Fingerboard (skateboard)

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For other uses, see Fingerboard (disambiguation).
Underside of a Tech Deck fingerboard including a Hook-Ups graphic.
Underside of a Tech Deck fingerboard including a Hook-Ups graphic.

A fingerboard or fingerskate is a miniature version of a skateboard complete with moving wheels, graphics and trucks. It is the same shape as a skateboard, but is approximately 97 millimeters long. Skateboarding tricks may be performed using fingers instead of feet. Lance Mountain helped develop fingerboarding as a hobby in the late 1970s and wrote an article on how to make fingerboards in TransWorld's SKATEboarding magazine in 1985.

Although finger boarding was a novelty for years, they became a collectible toy as skateboard manufacturers realized the potential for product branding and profit starting in the 1990s.[1] Fingerboards are now available as inexpensive novelty toys or as high-end collectibles complete with accessories one would find in use with standard-size skateboards.[2][3][4]

Fingerboards are also used by skateboarders as 3-D model visual aids to understand potential tricks and maneuvers;[5] many users make videos to document their efforts.[6][7][8]

Contents

[edit] History

(Henry Hughes from sydney, is known to be one of the greatest fingerboarder) Fingerboards started as homemade toys in the 1970s and later became a novelties attached to key chains in skate shops.[3]

George Powell studied engineering at Stanford University and started making homemade skateboards in 1957. In 1974, prompted by his son, he started experimenting with urethane wheels and newer materials like aluminum and fiberglass to fabricate his own composite boards. One of the test riders of one of his flexible slalom boards was Stacy Peralta. The two teamed up in 1978 and in 1979 they created a skateboarding team called the "Bones Brigade", which included many of the best skateboarders of the era. Powell-Peralta developed a signature art style and arguably, they were the most popular skateboarding company in terms of deck and wheel sales throughout the 1980s. In 1985 they produced a documentary Future Primitive about skateboarding with a comic skit featuring Lance Mountain, who "ripped through an infamous fingerboard run in a metal kitchen sink".[1] The homemade fingerboard was built from cardboard, coffee stirrers, and Hot Wheels axles.[1]

Finger boards have been a peripheral part of the skateboarding industry since the late 1980s and were originally marketed as keychains."[1] Although barely "rideable" they were improved upon by the Tech Decks brand which mass produced a "rideable" miniature skateboard.[3] Other "major players in the skateboard industry" soon followed in hopes of reaping profits as young toy-playing children would choose to take up skateboarding.[1] More modern fingerboards, like X-Concepts' Tech Decks, Think's Super Mini Boards, the Deluxe Finger Banger Boards, and Fingerboard brand's Pro-Precision boards, featured "interchangeable wheels and trucks, a fairly accurate scale size, and pad-printed graphics reproduced from the most popular skateboard companies in the business."[1] Blackriver Ramps' Fingerboardparks providing all manner of fingerboarding accessories including sophisticated and customizable components able to duplicate, in scale-model, the skateboarding experience thus developing the fingerboard into a collectible toy and the practice into a "form of mental skating".[3]

In the late 1990s, as fingerboards became more prominent outside the skateboading community, X-Concepts' Tech Decks licensed "actual pro graphics from major skateboard brands" riding "the 1999 fingerboard wave right into Wal-Mart and other major outlets."[1] In 1999 there was a Tech Deck fashion of collecting one of each design similar to the Beanie Baby fad months prior.[1]

[edit] Materials

Tech Decks, arguably the most popular fingerboards,[1] are made out of hard plastic and are in many different design from skateboard manufacturers, such as Blind, Flip, and Element. They have real metal trucks, grip tape, and real graphics. The stock trucks on Tech Decks are made of die-cast metal and have two separate axles for the wheels to roll on. The wheels are made out of plastic.

Many more advanced fingerboarders prefer the feel and performance of decks made out of wood. Wooden decks are made by hand by people all around the world. Wooden decks can be made from 3-6 plies of a given veneer; Maple, walnut, and mahogany being the most popular. All of the hole-drilling and shaping are done entirely by hand. Because no wooden decks are mass-produced, they are highly priced. A wooden deck from a popular company usually costs 25$.

Along with wooden decks, advanced fingerboarders also tend to prefer bearing wheels to Tech Deck wheels. Bearing wheels can be made from a plethora of different materials such as teflon, urethane, silicon, and fiberglass. The materials are usually put into a lathe which gives them the most perfect round shape possible. Once the wheels have been properly drilled, bearings are put into place to increase the smoothness of the wheels rolling on the axle.

