Classic Wheel Diagrams

Unearthed from the archives at NCDSA.com, I’ve found several cutaway diagrams of classic skateboard wheels:

This is the classic Sector9 Nineball shape, seen on many of their OEM completes in the 2000s. As of this writing (September 2022), you can still find these at Sector9.com

The classic Kryptonics 70mm shape. If we take the bearings as 22mm diameter and the spacer at .300″ wide, this should scale up correctly.

These are the Kryptonics Classic K’s that I learned – purely sideset, with that inner bearing smacked up at the inside edge of the wheel

This is the Classic K shape in a centerset hub. I’m really reaching back here, but I think these were in the Kryptonics Hawaii K’s of the late 90s and early 00s.

The icon Road Rider 4s

I’m not gonna lie, I have no idea what these wheels are. Black Twenty-nine Snake Eyes, obviously, but I don’t know anything of their significance or historical value.

An advert from the 70s showing the size differential between many of the most popular wheels of the time. OJ’s were reissued in a near-identical form by Santa Cruz sometime around 2010 or 2011, Yoyos were still being produced a few years ago, but I can’t find them anywhere. The Bones shape lives on at Powell/Peralta. And, the Kryptonics shown here are not the shape in the diagrams above, but are reissued as Kryptnics Star Tracks.

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The $2 Bearing Press

Purchased from your local hardware store!

What will you need?
-5/16-18×2″ bolt
-5/16-18 wingnut
-Two old skate bearings
-Skate Tool

But why?
Sure, you could just mash the wheels into the bearings using your trucks…but that has the drawback of putting all of the force onto the inner bearing races, which can cause brinneling, and lead to increased friction, premature wear and tear, and ultimately, slower speeds and less longevity. A commercial, shop-quality bearing press works on the principle of pressing the outer race into the wheel core, which means that there isn’t any inadvertent wear-and-tear on the innards of the bearing, and that the bearings will be properly seated, as perpendicular as possible to the axle. Oh yeah, that’s another thing too: Mashing the wheels onto the bearings, especially when using high-quality wheels like Spitfire or Bones can mean that the bearings don’t sit perpendicular to the wheel core. Using a press will alleviate that concern, at least a little. I like buying quality and taking care of my goods, so I devised this bearing press of my own accord.

Take your old bearing and slide it onto the 2″ bolt…This will act as a support for the new, good bearing that you’re going to install:

As pictured above, when the old bearing is on the bolt, get your good bearings (the blue ones) ready to go. We’ll be including a spacer here for good practice. Slide the good bearing onto the bolt, so that the blue part is touching the old bearing, then slide the bearing spacer onto the bolt as well. This provides an interface for the wheel to slide onto as well. Don’t worry about tightening the wheel too much at this point.

Once you get the wheel snugged onto the first good bearing, slide the second one onto the wheel, as pictured above. If you spend some time getting these lined up properly, that’ll provide a good, solid, secure interface between the wheel core and the bearings. What this translates to is faster speeds and less wear and tear on your bearings.

Get your second old bearing set up in place on the bolt, then get the wingnut snugged into place Shouldn’t be too hard, the length of the bolt should allow a thread or two to stick out and grab onto the wingnut.

From there, bust out your skate tool. My trusty Alpha Micro helped out taking these pictures. Use the leverage from the skate tool on the bolt’s head as well as the wingnut to press those good (again, blue) bearings in place. When they’re properly seated, remove the wingnut and enjoy your handiwork.

Hi Kids, I’m A Bushing

Hi Kids, I’m A Wheel

Below, we have an example of centerset and sideset from Abec11’s wheel lineup:  Left to right, we have the Noskool shape, the Grippin shape (basically a Noskool shape with square lips…move the core to the very edge of the wheel for a Flashback shape, as seen in the red sideset wheel above), a Striker or Freeride shape, and a Flywheel core.  Though, looking at the diagrams from SteveC, it looks a LOT like he borrowed from the Abec11 diagrams as well.

Below, we have some heavily worn wheels from Mig at Fullbag Skates, so you can see how wheels wear directly under the bearing seat.

Hi Kids, I’m A Bearing!