Factory 13 Non Conformist Skateboards! There’s a guy in shed somewhere behind field out in the middle of a nowhere called rural Ohio. In stead of the staccato of banjo strings and the theme from Deliverance, you’ll more likely hear punk rock and some powerful urgent sandin’, drillin’, cuttin’ and paintin’, cause this factory makes the finest custom skateboards this side of anywhere. Drawing heavy influence from the early to mid eighties, Factory 13 is like the Noah’s arc of skateboarding in today’s 40 day and night deluge of popsicle stick boards. Basically, you think of just about any shape, size, kicktail, nose, and concave combination and Danny and crew will build it for you, including the hard to find looooong wheelbase. Seriously, you can send him a paper towel with an outline scribbled on it in crayon and receive a custom board for around the price of a mass produced deck at some shops. Factory 13 presses their own outlaw wood and distributes it to the underground. If you don’t have the craving to make your own pro model you can pick one of the factory shapes like a true hammerhead repro or one of several JFA models like the liquor store runner.
I ordered this hammerhead after being bored on the internet one day. i was looking at the Krooked Hosoi hybrid guest model hammerhead as well as scoping out some eBay action, and all of the sudden I determined that I needed one for myself. So I ordered it. I called up my buddy to tell him about it and he said “dude, those things have no nose.” I remembered them having a big nose, but then again I stopped riding the originals ovrer 10 years ago! Low and behold, this hammerhead was pretty true to the original single kick model. It’s got a nice feel though, and classic lines. It’s soid as a tank too. If you are in love with the shape but aren’t into yester-year’s flat and short noses, you can always order a custom job from Factory 13.
Factory 13 also specializes in zine-style cut and paste, xero-repro schizoid collage graphics that would make Winston Smith drop into the deep end. Just like a bitchin’ van, custom paint jobs and shag grip tape are available as accessories. Decks tend to be heavy duty and thus do not lend themselves to flippy street tricks, which is how they like it. Check out Factory 13 Skateboards at www.bowlrider.com/factory13 Make sure you dig deep to find all the goodies. My favorite is the Mark Lake Nightmare shape with the swastika made out of a gay pride flag, a twisted classic. If you throw him an extra bone, Danny will take a picture of himself making your custom order while sporting plastic JFK hair a la Devo. Although I’m still waiting for mine…