From Skateboards to Fingerboards | 223 Fingerboards | S3 E140

On this week’s episode of the USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast, we’re live from the Southern Regional Tour Stop in Atlanta! We sit down with Parker from @223fingerboards out of Cartersville, Georgia, to talk about how he turned a skateboard brand into a fingerboard company with heart. They dive into his creative builds, his roots in skateboarding, community collabs, and his drive to give back to the scene. Parker shares how he brings unique, one-of-one pieces to life and the story behind his pistol grip tape that’s taking off. A great conversation straight from the tour floor. 

⚑ CONNECT WITH 223 FINGERBOARDS ⚑

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/223fingerboards/

Shop ➜ https://www.223fingerboards.bigcartel.com

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Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:05)
you

Speaker 1 (00:12)
In the skate park I found my home

Speaker 2 (00:19)
Welcome to USAFPL Fingerboard Podcast. I'm your host, Levine Cunningham, and I've got two to three fingerboards in the house.

Speaker 1 (00:26)
How's

it going everybody this is Parker with 223 Fingerboards out of Cartersville, Georgia.

Speaker 2 (00:30)
Yeah,

man. All right. So we are live here at the Atlanta event for the USFPL tour stop, the regional southern regional tour stop.

Speaker 1 (00:38)
Beautiful venue, beautiful venue. Super large, perfect space for everybody. Great crowd on Friday.

Speaker 2 (00:44)
Yeah, we're Saturday morning. We're here before the doors open, getting in some quick pods, getting that quick content for you guys tuning in. And we had a banger on Friday. I'm not even gonna lie.

Speaker 1 (00:53)
Yeah, booth was doing really well. All the booths did really well. All the parks were maintained. Everybody was doing their thing finger boarding.

Really? Came early, set up everything. It was really nice. Everybody was hands on deck. Really nice setup. We really appreciate you coming out here and putting on for the US scene, really.

Speaker 2 (01:14)
Yeah, the whole the whole country and some of Canada. All right, so let's talk about where you're from. I know, I've sponsored a lot of events here in the Georgia, Atlanta area. And I always see your logo, so I know you've got to

Speaker 1 (01:28)
Yeah,

yeah. So we are out of Cartersville, which is just north of Atlanta, up 75. If you're familiar with the Kennesaw area, KSU area, that's where we're right in that area. We originated as a skateboard brand, making skateboards, had a small team.

out of Swift Cantrell skate park in Kennesaw. And then, you know, a lot of injuries, my mom got sick. So I kind of slowed down from the skateboarding scene, rolling my ankle a lot. I always worked on my feet. So that was something like growing up. You can't hurt your ankles if you're always on your feet. So got into the YouTube scene by watching David Jones. OK, I'm doing the the mini DIY builds and just kind of saw that and was like, I could kind of do that. Made my way over to Home Depot.

Got myself a folding table and just went crazy after that. And just been addicted since 2020, really.

Speaker 2 (02:18)
man I love it I love our everybody's getting their inspiration and stuff from like a lot of people it's David Jones Mike Snyder sometimes I get me like people are like yeah I went to one of your events got super inspired

Speaker 1 (02:29)
the

the ⁓

Speaker 2 (02:36)
two

No, I feel that for sure. So kind of walk us through some of the stuff that you're creating.

Speaker 1 (03:05)
so a lot of times like I work for a tour bus company. So like recently we had redone the floors and one of the buses. So I basically took some of the old flooring and broke it up into pieces and used clean edges. So that's how I kind of, take one and break it up and then I'd start with a clean edge. it allowed me to create my inspiration off that broken piece in a way.

Speaker 2 (03:28)
You're really creating some unique one on one items there. Yeah. Even though you might have a whole set, each one is completely different.

Speaker 1 (03:34)
Fully

one of one and they also can like piece together and create like a little puzzle park in a way. So if you buy multiple pieces, a lot of my stuff fit together.

Speaker 2 (03:42)
the ⁓

Speaker 1 (03:52)
Especially in the fingerboard scene because a lot of times you're just seeing people from their arms down. You don't necessarily hear their voice or see their face in certain ways. So it's a good way to be able to branch out and actually know the fingerboarders more.

Speaker 2 (04:04)
the

Speaker 1 (04:13)
Yeah, it was really skateboarding is what rooted it. mean, the two to three skate team I had at one point 15 sponsored riders out of Atlanta and a lot of them putting on really well some locals to fourth ward some noon and locals. But we really based it ⁓ at Swift Cantrell, which is a big skate park. So it had a lot of buzz. So we constantly just pumping boards out. then my first event was thrown at Village Skate Park, which is in Atlanta. And I did a scavenger hunt, which I made.

