00:04 - You. Can.

00:18 - Hi. My name is Jared.

00:19 - Brett.

00:20 - I'm the VP of Business development here at Gilson Boards.

00:23 - We're here in Winfield, Pennsylvania,

00:26 - and we make artisan, handcrafted snowboards.

00:29 - And today we're going to show you the process of building a snowboard

00:32 - from raw materials all the way through until the end.

00:35 - Just like this.

00:37 - This stage was is pulling out one of our cores.

00:40 - I would, course, come to us from,

00:43 - a local manufacturer, Stanley Woodworking.

00:46 - Actually, all of our cores are, locally sourced as much as possible.

00:52 - For instance, these are Pennsylvania Poplar.

00:54 - We have a few other that are cherry.

00:56 - We have some that are, Purple Heart.

00:59 - The only ones that are not locally sourced are our bamboo cores,

01:03 - because the bamboo doesn't grow and, Pennsylvania,

01:07 - but all of our other woods are locally sourced.

01:09 - And what you can see here is, west is just taking our core

01:13 - that we would have gotten from, Stan Lee

01:16 - and then cut by Andy Kurtz over at Spring Lake.

01:20 - Down to size.

01:21 - And he's just drilling out insert packs for alignment.

01:27 - And so this is just a jig that he, is using to make sure that it's

01:31 - well aligned so that as we go through the entire rest of the process, it's

01:35 - going to fit exactly on all of the other machines that we're using.

01:39 - At this stage here, he's just going to trim up the ends

01:42 - to make sure that, it's nice and even nice and straight.

01:48 - All of our core that come in,

01:51 - as you can see, our natural wood.

01:53 - So these don't come from anywhere else. Or Chinese.

01:56 - These are pressed right here in Pennsylvania.

01:58 - And they have different pieces of wood that are coming off

02:02 - at different lengths and things.

02:03 - So we're just coming in and keeping them nice and straight.

02:09 - Once the core at this stage has been prepped.

02:12 - Now it can be a line for just about everything.

02:15 - And we'll head over to the CNC machine.

02:21 - And the CNC machine

02:24 - here is a three axis robot

02:27 - that will cut to within 1/1000 or 2/1000 of an inch.

02:32 - So we use this machine right here to cut out our sidewalls, to make sure

02:36 - that the sidewalls are in the exact right place every single time.

02:41 - Which is relatively important.

02:46 - You'll see.

02:46 - Right now, he's just changing the bit right inside on the CNC machine.

02:51 - We have to use a couple different bits for the different cuts that are being made.

02:55 - The bit that's on there right now will be used later,

02:58 - to cut out the shape of the core and the in the inserts.

03:03 - Right now he's going to be putting

03:04 - in, I believe, a half inch bit

03:07 - to cut out the sidewalls.

03:12 - And the sidewalls are the little plastic strips

03:15 - that go along the side that are thrown in for protection of a snowboard.

03:19 - If there's anything, that somebody runs into when they're riding,

03:23 - you want to make sure that that's not going to be wood that gets damaged.

03:27 - Because anytime wood comes into contact with water,

03:31 - it's going to rot or have some problems, whereas plastic won't.

03:36 - So we cut these little sections out to make sure that there are.

03:43 - That there are no damaged snowboards on the road.

03:46 - So right now, he's showing the CNC machine

03:50 - to make sure that it knows exactly where it is on the table.

04:01 - And it appears we have to go over

04:03 - and turn on the vacuum table.

04:12 - So underneath

04:13 - this whole machine, there's a vacuum system.

04:16 - That sucks things down directly to the table.

04:21 - The reason for that is, as you can see, he's taking very careful precautions

04:26 - to make sure that the board is going to be completely flat

04:30 - on the table, and the machine knows exactly where it is on the table.

04:33 - And if that board were worth at all,

04:36 - or we're going to lift up off the table, it'd be a problem.

04:40 - So that vacuum cable sucks everything down right underneath it.

04:56 - Now he's going to get the

04:57 - core that he had just set.

05:02 - And he's going to place it directly on the table where it needs

05:05 - to go, using those alignment jigs that he had cut from before.

05:08 - There's alignment holes.

05:14 - Here he's just placing tags directly into those alignment holes.

05:18 - Those holes have been cut into the table as well to make sure that this board

05:21 - doesn't move anywhere.

05:22 - While it's on there.

05:43 - And now he uses his handy

05:45 - dandy computer skills to jump in

05:49 - and make sure that the exact right tool path is being cut out.

05:52 - For this specific board and board size.

06:03 - And now the machine does what it does.

06:26 - After checking

06:27 - to make sure that the machine is doing exactly what he told it to do,

06:32 - West will move over into the gluing station.

06:54 - And over here in the gluing station,

06:57 - once that board comes off the CNC machine, if you can look down and see that

07:02 - those black plastic strips in there are

07:06 - what he would be installing.

07:13 - Now, those are a high density plastic.

07:15 - And that's what I was describing

07:16 - earlier as being the place where if the board does run into something,

07:21 - the board is going to hit those plastic pieces first to protect

07:24 - the wood core that's on the inside.

07:28 - And you can see we use a variety of different clamps

07:31 - to make sure that these get nice and tight right up on the table.