Tuning is another luxury that advanced fingerboarders enjoy. Rather than using the stock axles and kingpins that come on Tech Deck trucks, fingerboarders use tuning screws and custom kingpins to ensure that wheels and hangars are more properly secured. Tuning screws for the wheels cause the wheels to roll more smoothly.

There are several companies that create and distribute professional fingerboard products. The most notable of the companies are FlatFace Fingerboard(http://www.Flatfacefingerboards.com), Blackriver Ramps(http://www.blackriver-ramps.com) ,Frost Fingerboards(http://www.frostfb.com) and Fingerboardstore (http://www.fingerboardstore.de). While these are the largest and most prosperous, there are many smaller companies that produce quality fingerboard products. Homewood Fingerbaords(http://www.homewoodfb.com), Make Believe Marble, Prete Fingerboards, Arctic(http://arctichardware.co.uk), Chaos Fingerboards,, Nollie Wheels, C24 Fingerboards, Holywood Fingerboards, Substance Wheels, Defstone, Jet Black FB, and Summit Hardware/Bushings(http://www.summitfb.com).

[edit] Usage

A skateboarder uses his feet to flip a board mid-flight; a fingerboarder would use fingers.
A skateboarder uses his feet to flip a board mid-flight; a fingerboarder would use fingers.

To use a fingerboard one's middle finger goes on the "tail" (back end), and the index finger goes on the middle of the board. A variety of innovative tricks from classic, so-called "old-school", to more original and creative maneuvers can be envisioned and done on a small scale either for the enjoyment alone or as a precursor to one's skateboarding experiences where individual style and diversification of tricks is rewarded.[5]

Tech decks are used by a range of people from small children utilizing them as toys to skateboarding and related sports professionals envisioning not only their own skating maneuvers but for others as well and can include the use for planning out competition courses as skating boarding develops into an international sport. Skateboarding is currently being considered as a sport for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.[9] The 2008 Summer Olympics, due to be held 8 August-24 August, 2008 in Beijing, China is not amused by fingerboarding China's second gold of the Asian Indoor Games (October 2007) was to Che Lin for skateboarding.[10] Also, skateboarding youths have attracted "mesmerized" crowds in Shenzhen, a city described by professional skateboarders as "a skating paradise."[11]

[edit] Accessories

Similar to train enthusiasts building railway models, fingerboard hobbyists often construct and purchase reduced scale model figures that would be considered natural features to an urban skateboarder such as handrails, benches, and stairs they would be likely to encounter while riding. In addition users might build and buy items seen in a skatepark including half-pipes,[12] quarter pipes, trick boxes, vert ramps,[13] pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, and any number of other trick-oriented objects.[14] These objects can be used simply for enjoyment and also to assist the visualization of skateboarding tricks or the "flow" from one trick to the next (or to create "lines"). At fingerboarding events displays feature some of the latest elaborate models and accessories; many of the manufacturers features photos and videos on their websites.

[edit] Video sharing

Fingerboarding is a good match for videography as the action can be controlled and framing the activity offers opportunities for creativity.[15] With the rise of the online video business from early 2006 through the present,[16] fueled, in part, because the feature that allows e-mailing clips to friends,[17] several thousand finger board and handboard videos can now be found on popular video-sharing sites such as YouTube.[7][8][6] Thus even if the weather does not permit a skateboarder to practice outside they could try a potential trick with their scaled-down fingerboard and related items and share the video with whomever they wished.

[edit] Popularity

Fingerboarding is popular in Europe in countries such as England and Germany;[18] there is growing popularity in Eastern Europe.[3] Besides skateshops and the internet the world's first fingerboard store opened in Steyr, Austria.[3] Fingerboarders have regular "contests, fairs, workshops and other events".[3] Teri Werner, owner of Boards and More, a skateboarding shop, in San Pedro, California, commented on the fad stating she promotes fingerboarding and skateboarding by holding contests on the store's fingerboard ramp with one contest having "175 entrants in two categories, plus another hundred spectators."[1]

“ The kids specifically come here to buy their fingerboards. We sell them for $9.99, but they come to us because they trust what we do. We're kid-friendly, and we keep it alive by having ramps available for them to play with. We sell fingerboards like crazy.[1] ”

Fingerboard-product sales were estimated at $120-million for 1999.[1]

[edit] Handboards

A chicken on a mini-skateboard, similar to a handboard.
A chicken on a mini-skateboard, similar to a handboard.

Handboards, similar to fingerboards, are a scaled-down version of a skateboard roughly half to a third of the size of a standard skateboard (11 inches) and utilizes a person's hands rather than just their fingers to control the board and perform tricks and maneuvers. Handboards can be easier to use than fingerboards.

