Skateboard Woodshops: Who are they and why do they matter so much in 2025

Skateboarding woodshops are a complex and often misunderstood side of the skateboarding deck market, with a relative lack of immediate information available, unless you go properly searching, we often have to answer questions in store about the difference in decks, whether that’s brand, quality, shape and price differences, and the answer almost always comes back to Woodshops. In this blog, we’re going to discuss all things woodshops, and if this is an area of the skateboard market you’re not massively familiar with, there’s plenty to learn.

Does Brand Matter?

The most frequently asked question about skateboard decks in store is, does brand matter? 

In short, yes and no. Brand does matter in some particular cases, however, it’s often as simple as woodshop matters, not brand. For example, some brands have specific shapes exclusive to them, meaning you won’t get that particular wood, concave and shape anywhere else. 

A perfect example of this is Baker Skateboards, the Baker OG shape is an absolute mainstay in the skateboard deck world, and a shape a lot people know and love, so if you’ve skated the Baker OG shape for years, and you’re thinking about switching, then brand does matter, as you won’t get that exact shape anywhere else, similarly with FA and Hockey Decks, and their infamous shovel nose steep concave shape, which is exclusive to them. 

Outside of an exclusive shape for a brand, which isn’t something most people are bothered about, brand absolutely does not matter, and it’s all about the woodshops these brands are produced at. Say you predominantly skate decks from BBS (we’ll discuss specific shops more later on) like a Polar or a Passport board, and you want to switch to a Sour Solution board which is made by HLC aka Jart, then these two boards will feel worlds apart, and it’s all about the wood and the molds used by the two different woodshops. 

BBS tends to have more concave than other woodshops, and the wood they use is quite rigid and snappy, giving you the most reactive pop in my opinion, but also, if you’re a board snapper like me, are susceptible to snapping, unlike HLC boards, which I would say is slightly thicker, and generally having a more mellow, get on and go concave and shape, whilst also being slightly less prone to a premature board snap. These two woodshops feel worlds apart, and if you’re unsure which would be best for you, along will all the other woodshops we’ll discuss later, we would absolutely recommend going into your local skateshop, and standing on and feeling the different options, before jumping to a decision. 

Specific Woodshops; Who does what? Where are they based and what does this mean?

BBS (Mexico) :

When going into more detail about each of the main woodshops, the only place to start is BBS (Bareback Systems). The phrase ‘there’s always a bigger fish’ is one of my favourites, and is rarely untrue, however in the case of woodshops, it absolutely isn’t. BBS is the biggest fish in the pond, without a single doubt. Over the last few years, especially since the pandemic started 5 years ago, BBS has taken more and more of stranglehold on the market, managing to take on brands who are leaving competitors such as PS Sticks who we’ll talk about later. This is mainly due to manufacturing and production issues elsewhere, again, especially during the start of the pandemic. Basically, BBS has the power to get it done, even when other shops might struggle, giving them what you could describe as a stranglehold on the market, now in 2025. There’s also now somewhat of a prestige that surrounds the BBS name, with a lot of the biggest and trendiest brands on the market all doing their business with BBS, other staple brands and newer companies popping up want this level of prestigious name on the sticker on the top of their boards, just to let you know, they’re in with the big boys. 

To list all of the brands manufactured by BBS would probably take all day, so instead, we’re going to list some of the most notable brands. Don’t be surprised if all of your favourite brands are on this list;

• Fucking Awesome
• Polar 
• Baker Boys (Baker, Deathwish, Heroin) 
• Passport
• Limosine
• Sci – Fi Fantasy 
• Magenta 
• Alien Workshop

These are just a few of the names on a very extensive list, so as you can see, BBS doesn’t mess about, and are responsible for creating some of the most popular shapes from the most popular brands about. 

If you’re at all familiar with woodshops in general, but also BBS in particular, you might be thinking, how has he missed the Deluxe brands (Real, Krooked, Antihero) from that list, Hockey too?! 

The answer to that is simple, they left. To China. The exact reason for this has never been confirmed, but in short, it’s all about cost. We’ve already mentioned that BBS is the biggest and  most prestigious name in the Woodshop world, but that also comes with the biggest cost, which we’ll discuss later on in this blog. The consistent rise in prices post pandemic, mixed with an influx of newer companies from people wanting to do their own thing, has led to the sales of full price skateboard decks stagnating somewhat, and some brands have decided to jump from the BBS ship in order to counteract this and keep the prices down. This leads us on nicely to DSM. 

DSM (China) 

DSM, along with BBS, is one of the biggest players in the woodshop market in 2025, and is only growing more and more. As mentioned in the end of the last paragraph, more and more brands are leaving BBS to go to DSM, for a multitude of reasons, so we’ll start there. 

The deluxe brands are some of the biggest brand names in skateboarding, including Real, Krooked and Antihero, and have been some of the best selling decks on the market for years and years, however at the end of 2024, they made a massive decision to move deck manufacturing to China through DSM. The same thing has now happened with Hockey, with our first Hockey boards of 2025 also being our first produced by DSM. This has come at the dismay of a fair few of those brands’ loyal supporters, with people so used to the shape and quality associated with BBS, it came as quite a shock. The reasoning for this simply comes down to cost, the price of BBS boards consistently risen for years, whether that’s down to cost of materials, or the halt in productions during Covid, who really knows, but the prices of their boards like a lot of things has just gone up and up and up. This has taken us to the point of some BBS being essentially £100, which if you told a skate shop owner that 10 years ago, they would have laughed in your face. This has led to the brands mentioned moving over to DSM in order to keep the price at £80. We know, keep the price at £80 sounds crazy, but that’s unfortunately where we’re at in 2025. So whether you’re an avid Antihero supporter, or love the shovel nose and graphics from Hockey, don’t be surprised to see a Made in China sticker on your deck in 2025. 

