Tech deck

A tech deck is a miniature skateboard, with which a skateboarder can complete various skateboarding tricks with his/ her fingers. The index finger acting as the front foot and the middle finger acting as the back foot.

There are three sizes of tech deck: a 57 mm mini, a 96mm fingerboard and a 27cm hand board.

History

Teck Deck's were actually invented by a 12-year old Californian skateboarder boy named Steven Asher on a rainy day in 1998. Obviously unable to skateboard outside, his idea was to bring it inside.

With his imagination, he created 3-inch cardboard replicas of real skateboards and drew graphics on the bottom to enhance their realism.

His dad, Peter Asher, coincidentally was a toy industry veteran, and used his son's idea as a brand new toy wave, and thus Tech Deck was born. Though it was insisted by Steven that Tech Decks were to represent the real thing; real metal trucks, real grip tape, real graphics and real wheels.

The top brands were indentified by visiting local skate-shops, though actually contacting the brands themselves proved to be quite a challenge, though another coincidence occurred. An administrative assistant in Peter's office noticed that Steven owned a Chet Thomas signature board, and mentioned that she went to school with the skateboard pro. Chet was contacted and was able to arrange contact with World Industries, ending up with a licensing agreement.

Since then, more than 4,000 different real pro-model graphic designs licensed from top skateboard manufacturers such as World Industries, Blind, A-Team, Birdhouse, Creature, New Deal, Element, Black Label, Santa Cruz, Alien Workshop, Zero, Maple, Zoo York, Darkstar and Foundation have been added to the Tech Deck line.

From Thanksgiving of 1998, when first introduced in limited distribution, until now, more than 35 million Tech Deck™ mini-replica skateboards have been sold. And interest in collecting Tech Deck™ mini-replica skateboards continues to increase.

Early "Fingerboarding"

The birth of fingerboarding to the public was around 1985 when Transworld Skateboard Magazine released an article on how to make your own personal miniature skateboard at home. The deck was made out of 7 baseball cards that were cut, shaped and glued together like 7 plys of wood on a skateboard. A magazine picture was glued on the bottom to replicate your favorite pro model graphics and real skateboard griptape was glued on top the board. Two pencil erasers were cut off a pencil and glued to the bottom to act as the trucks. A Hot Wheels car was then broken and the axle and wheels of the car were taken out and poked through the eraser creating an axle for the trucks and rolling wheels. This fingerboard was featured in 1985 Powell Peraltas "Future Primitive" video with Lance Mountain doing inverts and layback grinds in a double kitchen sink as Tony Hawk, Mike McGill and Ray Underhill cheered him on.

After wearing out or breaking many of these cardboard decks, some decided to make a board that was more durable. This board was made out of plastic that was cut and shaped. The tail and nose were bent up by heating the plastic up with a candle and slowly bending to the desired angle. Once the plastic cooled down it was a nice simulated skateboard deck! Two square little pieces of plastic were then glued on with super glue to act as the trucks. These were better than the eraser trucks, because they would actually grind and not stick like the erasers. The wheels and axel from a Hot Wheels car were still used. This was the first fingerboard that people would actually learn real tricks on, and they made many of these for themselves and friends.

External links

Official Tech Deck website: http://www.techdeck.com/
Fingerboarding Forum: http://www.fingerflipinc.com/forum