Skateboard Bushing Guide
Here you can find out everything you need to know about skateboard bushings:
Choosing the right bushings often means that not only one or two skateboard beginners are spoiled for choice, even long-time skateboarders or professionals experiment with their equipment from time to time to find the perfect setting for them.
As with almost everything in skateboarding, there are no rules here, it's all about body weight, area of use and, above all, personal preference .
Even professionals drive their trucks from super soft to super hard. Daewon Song is known for setting his axles so loosely that he only uses one rubber on his front axle instead of the usual 2. He grinds the rubbers on the rear axle so that they become smaller and give the trucks more clearance. Unthinkable for a ramp skater like Danny Way, for stunts like jumping over the Great Wall of China he needs super stable axles to be able to stay on track at such high speeds.
Skateboard bushings, like the wheels, are made of urethane. The range of hardnesses offered ranges from around 78A to 100A, with 78A being classified as very soft and 100A as very hard.
New trucks are delivered with medium bushings as standard , i.e. medium hardness. The long-established brands such as Independent, Thunder or Venture, for example, deliver their axles with 90A bushings. This is optimal for the majority of skaters.
As already mentioned before, over the course of your skateboarding career you will find out for yourself which hardness is right for you.
For skateboard beginners, here is a list of the optimal hardness levels to get started:
For children or lighter skaters up to approx. 40 kilos, we recommend rubbers with a hardness of 78A to 88A.
From 40 to 80 kilos bushings with 90A to 92A.
From a body weight of 80 kilos, hard rubber bushes with 94A to 100A are suitable.
Which bushings fit my axles:
Even though there are many suppliers of bushings and most manufacturers of skateboard trucks offer their own replacement rubbers, you don't need to be afraid of buying the wrong ones. The size of the rubbers is largely standardized and you can screw the bushings from any brand onto your axles. So it's no problem, for example, to screw independent bushings onto a Thunder axle and vice versa.
The inner diameter of steering rubbers is specified by the kingpin at 10 millimeters; the height of the upper rubber is usually 12 millimeters and that of the lower rubber is 14 millimeters.
Bushings squeak:
New, not yet run-in bushings in particular can squeak. This is completely normal and usually becomes less the longer you drive the axles. However, it may be that the squeaking noise never goes away completely. If this bothers you, it helps to put a drop of ball bearing oil between the rubbers, the axle hanger and the washers.
If the board doesn't go straight or pulls to one side:
Here you should first rule out other factors that could cause your board to pull to the left or right when it is pushed without any load. A warped deck, broken ball bearings, a broken pivot cup, or even a bent axle can be the reason. If none of these cases apply, it is most likely due to your rubbers. Especially new bushings that have not yet been run in tend to get stuck as soon as the axle is relieved of the load. This usually resolves itself over time. But the all-clear can also be given here because as soon as you put even a little weight on the board, the board behaves completely normally when steering.
You can find our entire bushing range here:
