. We don't know how the glue is made in either place and what environmental externalities that has. Without knowing these and other facts its naive at best to try to make a claim about sustainability. Just because Mexico is closer to the United States doesn't really mean anything about carbon footprint, the quality of goods, or labor practices in factories. Mexico also produces an insane amount of low quality knock off pharmaceuticals of questionable purity whereas many Chinese supplement companies have large operations to test for quality and purity, for example.

I was told by a former Clutch employee that sometimes their presses would slightly malfunction and they would pile weights on top to press decks or people would stand on top to add weight.  Apparently the glue being used is banned in the United States as well. Could be bullshit, but I know an individual that spent time working at Ermico and things didn't seem rosy there either.

[S.]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[close]

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

[close]

I looked up emissions of goods transported on cargo ships vs emission of transportation by truck. You are correct. Trucks cause about 20 times more CO2 emissions per ton than large cargo ships do. Still the CO2 footprint of a Chinese deck has to be way higher. You still have to get all the wood to a port first and from Chine ports to the factory in China and back. Additionally for a Chinese produced deck you have more than 12 000 miles on cargo ships (take wood from USA/Canada to China and transport finished decks back to US).

[close]

Would they really transport wood? Guitars made in Asia tend to use basswood instead of maple and poplar that MIA guitars tend to be made of. Wouldn’t woodshops in China just source whatever wood is available domestically?

[close]

They can also grow and farm trees. China is an insanely massive country with climates suitable for a large number of hardwoods.

I mean, a lot of times food at a Farmer's Market can have a higher carbon footprint than things sold in large retailers. Its not always intuitive at first. Like, we don't know what type of power plants power factories in Mexico or China. We don't know how the glue is made in either place and what environmental externalities that has. Without knowing these and other facts its naive at best to try to make a claim about sustainability. Just because Mexico is closer to the United States doesn't really mean anything about carbon footprint, the quality of goods, or labor practices in factories. Mexico also produces an insane amount of low quality knock off pharmaceuticals of questionable purity whereas many Chinese supplement companies have large operations to test for quality and purity, for example.

I was told by a former Clutch employee that sometimes their presses would slightly malfunction and they would pile weights on top to press decks or people would stand on top to add weight.  Apparently the glue being used is banned in the United States as well. Could be bullshit, but I know an individual that spent time working at Ermico and things didn't seem rosy there either.

Why are you trying so hard to defend Chinese manufacturing? Your arguments are anecdotal at best. They do import wood. DSM tells us with a video on their website. „…We go to great lengths to import all our maple from the Great Lakes region in southern Canada“ (Mullen, 1:20).

Also if you look on most Chinese produced decks they will have a „Canadian maple“ sticker on them.

[Síota]

^ Dude you believe that Canadian maple sticker?

[Mean salto]

Does Canadian maple have to mean from Canada or is it just a term for that species of tree?

[Ghost Face]

Does Canadian maple have to mean from Canada or is it just a term for that species of tree?

a quick google give this info: https://treecanada.ca/resources/canadas-arboreal-emblems/maple/

"There are more than 100 different species of maple around the world, 10 of which are native to Canada: sugar, black, silver, bigleaf, red, mountain, striped, Douglas, vine, and Manitoba."

And then there's the whole "Hard Rock Maple / Rock Hard Maple is actually Burch" situation.

[LebowskisRug]

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I’m curious how long it takes them to get up to speed and the QC dialed in China.  I’m assuming it’s not easy getting everything set up.

[close]

The opposite- Chinese manufacturing is really quick and easy to scale up and QC varies by how much you want to pay of course.

Most expensive bike frames are made in China or Taiwan and no other countries can compete with the consistency and QC at scale as well as the cost of constantly altering molds or creating supply. There are a few companies that have been around a long time that are made elsewhere. Quality has evolved a ton in the past decade as well.

These Chinese factories are making an insane amount of boards. Lots of more generic graphics and shapes for large companies have been made there for a while and lots of non US market decks are as well. You might not like Crail or DSM, but they make a very large number of skateboards sold. It's likely their factories are larger and probably most flexible than BBS. Just look at BBS generics they're almost all the same molds where many companies made in China have their own unique shapes even for generic/team decks.

[close]

Agreed with all of this. It was always so funny in the bike industry to wait eight months to get a production frame from Waterford/Gunnar (RIP), only for the dropouts to be out of alignment and to find bubbles in the TIG weld (and for Richard Schwinn to tell me it's not his problem). Meanwhile, someone like QBP is shipping thousands of flawless and functionally identical frames from Maxway in Taiwan direct to dealers.

[close]

I don't know if you follow Hambini but it's amusing when he scans frames and checks for alignment and dimensional issues and the cheap no name brands are better than Cervelo. 

