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Drop through decks

Drop through longboards no longer attract the weird stares they did back in the day – the drop-through is now a staple longboard shape alongside the pintail or the longboard dancer.

What is a drop-through longboard?

Rather than being mounted straight to the underneath of the board – which we call a “topmounted” board – the trucks on a drop-through longboard are mounted through the deck.

You don’t need specific trucks for a drop-through – it’s the deck that’s special. Drop-through decks have a hole cut where the truck goes, and usually feature big cutouts for the wheels to avoid wheelbite.

To mount longboard trucks to a drop-through deck, you have to undo the kingpin nut and remove the top bushing, take the hanger off, mount the baseplate to the top of the drop-through hole, then stick the hanger back on again, replace the top bushing and retighten the kingpin nut.

In theory, drop-through decks work with any kind of skateboard trucks. However, we strongly recommend a proper longboard (“RKP”) truck rather than a regular “Street Style” truck. Regular Street trucks don’t turn enough for a drop-through, and often they make the board too low.

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Boards with Drop Through Trucks

Drop Through Pros and Cons

We get a lot of questions about drop-through trucks. Believe it or not, we were the first longboard company in the world to make a commercially available drop-through speedboard way back in 2000 with the first Spooky, and the legendary Kilima that followed it in 2004 was the first non-race board to feature this system.

Advantages of a drop-through mount:

  • Greater stability at speed thanks to a lower centre of gravity.
  • Lower deck makes footbraking and pushing easier.
  • Lower center of gravity makes slides easier to initiate and control

Disadvantages of drop-through mount:

  • Less grip when cornering, though you need to be right on the limit to feel it!
  • Less leverage on the trucks gives less turn. Try running higher angle trucks, 45 -50 degrees.

We recommend that you start with a drop-through for your first speedboard, as you’ll find it more stable, and easier to control your speed with footbraking, predrifts and slides. Plenty of World-Class Racers skate drop-through’s, but if you want a little more grip and that surfy feeling, you can always switch to a topmount after a year or two learning the trade.

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Lush Adjustable Drop-Through Mount

Rather than using an off-the-shelf pattern, we have designed our own drop-through mount for maximum compatibility.

With certain trucks, you have 20mm of adjustment at each of the the deck, giving you 40mm of variation in your wheelbase and THREE possible lengths.

Trucks which fit the drop though with this adjustability:

Sabre (which we ship with our completes as stock)
Paris (6 hole)
Gunmetal
Caliber (Cast and CNC)
Aera
Surf Rodz*
Kahalani*
Gullwing*
Munkae*
Bear (CNC)*
Plasma*
Road Rider*

Trucks which fit the drop though without any adjustability:

Randal
Paris (4 hole)
Holey
Revenge*
Bear (Die-Cast)*

Trucks which definitely won’t fit:

Seismic
Original
Crail

 

*We have not tested these trucks ourselves – but based on manufactuer’s descriptions they should fit accordingly. Get in touch if you own these trucks and have contrary information!

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    Longer wheelbase, Dropped Through
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    Shorter wheelbase, Dropped Through