Legendary bands such as Black Flag and Jodie Foster’s Army have also collaborated with Factory 13 Skateboards, which manufactures all of its premium skateboards in Ohio using locally sourced wood.
Many of us wish we could make a living doing the things that gave us joy as teenagers, and once we turn our youthful passion into our life’s work, fighting for fiat money can seem like no work at all.
Danny Creedon has the courage to pursue his teenage dreams. At 53, he Factory 13 Skateboardsa small independent manufacturer of skateboard decks.
“As a teenager, I really looked up to professional skateboarders because I knew this was what I was going to be doing for a living even before I got my driver’s license,” Creedon says. “In high school, I was interested in manufacturing.”
After working as a welder in and around Cleveland for 15 years, Creedon began a new career by founding Factory 13 Skateboards in the small city of Chardon, Ohio. After he stabilized the company, he set up shop in the skateboarding hotspot of Long Beach, California.
It was on the West Coast that Creedon began rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s most famous skateboarders, and a key element in building his business was emphasizing that his boards were strictly 100% American made.
“My shop specializes in custom work, and the reason my company became successful and established was because I realized I had to make boards that no one else was making,” Creedon says. “I was just a minnow in Lake Erie in Ohio, but I knew I had to make better skateboards than the cool guys in California.”
And Creadon has done it all while remaining Made in America.
“We’re as American as a Bruce Springsteen record or apple pie. We make great American products and we believe in American made,” he said. “As a craftsman, you have to take pride in what you do, and I believe in the American craftsman.”
A move to California lasted 15 years, but in 2022 Creedon moved his business back to his home state of Ohio. He now molds and manufactures skateboards in a small workshop in the city of Mentor. Creedon and his team of three other skateboard enthusiasts build between 50 and 100 boards a month.
Factory 13 manufactures skateboard decks – the surfaces that skaters stand on. What makes his decks so unique is the process of manufacturing the wood and the silk-screened artwork.
“I’m a mold maker, so if I want a certain kick or a skateboard with a certain concave shape, I know how to make it and I can make it,” Creedon said. “My manufacturing background was in welding, so I applied a lot of those skills to woodworking.”
“Once you know how to make things, it opens up a whole other world of manufacturing.”
To make a skateboard deck, seven layers of hard maple are used to create a single skateboard laminate, which is then glued together, put through a press, and finished with standard woodworking procedures such as cutting, sanding, shaping, and finishing.
All of the wood Factory 13 uses is sourced domestically from small, family-owned sawmills in Ohio, Indiana, or Pennsylvania.
The final step is to silk screen the graphics onto the board and apply a clear coat to protect the board from the weather. His unique designs with skate punk and skate rock themes have attracted the attention of professional boarders and skate punk musicians.
One of the punk bands he supports is Jodie Foster’s Army, which formed in Phoenix in the early 1980s.
“Jodie Foster’s Army is a legendary band associated with skateboarding,” Creedon says, “If you’re into rock and roll, they’re the Led Zeppelin of skateboarding. I endorse the band and I’ve even made skateboard models for them.”
“The subculture is amazing and deep. We’re pretty well-respected within the subculture.”
That awareness was further boosted by Creedon’s connection with Mike Vallely, a member of the popular skate punk band Black Flag, who worked with him to develop a line of 100% biodegradable skateboard decks.
“Mike is a legendary and highly respected professional skateboarder who contacted me because of my pretty wild work and because I’m an American boardmaker,” Creedon says. “I’d made some boards for him when I was in Long Beach, and as he’s vegan he asked if he could make some biodegradable boards.”
“Glues and compounds contain a lot of animal products, so we switched to resin products that don’t contain any animal products. Mike was a professional skateboarder before he rose to fame as lead singer replacing Henry Rollins in Black Flag.”
Skateboarding has also become more popular since it was included in the Olympic Games, and people are intrigued by videos of young boarders skating down half-pipes, in pools and on rails.
The typical size of a skateboard deck is about 10 inches wide and 33 inches long, but as a woodworker, Creadon can easily modify the standard dimensions and makes many variations on the standard sizes, so most of his creations are custom made by hand.
“People want things that are handcrafted. They want things that are made by American skateboarders,” Creedon says. “Trust me, there are a lot of people out there who don’t want some cheap machine-made crap from China or Vietnam or Mexico.”
“My work is handcrafted, handcrafted. Made by the shapers themselves, made by the artists themselves. Silkscreening is a lost art, just like the American artisans themselves.”
Making skateboard decks by hand certainly limits your ability to compete in the market with the big brands that just stamp out boards with machines. These big foreign companies can produce thousands of boards in a month.
“There are a lot of people like that, but more and more people are getting tired of it and coming to independent shapers like me,” Creedon added. “I’m called independent because I’m outside the industry, I’m independently run, and I’m not part of a big corporation.”
A standard deck from Factory 13 Skateboards costs $150, with the price increasing for custom designs, which is Creadon’s specialty.
“My products are handmade in the U.S., so they are on the higher end,” Creedon says. “I do sell to teenagers, but the majority of the men and women who buy my products are professionals or have good jobs.”
“My customers are art collectors, skateboard collectors and skateboarders. People buy boards as pieces of art. Often they buy two boards, one to ride and one to hang in their home as a piece of art.”
Factory 13 skateboard decks for sale online Company websiteAlthough a small selection of standard skateboards are available, Creadon welcomes email or phone inquiries for more information on building a custom board.