Unfortunately for DSM, there is a bit of a stigma that comes with anything Made in China in the skateboarding world, whether true or not, there is a common opinion that Made in China equals lesser quality, especially when brands are moving there simply to keep prices down. We don’t think Made In China comes with a guaranteed lesser quality product, but we would say there’s probably less quality control involved in the manufacturing process. 

DSM Brands: 

• Hockey
• Zero 
• Palace 
• Deluxe brands (Real, Krooked, Antihero) 
• Enjoi 
• Blind
• Almost 
• Darkstar 
• Opera 
• Jacuzzi Unlimited 

Those are only a few of the biggest names under the extensive list produced at DSM, and we would not be surprised to see some of the biggest brand names mentioned as being produced by other woodshops in this blog making the switch over to DSM, as it production and keeping the price lower than £100 a deck doesn’t seem to be an issue over there. 

PS Stix (Mexico) 

PS Stix is a very interesting woodshop, and is figureheaded by the most famous individual in the woodshop game, Professor Paul Schmitt. Professor Schmitt has been designing and creating skateboards for almost 4 decades so is quite the aficionado. PS Stix boards are known for their quality and care put into production, and is undoubtedly still one of the biggest players at the table, however, in recent years in particular, brands have been leaving PS Stix particularly in favour of BBS. This is down to PS being unable to keep up with the production demand, especially during the pandemic, which had a really massive effect on skateboard production worldwide, interestingly, it’s now some of the brands that left PS for BBS, that are making the switch over to China. 

PS Stix Brands;

• Gx1000
• Habitat
• WKND 
• Pizza 
• Thank You 
• Welcome

Even though the amount of brands produced by PS Stix isn’t what it once was, even just the name Schmitt still holds massive weight in the skateboarding woodshop industry, and if you are buying a PS board, you know you’re getting a quality board. 

If you’d like to know more about PS Stix and Professor Schmitt himself, we’re going to link an interesting video by everyone’s favourite skateboard youtube guru, Ben Degros, in which he meets Professor Schmitt and has a tour of the PS Stix factory, a very interesting watch if that’s your kind of thing. 

HLC AKA Jart (Spain) 

HLC, which is also known as Jart, is the biggest European woodshop, and is responsible for the production of some of the biggest brands in Europe and across the globe. HLC is probably most famous for its relatively mellow concave shape, particularly used by one of their biggest brands, Sour Solution. This shape is very much a get on and go kind of shape, with pretty mellow concave, and classically tapered nose and tail shapes, this is one of the best selling shapes we stock at Native and is one of the most regularly praised by customers in store. 

One of the things that makes HLC one of the best selling woodshops we have at Native, is the pricepoint, with boards from their biggest brands retailing at £64.99 full price. This is a considerable saving from the boards coming out of the previously mentioned woodshops, being around £15 cheaper than a DSM board board, and up to £30 cheaper than some of the decks coming out of BBS and PS Stix in today’s market. This is definitely a deciding factor for some people, especially since the quality of HLC is excellent given the cheaper pricepoint. 

HLC Brands; 

• Cafe
• The National 
• Sour Solution 
• Yardsale 

As well as the staple mellower concave HLC shape, some of the brands also offer higher concave alternatives, as well as square nose shapes too, offering an excellent alternative to decks from Brands such as Hockey and FA, and are well worth a try if a steeper kick and higher concave board is your jam. 

Control: 

The last individual woodshop we’re going to discuss in real detail is Control. Control is a Canadian based woodshop, and is who we use at Native to produce the wood for our shop boards. 

Using a relatively medium, get on and go kind of shape, I think most people would enjoy a Control board. There’s nothing particularly individual or special about Control boards, however, the factor that sets them apart from the rest is the pricepoint. We sell our range of shop boards at £37.99 a pop, which in today’s market is incredibly cheap. This also doesn’t mean you’re getting a poor quality board, with many of our customers raving about the shape and consistency of our shop boards. For £37.99, you’ll be hard pressed finding a better deal for a skateboard deck in 2025. 

Other notable woodshops include; 

• NHS Inc (Santa Cruz, Creature, Flip) 
• Skate One (Powell, Mini logo, Bones Brigade) 
• Woodchuck (Death) 
• South Central (Fiveboro, Killing Floor)
• Dialan Huahong (Chinese Made) (Girl, Chocolate, Skate Mental)  

If you’ve made it this far through this blog, and might be interested in learning more about Woodshops, I would recommend checking out two things, first, is the skateboarding woodshops thread on the Slap online forum. Slap has a bit of a reputation for being a negative and toxic presence in the online skateboarding community, however it’s also frequented by very knowledgeable and experienced skateboarders, and this thread is definitely one you’ll find more informative, than toxic. We’ll link the thread on the slap site below. 

Secondly, we’d definitely recommend watching Gifted Hater’s collab video on woodshops with the already mentioned Ben Degros, which is over an hour long and where they go into detail about the woodshops mentioned above, and talk about personal experiences skating the decks. This video will also be linked below; 

Slap 2025 Woodshop Directory: 

https://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=120409.msg4302889#msg4302889

Gifted Hater and Ben Degros Woodshop video:

To finish this blog, you might be intrigued to know my personal choice as best all round woodshop. 

After factoring in all the differences like price, quality, shape and brands, my best all in choice would be HLC, in particular, their high concave shapes. For £64.99 at full price, their price to quality ratio just will not be beaten, and while making boards for some of my favourite brands right now, it’s hard to look past the HLC high concave shape as the best deal for a skateboard deck on the market in my opinion.