This past weekend I was invited down to Mervin Manufaturing. in Washington state to have a factory tour.
Mervin is the parent company of Lib Tech and Gnu. They also make Roxy Snowboards as well. Ryan, The Easy Rider manager joined me on one of the best trips I have ever had.
In addition to the tour – we also were fortunate enough to be able to have lunch and dinner with Mike Olson, who along with Peter Saari founded Gnu Snowboards in 1977.
To top off the awesome trip, Ryan, myself and our sales rep. Andrew were able to make our own boards. I will do a separate post on the board building.
I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to Dan for getting us down there, to Mike for taking the time to sit and talk, to Norm for giving us the day long tour, and to everyone at Mervin for not only putting up with a us, but for also being a snowboard company that truly “gets it”!
I’ll let the photos do the rest.
The car made famous from “That’s It, That’s All” greets you as you arrive.The original offices for Mervin Mfg. Now home to Mike, Norm and a select few.Mervin is by far the most eco conscious snowboard company in the world. They run Bio Fuel in many of their vehicles.Being “eco” – when they had cement left over from a new building – they used it for something cool!It all starts here – Wood! Mervin makes their own cores. Something only a very few companies in the world do.The wood is sorted – and then glued into large blocks.This large saw cuts “slices” off of the blocks to make the cores.After being cut the cores (and in this case blocks of sidewalls) are sanded to the desired thickness.Sidewall material in lots of cool colors.Top sheets and bases. Mervin prints their own – and uses all water based materials. The factory had no ill odors at all.Colored base material for die cut bases.Once the base shape is cut out of the sheet – they are sorted and then bailed for re-cycling.Base material bailed for recycling.This truck takes all the sawdust – several times a day – to a local composting facility. The truck runs on Bio Fuel.The edges are bead blasted to remove all contaminants – for a better bond to in the board.The edges are then pre-bent in the famous Magna Traction shape.Here the edges are being attached to the base material.A pile of pressed boards. I will continue the build process in the next post.Again, a big Thank You to Mike and everyone at Mervin.