⁓ At that time I was just making a bunch of boards and not really selling them so I did a scavenger hunt and basically placed all the boards within a garden and had all my everybody that attended go and find the boards and kids walked away with literally 25 boards in their hand. It was crazy. That's awesome. Sitting Duck 442 on YouTube actually came and filmed the entire thing so it's actually on her YouTube channel.

So that was like a big moment in my fingerboard career to be able to get, you know, someone like her to be able to post a video of my actual event. So that was like a huge homage to her to do that. You know, she didn't have to do that. She came and really put on for us, gave us a bunch of ducky tape, which was like really, really cool.

Speaker 2 (05:23)
⁓ that

Right now. I'm gonna have to get that.

Speaker 1 (06:21)
kinda ran back to skateboarding thing. can still make them at any time. anybody ever needs a board, I'm your guy.

Speaker 2 (06:27)
⁓ the

Speaker 1 (06:32)
that

⁓

Speaker 2 (06:37)
her head on but if someone was wanting a two to three skateboard like where would they

and

Speaker 1 (07:09)
for your skateboards. I know Skate ATL is doing a really good thing by teaching kids that don't know how to skateboard, how to skateboard, and they do a lot of stuff. Shout out Drizzy on it if you're watching this. He's a great dude in the local scene putting on for the local kids for the skaters. on. And you know that that's the route for a lot of these kids. What that come into the fingerboard scene, they start with skating and they see this and it just opens up a whole new world of creativity.

Speaker 2 (07:33)
man I like how connected you are with this like you've been in the scene for a hot minute

Speaker 1 (07:37)
that just the inner thing of Definitely strong and the guys that are putting on are really good dudes. They've been in the scene for a long time. They're just putting on heavily. mean, Drizzy on is dedicated to teaching kids how to skateboard.

Speaker 2 (07:51)
the

Speaker 1 (08:42)
that Yeah, it is. so the real wear, obviously, for people that don't know, it's going to wear like a traditional skateboard. So you're going to get wear and tear on the boards. If you're hitting brick obstacles, that's going to happen with a paper graphic. It's going to be more permanent. But some people think that it saturates it and gives you less pop. just depends on how it's done to keep your pop. just want to lighten up on your clear coat. So you just want to keep your clear coat layers a little bit lighter. You don't want to go so thick. Yeah. But for the most part, we do boards.

We do grip tape too. That's one of our hot items is our pistol grip, which I take a wood brand and basically heat it up and brand the tape. So it's a, you know, it's a normal thing. can get, you can get grip tape anywhere really, but it's the extra aspect that I'm taking to just burn the logo into it. I can also do custom grip. So I kind of innovated a little bit. I know it's an easy thing to get, but I like to brand it with my logos and it really helps sell it. Really.

Speaker 2 (09:36)
⁓ that ⁓

Speaker 1 (09:45)
Yeah, it's a hard one to because you can't with the laser engraver, you can't really get really nice detail with it with the wood brands, can get beautiful detail for some reason. So it you got to kind of bite the nail and and buy the wood brands instead of just doing the like the laser engraver. I have the ability to do anything. Yeah, but it doesn't come out as clean as that would.

Speaker 2 (10:06)
the ⁓

Speaker 1 (10:10)
Really, I've been trying to work with local artists. We've had a collaboration with Pooja from All But Six. We did a collaboration with him. If you go to allbutsix.com, you can find our collaboration. We did completes with him. There's a bunch of merch on there. So right now I'm really trying to connect with some of the talent right now. ⁓ A couple artists I can't really mention right now that I'm trying to get a hold of.

There's some big things in the works. We're going to try to start pushing clothing more. ⁓ a more legit side on the clothing brand. So that would be nice. But other than that, stay tuned because I'm always throwing deals on the website. mean, any given day I've got $5 boards, $10 boards. I mean, you can find really anything. You can hit me up through DM. I'll help you out. know, I'm for the scene big time. So if somebody's like, hey, you know, I really want a board, but I've only got $15.

Speaker 2 (11:24)
Man, all right, so where can people find you on the internet?

Speaker 1 (11:27)
Uh,

two, two, three fingerboards is the main one. Um, my real name is Parker newen. Um, I work for a tour bus company, so chat out the tour bus scene, moving famous people around. So that's, that's one of the big things that is my main thing is the, is the tour bus stuff. The fingerboard incomes to the side of that, but it's equally as important to me.

Speaker 2 (11:47)
the

Appreciate that.

Appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (12:17)
the ⁓

Speaker 2 (12:24)
Yeah, I do, man. It's going to be busy.

Speaker 1 (12:26)
and

Speaker 2 (12:33)
What's the thing about like day ones man like a lot of people understand like if you don't get here on Friday like they have first dibs on everything

Same. Till next time.

Best rails in the game.