Fingerboarding: equipment and physics¶
Written 2026-10-27 from the project's own docs. Condensed from Fboard's research base (researched 2026-10-25); sources are named inline.
The research labels each figure as sourced (a cited page states it), derived (calculated from sourced numbers with standard physics), or estimate (an informed guess). This page keeps those labels where they matter. Most equipment numbers come from manufacturer and retailer product pages: real listed specs, but not independent measurements.
The board¶
Deck¶
| Property | Typical value | Sources and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 96–100 mm, most 96–98 | Wikipedia; Berlinwood and Teak Tuning product pages |
| Width | 26–36 mm | 26 mm is early Tech Deck size; 29 mm is slim; 32 mm is called the standard (Teak Tuning); 34 mm is described as the most popular pro width now (Kingpin Market). The sources differ on which of 32 and 34 is most common. |
| Plies | 5-ply maple is standard; 7-ply exists | Blackriver, Berlinwood, Teak. Toy boards are injection-moulded plastic. |
| Thickness | about 2.5 mm (5-ply), about 3 mm (7-ply) | fingerboard.io deck-geometry guide |
| Kick angle | about 19–26°, community default 24° | fingerboard.io's deck designer ("19° is mellow, 26° is steep"). A community tool's defaults, not measured brand decks. |
| Concave | about 2 mm deep is the community default | fingerboard.io. What brands mean by "low" and "high" concave is unverified. |
| Mass | about 5–8 g (derived) | No brand publishes a bare-deck mass. Some retail "weights" turned out to be store placeholder values. |
Width and feel: wider decks are easier to catch but flip more slowly; narrower decks flip faster but are harder to catch. This comes from retailer and commenter claims, and it is consistent with the physics: a board's resistance to flipping grows with the square of its width.
Trucks, wheels and tape¶
- Trucks (the axle assemblies) come in widths matched to the deck (29–36 mm), with a hanger, baseplate, kingpin, two bushings and lock nuts, much like a real skateboard truck. Brand specs put them at about 5–6 g each. Bushings (the rubbery parts that set turning stiffness) come in hardnesses such as 51A, 61A and 71A (Teak Tuning); softer bushings turn more.
- Wheels are 7.5–8.7 mm across. Pro wheels are urethane on a single tiny bearing; toy wheels are plastic spinning directly on the axle, which roll short distances and rattle. Fingerboard wheel hardness is measured on the D scale, which is much harder than the A scale used for real skate wheels, so even "soft" fingerboard wheels are relatively hard.
- Tape (the top surface) is usually 1 mm foam, not sandpaper. Foam grips a fingertip well and damps the catch, but it won't slide, so tricks where the board slides upside down on its top surface ("darkslides") need rubber or sandpaper-style grip.
A complete setup weighs roughly 20–30 g.
Not a scale model¶
| Real skateboard | Fingerboard | Ratio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deck length | 711–838 mm | 96–100 mm | about 1:8.3 |
| Deck width | 190–216 mm | 32–34 mm | about 1:6.3 |
| Wheel diameter | 48–60 mm | 7.5–8.7 mm | about 1:6.9 |
| Complete mass | about 2.3 kg | about 25 g | about 1:92 |
Brands quote scales from about 1:8 to 1:12. In practice a fingerboard is proportionally about 30% wider than a true scale model, with relatively bigger wheels, and about six times heavier than strict scaling would give. The research's explanation (derived): the width is set by two fingertips side by side, which is about 32–36 mm, not by scale.
Obstacles and parks¶
Blackriver, the scene's main ramp maker, publishes product dimensions for handmade wooden obstacles. Examples (length × width × height):
| Obstacle | Size (mm) |
|---|---|
| Mini ramp ("Mini 2") | 555 × 300 × 140 |
| Quarter pipe ("Quarter Low") | 260 × 245 × 140 |
| Box | 190 × 90 × 30 |
| Street kicker | 195 × 130 × 60 |
| 10-stair with handrail | 600 × 245 × 160 |
fingerboard.io publishes free DIY plans (CC BY 4.0) with CAD drawings. The research notes their overall sizes match Blackriver products closely, so they look like replicas with estimated internals (the research's inference; the site doesn't say so). They are the only source found for details like 6 mm round coping and 10-step stairs with 16 mm steps.
Parks are built from wood, concrete, marble, tile and 3D prints. Concrete is the "realism" material, and builders weather pieces with graffiti, moss and stickers, because looking too clean reads as toy.
The physics of tiny boards¶
The research's main physical findings (derived unless noted):
- Everything in the air is about 2.9 times faster than on a skateboard. Time to fall scales with the square root of height, so at about ⅛ scale an ollie of 3–5 cm lasts about 0.16–0.2 s. The only measured cross-check found is the Guinness record of 132 fingerboard ollies in 60 seconds (Paula Iglesias Díaz, 2024), about 0.45 s per full cycle.
- The rider is not falling with the board. A skater must jump and land under gravity. A hand is carried by the arm, so it can follow the board, hover and catch it. Fingerboard catches are forgiving in timing but demanding in fine motor control.
- Finger force, not gravity, holds the board down. A 25 g board weighs about 0.25 N; a comfortable fingertip press is about 0.5–3 N (estimate). That's why a board can ride up a vertical wall as long as the fingers press it in, and it is the physical justification for the "board sticks to surfaces" rule in arcade skate games.
- Air drag is negligible, about 1.7% of the board's weight at 1.5 m/s.
- Realistic riding speeds are about 0.3–1.5 m/s, or 3–15 board lengths per second. Dropping in from a 140 mm mini ramp gives at most about 1.66 m/s.
- Flips have to finish inside that short airtime, which implies about 5–8 revolutions per second. No measured flip timing exists in any source found; this is derived from airtime.
- Impossibles (the board wraps end over end around a finger) rotate about the board's unstable middle axis, which is why the finger has to stay with the board. The research suggests keeping that trick guided rather than free physics in a game.
Sound¶
Few sources exist; most of this section in the research is derived. The key points:
- Fingerboard impacts are bright clicks and ticks, much higher and shorter than a skateboard's pop, because the board's vibration frequencies are about 15–20 times higher.
- The deep "thock" you hear comes from hollow ramps and tables resonating, not from the board.
- Urethane wheels squeak in powerslides, a sound "many fingerboarders love" (Teak Tuning). Some bearings whir; greased ones are near silent.
- A bail is a light clatter of a 25 g object, not a crash.
The clearest art-world example is the Fingerboard Skate Park Orchestra (Lee Walton and Derek Toomes, 2022), which amplified grinding and rolling through contact microphones in the terrain.
Open questions in the research¶
Not found anywhere: measured trick timing and finger positions from slow-motion video, truck baseplate angles, fingerboard wax composition, and much on concrete-park construction. The research suggests filming real riders and weighing real boards would settle most of it.