How to Customise a Skateboard: Deck, Griptape, Trucks and Wheels

A skateboard is customised part by part: the deck, which is where the graphic goes; the griptape; and the trucks and wheels. The deck can be painted by hand, covered in vinyl or ordered already printed with your design. Griptape gets drawn on or cut up. Trucks and wheels aren't something you make: you choose them by size and colour. This guide goes through all four, what you get from each, and what it costs.

What you can customise on a skateboard

What makes a skateboard one of a kind is nearly always the deck: it's the big surface, and the one people see when the board is on a wall or under your arm. The rest customises how it rides more than how it looks.

The deck: paint it, wrap it or print it

The underside of the deck can be treated in three ways, and they don't give the same result:

• Paint it by hand. Take the trucks off, lightly sand the underside so the paint has something to grip, paint it with acrylics or acrylic paint pens, and seal it with several coats of clear varnish. It's the cheapest option and the one that takes the most hours, and the result depends on how steady your hand is. The full step-by-step, from masking to curing, is in how to paint a skateboard deck.
• Stickers and vinyl. Stickers are the classic way to customise a board, and you can change them when you get bored. A vinyl printed with your image is a job for a sign shop: what you get is a sheet stuck on top of the wood, you can feel it, and if the deck is ridden it tends to lift at the edges.
• Have it printed. The design is printed with UV inks onto a transfer film and applied to the underside of the deck — the same principle skate brands use for their graphics. That's what we do here: you design it in the online editor, see it in 3D, and the deck leaves the workshop in 72 hours.

How to prepare the image, what resolution it needs and how to compose the design are all in how to design your own skateboard deck. If you're starting from a photo, which photos look good printed on a deck covers what survives the deck's long, narrow shape. And if you're weighing up the techniques themselves, there's a comparison of printed, hand-painted and vinyl decks.

Griptape: draw on it, cut it or swap it

Griptape is the part skaters customise most, because nothing has to come off and the material is cheap. Three ways to do it:

• Draw on it. Broad-tip acrylic paint pens write well on the grit. A name, a simple logo, a stripe. The drawing lasts as long as the griptape does: it wears away where your feet go.
• Cut shapes into it. Before it goes on, cut it with a craft knife: a strip with no grip, a lightning-bolt cut-out, two colours pieced together. It's the classic trick for letting the wood of the top side show through.
• Swap it for a coloured one, or for clear griptape, which lets the top of the deck show.

If you order the printed deck here, griptape is extra (9.95 €) and arrives already fitted: whatever you draw on it is up to you.

Trucks, wheels and bearings: chosen, not made

Here, customising means picking from a catalogue: width, height, colour and hardness. Two quick rules cover almost everything:

• Trucks match the width of the deck. With an 8.0", 8.25" or 8.5" deck, trucks of that same width. Narrower or wider than the deck changes how it responds, and not for the better.
• Wheels depend on where you skate. Small and hard for the street and the skatepark; bigger and softer if the ground is rough or you'd rather cruise than do tricks. The comparator's wheel guide explains it with diameters and durometers, and compares prices between shops.

What each part does, and what to pick when you have no idea, is covered one part at a time in the beginner's guide to your first skateboard.

Plenty of skate shops have a configurator for building a complete board by picking each part. We work the other way round: the part you design is the deck, and the rest are added to the order if you want them — to every deck in the order or to none — at the same price per deck from 1 to 19:

Not on sale yet, so they have no price and can't be added to an order: complete kit, assembled · wall mount.

Customising a skateboard that's already assembled

You can, and the only tool you need is a skate tool — or a socket wrench and an adjustable spanner:

1. Take the trucks off. That's eight bolts with their nuts. Keep them: you'll be using them again.
2. Work on the underside with the deck on its own: paint, vinyl or stickers, as explained above.
3. Replace the griptape if you want to, or draw on the one that's there.
4. Put the trucks back on with the same bolts.

If what you want is a photo or a digital design in print, the shortcut is a different one: order the deck printed and move the trucks and wheels over from the old board. The same eight bolts, and ten minutes.

What it costs to customise a skateboard

• Painting the deck and the griptape yourself: whatever the paint, varnish and pens cost, plus your hours.
• Printed vinyl: whatever the sign shop charges; it depends on the size and on the shop.
• A deck printed with your design: 89 € for the deck on its own, in any of the three sizes, with free shipping in Spain (the mainland and the Balearic Islands) and from 15 € per order to the rest of the EU, depending on the country. Griptape and parts are extra, at the prices in the table above.
• Trucks, wheels and bearings: the price of the parts, here or at any skate shop.

The full breakdown, add-on by add-on, is in what a custom skateboard deck costs.

Frequently asked questions