Your Guide to Skateboard Hardware Nomenclature

Based in the epicenter of skateboarding in Southern California, Mudge Fasteners has been providing bulk, packaged and custom skateboard hardware to the industry for over 30 years. Most skateboarders know fasteners by the way their industry labels them, using terms like mounting hardware, axle nuts, kingpins and kingpin nuts, speed washers, and Shorty’s bolts. However, if you asked anyone in the fastener industry to identify parts by these names, they’d think you were speaking a foreign language. To help cut down on confusion between skateboard industry trade names for fasteners and their technical (and technically correct) fastener industry trade names, we’ll review a few of the more common parts and compare the two ways of naming them.

The most common skateboard fastener is what the skateboard industry calls “mounting hardware”. This is the assembly of fasteners that holds trucks to the deck. Mounting hardware consists of a mounting bolt and mounting nut. A mounting bolt’s technical name is a 10-32 flat head machine screw, with either a phillips or hex socket drive. The 10 represents the diameter and the 32 is the thread pitch. A hex socket drive is always called an allen drive in skateboarding, and these machine screws are paired with a 10-32 nylon insert locknut to complete the assembly. Some variations on this assembly can be seen in skateboarding , such as “Shorty’s style” machine screws, which consist of a smaller, #8 size head and a partially threaded shaft. If the fasteners are to be used for longboard skateboards, the user may opt for a phillips pan head on the machine screw instead of a flat head.

Both axle nuts and kingpin nuts are thin pattern variations of nylon insert locknuts in 5/16-24 and 3/8-24, respectively, where the 5/16 and 3/8 represent the diameter and both feature a thread pitch of 24 TPI (threads per inch). A kingpin, which is the primary fastener that secures a skateboard truck’s axle to its base, is technically a 3/8-24 2” long hex cap screw with zinc plating.

Some skateboarders like to use what they refer to as “speed washers” between the ball bearing that sit inside the wheels and the truck hanger and/or axle nut. Speed washers are a custom sized flat washers that have an inner diameter of .324", an outer diameter of .409", and a thickness of .030". These washers are typically coated in black oxide or zinc silver.

If you have any questions about skateboard hardware or would like to get a quote, visit the Mudge Hardware skateboard-specific website, or contact us at (800) 634-0406.

Kyle DomerJune 1, 2022