Back in the days before Tech Decks we had to make our own fingerboards.
Most of my old fingerboards are long gone but somehow I managed to save this Hawk and Staab.
I found the fingerboards hosed in a reclaimed Crayon box, covered with pics from an old thrasher. There is a Cab pic, a McGill snake, a bikini girl and a small pic of John Lidden on the box.
The fingerboards are constructed of several thin pieces of cardboard laminated with Elmer's glue. 
The trucks were made of tiny pieces of balsa wood, the wheels cannibalized from Hot wheels cars.
I would cut graphics from adds in skate magazines and glue them to the deck with stick glue, then I would finish it off with a piece of clear contac paper. Keep in mind, I was like fourteen when I made these so the craftsmanship is a bit inmature .
The grip tape job is unfinished. I planed to put R.I.P.-Grip on the top for finger control!
At one point I had an awesome fingerboard vert ramp which I made in shop class. The vert ramp was about 24"x40" complete with coping, full decks, a roll-in, channel and plenty of tiny stickers at the tile level. I kick myself for throwing that ramp away. Ah, but I digress...
12 comments:
CLOSET CRAFTER! Dude, those are awesome! I had the plastic generic fingerboards, but I built several ramps out of cardboard. A spine and a full on vert ramp with wood dowel coping were by far the coolest ones. I'm not as nerdy to have ever made a carrying case though. ;)
Rip Grip was awesome! And very practical on my TrapperKeeper too. HA!
wait... hold everything.... the Trapper Keeper... was "IT"!!! WOW! That takes me back. In junior high we put stickers all over them but in high school I would carefully cut the clear plastic and slide skate pics under it for display. HAHA!
Woo-hoo! Thanks to my crayon box storage chamber, it looks like the skate nerd award goes to me! Well, this time anyway! lol That spine ramp sounds awesome NIk! I used wood dowel for coping as well! Remember that Lance Mountain finger boarding in the double well sink scene (Future primitive???) That was the inspiration for the whole thing. I am gonna ebay for some Rip Grip I bet Kilwag has some!
Hey...I had a Trapper Keeper too...except, I was in Elementary school when those were cool...ha ha.
I'm impressed with the details on those little guys, (ehem...obviously more about art than actually riding...ehem.) ;-)
Hmph... Youngling! ;P Hey Kvon... send me an email concretins@yahoo.com and I'll send ya pics of the lace savers... they are homemade.
Wow! these are amazing! Truly works of art.
Hopefully I'll post something soon, but betwean school and work, its hard to fit in time.
You are soooooo talented--and nostalgic, and vintage and
This post was a big hit! Cool! Thanks everyone for your comments!
Sorry to show up to the party so late...
Dang K, I remember making those fingerboards circa '86 or '87?
We used to rip pencil erasers out of pencils and used them to mount the Hot Wheels axle to the board. It was like one big bushing or something...
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Pencil erasers sound like a great idea jeff. I wish I would have thought of that. My balsa wood was always breaking. If only we would have had the internet back then. :)
Those are sweet:) Lance Mountain made me my first real finger board back in 1980 and it was a purple Ray Bones Rodriguez ( skull and sword) model with yellow trackers and green Powell Peralta mini-cubics:) he gave it to me at Marina Del Rey skatepark that year. I still have it somewhere in my trunk chest of old skate goodies! I'll have to dig it up someday and post it on my blog too. thanks for sharing these, they are way cool. looks like you and lance had the same idea years ago and long before the whole tech deck craze!
dude these are way cooler than tech decks you are so muichmore creeative then i wa in 1985-1990 this bring me back a long time ago hanks for reminding me about old times:)
Thanks for the comments everyone!
Stevie, I would love to see a picture of that Purple Rodriguez! I remember that fingerboard scene in.. was it "future primitive"? That was the genuine fun!
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