Galaxy Skateboards

These images were sparked by a post in the Vintage Skatemag Gallery for a board called the Chaka Zulu. I had a vague recollection of these advertisements from back in the day as being some sort of foil clad foam core deck, but I wasn’t sure. Nathan McDernott saw the post and sent in some pictures of his Galaxy board collection. He has confirmed that these are foam core boards clad in a thin sheet of aluminum. He also mentioned there were some Nash skateboards made with the same technology. Texas Rec Corporation was the manufacturer of the Galaxy skateboards, and their mailing address in Wichita Falls, Texas is about 120 miles from Nash’s location in Fort Worth. These two companies are separate entities, so the Nash models might have come about through geographical proximity and one company or the other reaching out for more business. Both Nash and Texas Rec are still in business, primarily making water sports accessories, with Nash tending towards the more active items you might ride on, while Texas Rec makes a lot of lounge chairs and life jacket related items.

The art on some of these Galaxy boards is pretty ornate, and presented almost like full page illustrations in an art history book instead of typical skateboard graphics. The graphic must have been applied on the metal itself before being adhered to the foam Most designs look like the are 4 color process prints compared to the spot color screens used on screen printed boards. If you recall foam core boards from Santa Cruz, those had a simple, oversized clear decal applied to a white foam deck. The Chaka Zulu advert dates to 1986. Just like the Santa Cruz foam core decks, these decks were likely intended to be used on vert.

This one is called the Magnificent, and it is, as far as typical skateboard art goes.

This one is called Nuada of the Silverarn

Were sales slumping? Here’s a Rambo model that seems very out of place on this expensive construction.

Two versions of a Nash branded Afterburner model with fairly straight forward, generic graphics.

And here the art department at Galaxy have truly lost it. The “Rad” model looks like it was copied from graffiti in a high school textbook. Looks more like something you’d expect from Nash at the time.

Label on the tail. Oooh! Ball bearing wheels!

The patent #4250585 is for “Water skis having a reinforced, foamed-in-place, plastic hull bonded to an aluminum deck”

Abstract

Water skis (1) are constructed with a reinforced, foamed-in-place, plastic hull (6) bonded to an aluminum deck (5 l ). The foamed plastic hull (6) is reinforced, usually with a plurality of reinforcing elements (13-17). Preferably, the aluminum deck (5) is directly bonded to foamed plastic hull (6) without the use of any intermediate adhesives. Desirably, the lower surface of aluminum deck (5) is surface activated and primed before use.