My new board finally arrived. This is a custom birch laminate (not plywood) board made by Trent Hink. Trent was down here last year and spent some time riding with Scott and the other skyway boys and girls. I wanted a board to get me through the light winds in the summer and he suggested a 150x46. Sounded perfect so I sent payment ($230 + shipping), told him which color and straps I wanted, and in 3 weeks I had the board!

One look tells you this guy pays attention to detail. The board is flawless. The board edge and rails are turned down nicely and the finish it top notch. There are no rough edges anywhere on this board and its as smooth as a baby's butt. It has a very mild rocker and concave.

It's a little more flexable than I thought it would be, but I don't see this as unusual considering the size and construction of the board. The weight of the board is right at 12 pounds which is about 2 to 3 pounds heavier than my Slingshot SX132 (really small board). In my hand the board does not feel any different than my slingshot.

Pictures are below. Sorry for the crappy blurry pictures, but my daughter broke my digital camera and I had to use my crummy camera phone. The board looks MUCH better than the photos.








If you want one of these boards, contact hink_trent@yahoo.com. I'm planning to do a quick comparison between the Anomaly, a skim board, and some other light wind boards from the locals. Should be fun. This board will do great.

-tom

wicken pricing
,

tad heavy at 12 lbs but can't beat the pricing

Are the screw holes on the bottom countersunk and laminated over?

I may be a little off on the weight... I used a bathroom scale and took the difference of my weight with and without the board. As for the screws, yes they are countersunk, but not laminated over.

-tom

You did not pay for this, did you????

Oh boy, you are easy to satisfy...I have a binbag, you could buy as a kite for...let´s say $350??? I´d throw in a coathanger as a bar for free

Hope you enjoy the board, Tom. Let us know how it rides.

Not too constructive on your criticism, ravenboardz, you jealous or what?

This board weighs 11 pounds on my scale. That's the complete board including all the hardware like it is shown in Tom's pictures. Sure it is a little bit heavy, but you have to keep in mind it is a very large board and it will have you cruising upwind when other boards will not. By the time other boards are just barely holding ground upwind, this thing will have you doing good jumps.

If you don't like the weight, I make one with corecell and biaxial glass that weighs just 8 pounds ready to ride. The foam-core version is not inexpensive like Tom's board is. The foam board makes a difference only when you really know how to "work" the board in light wind. It is also a little less forgiving than the wood board in stronger winds.

In my experience, for jumping you will hardly notice the 3 pound difference. The lightweight version is still a big board.

For the wood boards, the smaller sizes have much better weights. Once you get the size down to about 135x38, my wood boards weigh about the same as production made fiberglass boards that cost nearly three times more.

There are some better-quality pictures of different boards posted at:
http://gallery.kiteforum.com/gallery/vi ... me=albup46
The half-dozen or so near the bottom are recently taken.

Trent Hink