And to the other poster you can buy USA that's your prerogative and I can't comment on BMX bikes but most road bikes and many road bikes are better when they're coming from a large overseas factory. Merida makes the majority of carbon frames and has better QC and production than Trek, which was USA made last I checked.

Even for design there is much easier access to high powered computing necessary for FEA and engineering modeling abroad.

Skateboards are just glue and wood pressed together. It's technically not that hard to do. It is likely harder to control curing, the force of presses, and invest resources into new materials or methods.

I just hope the shapes don't dramatically change. I'm sure it was a pain for DLX to invest in all the new Truefit molds from BBS.

[close]

The argument against China made products goes beyond just the quality of the products. There is a reason to move production to china, it is because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? You pay much less money for the workers and there are less regulations about labor in general and protecting the environment. It is pretty fucked up. You exploit these conditions to make a cheap product ant then you take that product and sell it to people in western countries, who don‘t have to suffer the consequences of those working conditions.

Another argument is that it is worse for C02 emissions. Essentially they have to ship North American maple to China and then they ship the boards back to American distributions. That‘s much worse for CO2 emissions than a production that is done entirely in North America.

Another reason for BBS partial move to China might be, that they will have rely less on BBS for their orders. This will make them more flexible and give them more power negotiating prices and conditions for orders from BBS. If BBS wants to raise prices or put pressure on DLX they could just get more boards from their Chinese factory. It this was the reason there might be hope for DLX boards by BBS, yet.

[close]

I don't disagree that there are externalities, but in skateboarding the worry always seems to be in terms of quality.

Also, there's not necessarily any reason to believe emissions are lower. Boards from Mexico are often shipped on truck or air freight, which has higher emissions but is a shorter distance.

[close]

I looked up emissions of goods transported on cargo ships vs emission of transportation by truck. You are correct. Trucks cause about 20 times more CO2 emissions per ton than large cargo ships do. Still the CO2 footprint of a Chinese deck has to be way higher. You still have to get all the wood to a port first and from Chine ports to the factory in China and back. Additionally for a Chinese produced deck you have more than 12 000 miles on cargo ships (take wood from USA/Canada to China and transport finished decks back to US).

[close]

Would they really transport wood? Guitars made in Asia tend to use basswood instead of maple and poplar that MIA guitars tend to be made of. Wouldn’t woodshops in China just source whatever wood is available domestically?

[close]

They can also grow and farm trees. China is an insanely massive country with climates suitable for a large number of hardwoods.

I mean, a lot of times food at a Farmer's Market can have a higher carbon footprint than things sold in large retailers. Its not always intuitive at first. Like, we don't know what type of power plants power factories in Mexico or China. We don't know how the glue is made in either place and what environmental externalities that has. Without knowing these and other facts its naive at best to try to make a claim about sustainability. Just because Mexico is closer to the United States doesn't really mean anything about carbon footprint, the quality of goods, or labor practices in factories. Mexico also produces an insane amount of low quality knock off pharmaceuticals of questionable purity whereas many Chinese supplement companies have large operations to test for quality and purity, for example.

I was told by a former Clutch employee that sometimes their presses would slightly malfunction and they would pile weights on top to press decks or people would stand on top to add weight.  Apparently the glue being used is banned in the United States as well. Could be bullshit, but I know an individual that spent time working at Ermico and things didn't seem rosy there either.

[close]

Why are you trying so hard to defend Chinese manufacturing? Your arguments are anecdotal at best. They do import wood. DSM tells us with a video on their website. „…We go to great lengths to import all our maple from the Great Lakes region in southern Canada“ (Mullen, 1:20).

Also if you look on most Chinese produced decks they will have a „Canadian maple“ sticker on them.

Canadian Maple in some cases is a term for a variety of wood- it doesn't have to be grown there. Pretty well known in woodworking just like African Mahogany doesn't have to be grown in Africa. I just bought some last week that is from Central America.

I'm not necessarily trying to defend China, Slap is just xenophobic against China often without any information and talk out of their asses.

[Ok]

this thread has been very informative, thanks ya’ll.

i do not really like bbs boards, and during the pandemic they were worse (felt off/half-baked/mushy).

i’d much prefer a pgi/dsm deck. i don’t need/like steep kicks, but dailan boards are very consistent, and long lasting.

my strong preference is to buy as locally as possible, generally for jobs/working conditions, but also environmental concerns. interesting to read well informed ideas that the environmental concerns are not always assuaged by local manufacturing.

the xenophobia is true and real. the qc concerns are largely ironed out.
manufacturing in china, to me, still represents a large degree of prioritizing corporation’s profits, at the expense of local jobs, and possibly/probably being exploitative of a workforce elsewhere.
milwaukee makes a decent work glove, or, i should say, milwaukee has a decent work glove, for sale at home depot, that was possibly made by slave labor in china. fits well, lasts, and isn’t terribly expensive. still bad.