Berlinwood: When Fingerboards Finally Got Real Wood

Berlinwood was founded in 2002 by Timo Lieben in Berlin, at a moment when most setups were still plastic, improvised, and held together with whatever worked. The pitch was simple and radical: a fingerboard deck should be built like a real skateboard — proper wood, proper geometry — just smaller.¹

Berlinwood (via Archive.org / Wayback Machine)Open image lightbox

Hand-pressed from five maple plies and finished by riders who actually fingerboard, Berlinwood decks brought intentional concave, real nose and tail shapes, and a range of widths (29 / 32 / 33.3 / 36mm) to a community that had been making do. Sold and documented through the Blackriver shop, Berlinwood became the wooden pro deck a generation grew up wanting — and the brand that signature pro models (riders like Assmuth, Ulpts, and Angelow) were eventually built on.¹

Berlinwood's pioneering is in the construction itself — the details that turned 'a small piece of wood' into a board with a feel worth chasing.

• Hand-pressed 5-ply maple construction: Five wooden plies, pressed and shaped by hand in Germany, with purposeful concave and real skate geometry. It made the deck a component you tune around rather than an afterthought.¹
• A real width range (29 / 32 / 33.3 / 36mm): Offering multiple widths let riders pick a deck for their hand and style instead of accepting one toy size — an idea so obviously right it became the norm.¹

Berlinwood (official storefront, blackriver-shop.com)Open image lightbox

Berlinwood is the brand most people point to when they say wooden decks 'changed the game.' Its 5-ply maple template and width language are baked into what a pro fingerboard deck means today — and its signature-rider models helped turn champions into household names within the scene.¹