So, here's my review.
Shipping took a fair long time, but because christmas post is slower than old people trying to get up stairs, I'm still waiting on lots of things that haven't turned up yet. Grant shipped it out asap and it came in a bubble mailer, nicely packaged and was perfect when it got here. 10/10
First impressions of the deck were that it was beautiful. Really, absolutely beautiful. The split ply job he'd done for me I didn't know exactly what he was going to do it like, so, that was a great surprise when I saw that amazing bottom ply! The other plies were really nice too, with a nice maple top ply just like I like on decks. Mix that with perfect rounding, a really interesting shape, and, yea, I was really impressed with it. 10/10
Craftsmanship was really nice, great rounding as I'd said, the shape was really consistent throughout the whole deck, and it was nice and thin, in a good way. Thick decks can ruin trucks, and just don't look good, but these are thin, whilst still being 5 very solid plys. Setting up the deck, however, was where I ran into some problems. One truck went in fine, but the other truck had two screws, the two right hand side screws, that were too far towards the side of the deck, so there was too much space inbetween the left and the right screw holes. This meant the screws rather than poking through into the holes on the truck, just poked at the baseplate, and in the end, after trying two different trucks, I had to give up and just have two screws in at the back. I've heard a ton of people be happy with hard knox decks and not a single mention of anything like this, so, I actually think this was a one off. Nonetheless, it needs mentioning, because if you have loose trucks, as you turn, the baseplate wobbles, because only one side of screws could screw in. And that feels really horrible when riding. 7/10
Performance was overall really nice, despite this deck being a shape I cant begin to get used to. I like mellow concave and medium-mellow kicks, whereas this has medium-high kicks and medium concave. Also, its a fairly short, and a wide deck. On the hard knox site it says they're 31mm, but I'm pretty certain this is a 32mm, which is way too wide for me to get used to. I can actually pull out almost all my tricks on it without that much effort though, and its got a lot of pop. I mean a LOT. For a deck this light its got a ton of pop, easily ranking up there with panic, flatface, etc in terms of pop. So, I mean, it rides great, and for the popular fingerboarding shape atm.. medium concave, medium kicks, and around 32mm, these decks are great, I really think a lot of people will find they perform even better than I did. But I personally couldn't get used to the shape. One other issue I had is that on my airflo rail, which has never scratched any of my other decks, the lacquer scratched a bit, as you can see in the pictures above. Its only a teeny bit, and thats after a fair bit of sliding, so, its only a slight issue. And it shows up 100x worse in the picture because the flash brings it out, just looking at it in normal light its not that visible. And thats only an aesthetic issue, anyway. It still performs great. 8/10
Overall this deck is really good, just, a few small issues that stop it from being perfect. Namely the holes, but, I truly believe that was a one off problem, I've seen soo many happy hard knox owners that clearly have all 8 screws in the deck, so, I guess I got bad luck. The deck also has a shape I couldn't get used to entirely, but I'm fussy with shapes, and even with that, I could still use the deck fairly well and pop lots of tricks. Its got great pop and a nice feel to it, especially on mini ramps. Overall, despite the few issues I had, I think they're great decks, and for the price, you really cant go wrong. If you're looking for an interesting new deck to try, namely something wide, I'd recommend picking one up. 8/10
Go check out www.hardknoxfbs.com :)