Handboards, because of their larger size more closely match details of a standard skateboard. For instance a skateboard truck, the wheel structure, would more likely to match part for part an actual skateboard truck rather than be a cast one-piece construction or otherwise simplified. If a user preferred a particular type of wood or decorative style that could also more easily resemble a full-scale skateboard.

[edit] Fingersnowboarding

See also: Snowboarding
Snowboarders do very similar tricks and maneuvers; instead rolling on wheels, the board slides on snow.
Snowboarders do very similar tricks and maneuvers; instead rolling on wheels, the board slides on snow.

Similar to fingerboarding, fingersnowboarding is snowboarding on a small-scale snowboard controlled with one's fingers. Fingersnowboard brands are: Tech Deck, Flick Trix. In December of 1999 the first-ever World Snowboard Fingerboard Championships was held with a cash prize of C$1,000.00.[19] Sponsored by companies such as Gravity Fingerboards, Transworld Snowboarding and Snowboard Life magazines and others the competition featured twenty competitors utilizing a custom "fingerboard snowboard park."[19] Tom Sims, a world champion of snowboarding,[20] ended his run by landing his fingersnowboard into a flaming shotglass of Sambuka; he was treated for minor burns and donated his winning prize to Surfrider Foundation's Snowrider Project and to Board AID.[19] (A photo of the course can be seen here.)

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Waters, Mark (2000-03-03). The Fingerboard Controversy: Are toy-skateboard makers promoting skateboarding or just profiting?. Transworld Business. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  2. ^ Hocking, Justin; Jeff Knutson, Jared Jacang Maher, Jocko Weyland (2004). Life and Limb: Skateboarders Write from the Deep End. Soft Skull Press. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g About Fingerboarding. Blackriver Ramps (2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  4. ^ Fingerboard Tuning. Fingerboardstore.de (2007). Retrieved on 2008-12-25.
  5. ^ a b Mullen, Rodney; Sean Mortimer (2004). The Mutt: How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself. HarperCollins. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  6. ^ a b YouTube videos of fingerboarding. YouTube (25 December 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  7. ^ a b YouTube videos of handboarding. YouTube (25 December 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  8. ^ a b YouTube videos of fingerskating. YouTube (25 December 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  9. ^ London Could Host Skateboarding: Skateboarding could make its Olympic debut at the London 2012 Games. BBC Sports, 8 June 2007.
  10. ^ China claims women's finswimming title in Asian Indoor Games Xinhuanet, Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, 28 October, 2007.
  11. ^ Street Sports in Shenzhen Attract Expats Xinhuanet, Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, 12 September, 2007.
  12. ^ Roll-up halfpipe for miniature toy skateboard. Mattel, Inc. (3 August, 2000). Retrieved on 2007-12-25. Patent number: 6350174; Filing date: Aug 3, 2000; Issue date: Feb 26, 2002.
  13. ^ Amusement ramp and method for constructing same. Pillsbury Winthrop LLP (19 July, 1999). Retrieved on 2007-12-25. Patent number: 6623367, Filing date: Jul 19, 1999; Issue date: Sep 23, 2003.
  14. ^ Reciprocating plaything and method for playing. Thomas L. Adams (10 December, 2004). Retrieved on 2007-12-25. Patent number: 7261613; Filing date: Dec 10, 2004; Issue date: Aug 28, 2007
  15. ^ Vienne, Véronique (2003). Fresh Dialogue 3: New Voices in Graphic Design. Princeton Architectural Press. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  16. ^ Perez, Juan Carlos (September 13, 2007). US online video popularity keeps climbing. MacWorld. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.
  17. ^ Zawadski, Alison (September 13, 2007). A Work in Progress. Le Provocateur. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.
  18. ^ Fingerboard Events Forum. Fingerboard.de (2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  19. ^ a b c Snowtopia 99: Tom Sims Wins World Fingersnowboard Championships. Transworld Business (17 December, 1999). Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  20. ^ "Snowboarders Finally in Olympics, But Are Conforming Grudgingly", Salt Lake Tribune, February 8, 1998.

[edit] Further reading

  • Finger Skate Board Tricks and Tips Prepack by Susan Buntrock (2000); Scholastic, Incorporated - ISBN 0439217148.
  • Life and Limb: Skateboarders Write from the Deep End by Justin Hocking, Jeff Knutson, Jared Jacang Maher (2004); Soft Skull Press - ISBN 193236028X. (See Whaling chapter by Justin Hocking).

[edit] External links

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