Legendary bands like Black Flag and Jodie Foster’s Army are among those who have collaborated with Factory 13 Skateboards, which makes all of its high-end boards in Ohio, using wood that is sourced locally.
Many of us would like to be able to make a living by doing the things that gave us joy when we were teenagers. Turning those youthful passions into our life’s work makes it seem like our struggle for the legal tender is not really work at all.
Danny Creadon has dared to follow his adolescent dream. At the age of 53, he is the owner of Factory 13 Skateboards, a small independent manufacturer of skateboard decks.
“When I was in my teenage years, I really looked up to the professional skaters because I knew, before I had a driver’s license, that this would be my career someday,” Creadon said. “I was looking at manufacturing when I was in high school.”
After a 15-year stint as a welder in and around Cleveland, Creadon began a new career by starting Factory 13 Skateboards in the small Ohio city of Chardon. He got his company on solid ground before bringing his workshop to where the skateboarders were: Long Beach, California.
It was on the West Coast where Creadon began to rub elbows with the world’s best-known skateboarders. A significant factor in building his business was stressing that his boards were strictly 100% American-made.
“My shop focuses on custom work, and the reason my company took off and was able to gain ground is that I realized I had to make boards that no one else would make,” Creadon said. “In Ohio, I was just a minnow in Lake Erie, but I knew I had to make a skateboard better than the cool guys in California.”
And Creadon did it all by keeping it Made in America.
“We are as American as a Bruce Springsteen record and apple pie. We create a great American product, and we believe in American made,” he said. “As a craftsman, you have to have pride in what you do. I believe in the American craftsman.”
The move to California lasted 15 years before Creadon returned his business to his home state of Ohio in 2022. Today, he shapes and manufactures skateboards out of a small workshop in the city of Mentor. With his team of three other skateboard aficionados, Creadon manufactures from 50 to 100 skateboards a month.
Factory 13 makes skateboard decks, which is the surface that a skater stands on. What makes his decks so unique is the process by which he manufactures the wood and the artwork he applies using a silk screen method.
“I am a mold maker, so if I want a skateboard with a certain kick on it or a certain kind of concave profile, I can do that because I know how to make it” Creadon said. “My manufacturing background was in welding, so I just applied a lot of those skills to woodworking.
“When you know how to make things, that opens up a whole other world of manufacturing.”
Constructing the skateboard decks involves using seven layers of hard maple to make one skateboard laminate. They are glued together, put into a press, and then finished with standard woodworking procedures like cutting, sanding, shaping, and finishing.
All the wood used by Factory 13 is sourced domestically, at small mom-and-pop mills in Ohio, Indiana, or Pennsylvania.
The final steps are silk screening the graphic onto the board and applying a layer of clear coat to protect it from the weather. His unique designs involving skate punk or skate rock themes have attracted attention from professional boarders and skate punk musicians.
One of the punk bands he has endorsed is Jodie Foster’s Army, which formed in Phoenix in the early 1980s.
“Jodie Foster’s Army is a legendary skateboard related band,” Creadon said. “If you are into rock and roll, they are the Led Zeppelin in skateboarding. I endorse the band, and I do a model skateboard for them.
“The subculture is amazing and so deep. We have pretty good recognition in the subculture.”
That recognition was fueled by Creadon’s relationship with Mike Vallely, a member of the popular skate punk band Black Flag. Creadon collaborated with Vallely on a 100% biodegradable skateboard deck.
“Mike is a highly regarded, legendary professional skateboarder and he contacted me because of my pretty wild stuff and because I’m an American board maker,” Creadon said. “We did some boards when I was in Long Beach, and because he is all vegan and vegetarian he asked if I could do a board that was biodegradable.
“There are a lot of animal products in the adhesives and compounds, so I switched to a full resin product that contained no animal products. Mike was a professional skateboarder before he became known as the lead singer who replaced Henry Rollins in Black Flag.”
Skateboarding has also grown in popularity with the inclusion of the sport in the Olympic Games. People are intrigued by the videos of younger boarders riding the half-pipe, pools, or rails.
The general size of a skateboard deck is approximately 10 inches wide by 33 inches long, but Creadon makes many variations on the norm because as a firsthand, woodworker he can easily amend standard dimensions. That is why most of his manufacturing is custom work that is hands-on craft.
“People want things made by hand. They want them made by American skateboarders,” Creadon said. “Trust me, there is a whole lot of people out there that don’t want cheap crap that is made by machines in China, Vietnam, or Mexico.
“My business is around hand-made, hand-crafted manufacturing. It’s made by the shaper himself and manufactured by the artist himself. Silk screening is becoming a lost art, just like the American craftsman himself.”
Making his skateboard decks by hand certainly limits his ability to compete in the marketplace with larger brands that just stamp out the boards with a machine. These large foreign companies can produce thousands of boards in one month.
“There is plenty of that out there, but there is a growing population that is done with it and will come to an independent shaper like myself,” Creadon added. “They call me independent because I am outside of the industry, I am independently owned and not part of a bigger company.”
Factory 13 Skateboards are available for $150 for a standard deck. The price increases for custom design work, which is Creadon’s forte.
“My prices are higher because it is handmade in America,” Creadon said. “I sell some to teenagers, but a lot of the men and women that are buying my product are professionals or have good jobs.
“My customers are art collectors, skateboard collectors and skateboarders. People will buy them as pieces of artwork. A lot of times they will buy two boards, one to ride and one to hang as artwork in their house.”
Factory 13 skateboard decks are sold online at the company website. There is a small selection of standard skateboards available, but Creadon welcomes email and phone connections to discuss specifics of creating a custom board.