Slime Balls

Slime Balls is a wheel brand, not a deck brand — if you landed here looking for a board, there isn’t one. It belongs to NHS, Inc., the Santa Cruz (California) house that also runs Santa Cruz Skateboards, OJ Wheels, Independent and Creature. What sets it apart is visible from the other end of the street: fat urethane, fluorescent colours and 1980s Jim Phillips graphics.

History

NHS was founded in 1973 in Santa Cruz by Richard Novak, Doug Haut and Jay Shuirman. Slime Balls was born, in the brand’s own words, “during the 80s heyday of skateboarding”, as one of the lines inside the Santa Cruz Speed Wheels family. In 1985 Jim Phillips drew the Screaming Hand precisely as the overall image for that line, which back then covered Slime Balls, Bullet and OJ.

One technical detail explains most of it: NHS put $250,000 into a urethane printing machine, borrowed from the way Christmas ornaments were printed. That machine made it possible to print colour graphics straight onto the rubber, and it opened the door to the OJ, Bullet and Slime Ball wheel styles. The original Slime Balls ad paintings Phillips made back then still change hands today as fine art.

The wheels

The current catalogue runs on a handful of families and is easy to read:

• Vomits: the hard line, 95a to 99a, 53 to 60 mm. The Vomit Mini (53 and 56 mm) is the small, street-focused version.
• OG Slime: the soft cruiser, 78a in bigger diameters like 60 mm, on the classic symmetrical shape.
• Speed Balls, another catalogue family, and the reissues, where the old graphics and shapes come back.
• Light Ups: LEDs powered by the rotation of the wheel and bearing, no batteries needed.
• Chubbies is the name of the wide shape used on some 56 mm models.

Graphics and names

The brand makes no attempt to be subtle. Jeff Kendall has his “End Of The World” and “Snake” wheels, Steve “Salba” Alba his “Witch Doctor”, and the guest wheel calendar has run through Ed Templeton (58 mm 99a Vomits), Geoff Rowley (56 mm 95a Vomit Mini), Collin Provost (56 mm 97a Beer Vomit Mini), Bam Margera (60 mm 78a OG Slime) and Erick Winkowski. There are also licensed tie-ins inside the wider Santa Cruz orbit, such as the Stranger Things series.

Who it’s for

If you want to cross town, film, or skate bad tarmac, the 78a OG Slime in 60 mm is exactly that. If you want street with the same loud graphic, the 53 or 56 mm Vomit Mini at 97a-99a will do it. Who it’s not for: if you want a 51-53 mm wheel at 99a-101a for smooth park and technical tricks, other brands specialise in that; and if you want to go unnoticed, look elsewhere. Slime Balls is for people who want fat, fast, highly visible urethane.

Before settling on diameter and durometer, it’s worth reading the skateboard wheels guide.