07:37 - Is a,

07:38 - a custom made one that Larry Royer,

07:41 - Austin's uncle actually made for us.

07:44 - And custom design, we call that one the Iron Maiden.

07:49 - It's a pretty beastly looking machine, but basically

07:51 - all it does is act and serve as a series of clamps.

07:55 - All right, from that station over there where the sidewalls got glued

07:58 - in, West will bring the core over

08:01 - to the planer, and

08:04 - the planer will bring it down to

08:06 - being nice and flat.

08:10 - We've actually developed, a series of planer

08:13 - jigs you can see underneath that board that he's using is another board.

08:17 - And the that's not perfectly flat.

08:20 - And what will happen is as that board goes through the planer like he's doing right

08:24 - there, the rollers will actually push it down onto this jig

08:29 - and put a profile into the core

08:33 - so the top will remain perfectly flat.

08:37 - But the bottom will actually have a little bit of curvature in it.

08:40 - And the reason why we do that is twofold.

08:44 - First, snowboards, when you're riding them, you want them to be flexible.

08:49 - You want them to be light,

08:50 - and you want them to be thin in the places that you desire.

08:54 - And so we designed this jig here

08:57 - to make sure that the board is most thin, only in the places that we want it

09:02 - directly in the

09:03 - center, there's a flex point,

09:08 - but up where your feet go for the binding,

09:12 - it's a little bit thicker.

09:13 - In that way.

09:20 - So in each stage

09:21 - he's cranking it down a little bit further,

09:24 - bringing the blades a little bit closer,

09:27 - making the board a little bit thinner.

09:31 - In the past,

09:32 - Nancy used the CNC machine to do this stage.

09:35 - But as you saw before, when he was setting up the machine,

09:39 - that machine, while very, very accurate, is relatively slow.

09:43 - And so we spent a lot of time prototyping a way to figure out

09:48 - how to put this profile into our snowboard without using the CNC machine.

09:53 - And we landed on this planar system because as you can see, he's just cranking

09:57 - that little dial on the far side and it's a lot faster.

10:02 - This whole process takes about 5 to 7 minutes to go through.

10:07 - Whereas on the CNC machine, it used to take about an hour and a half to do.

10:11 - And so we saved a lot of time by developing this prototype for

10:14 - how we could use the jigs.

10:24 - So let's just took this board that he just plain

10:28 - and brought it back over to the CNC and aligned it with those same

10:31 - alignment holes that he drilled earlier and was using earlier,

10:35 - and now he's using the CNC machine to start the cut out.

10:40 - So this will start to look like a snowboard.

10:43 - Up until now, it's looked like a piece of wood with a few plastic sheets in it.

10:47 - At this stage it's going to start looking like a snowboard.

10:50 - First, our design of his snowboard.

10:53 - We have a three dimensional base design, which I mentioned earlier,

10:57 - that three dimensional base design

11:00 - is started.

11:02 - Excuse me.

11:03 - At this stage right here, where in the wood, we're actually going to have

11:08 - our three dimensions start to be inserted into the wood using the CNC machine.

11:13 - Later when we get to the plastics room and the fiberglass, you know,

11:17 - the layup room, all of those will come together

11:19 - where we'll see how that fiberglass and the plastics wrap around

11:23 - this shape that we've created here on the CNC.

11:26 - And that's really important because that's what gives our boards this strength

11:30 - in comparison to other snowboards, that three dimensional design.

11:34 - By introducing curvature

11:35 - into the base of the snowboard, it actually creates more strength.

11:39 - Kind of like the corrugations in cardboard or a tin roof.

11:44 - Arches are strong.

11:45 - And so by introducing these arches all the way at this beginning stage

11:49 - of the wood core production,

11:52 - our boards are actually quite a bit stronger in their final state as well.

12:07 - So right now you can see that

12:08 - the machine is cutting out the rough snowboard shape.

12:13 - And if you look at it from kind of a more directly top,

12:16 - you can see how that's cutting out that shape.

12:28 - And now that the machine is running and it looks like it's running the program

12:32 - that he specifically set for it, West turns around on to this far side

12:38 - and starts

12:40 - after the core has come off the CNC machine,

12:43 - making sure that it's nice and sanded up

12:47 - just to make sure that any last minute little birds that might have come up

12:51 - on the plastic are, And just to give it

12:54 - a little final touch.

13:02 - So we've just come from the woodshop, the wood room,

13:04 - and brought our core into the plastics room. Now.

13:07 - And as you can see, a coil is cutting our base.

13:11 - This will be the bottom of our snowboard.

13:13 - And we've got a nice little jig here that helps us cut them to size and

13:19 - you can see sees a clamp on the far side.

13:22 - And from there he'll bring that over to our little spray hose

13:26 - to make sure that any little bit of dirt doesn't stay on the board.

13:30 - Because at this stage, if the plastics have

13:33 - a little bit of dirt on them, we have a problem, because later

13:36 - we're going to try and find them to other plastic and plastics don't.

13:40 - Especially these ones don't like to stick to each other very much.

13:44 - And so if there's any dirt, even something as small

13:47 - as human oils, can affect the bonding of them.

13:50 - So at this stage, we try and make sure that everything is clean as possible.

13:54 - Everyone always wears gloves in this room.

13:56 - But right now, he's putting this into our sublimation press. And

14:01 - right before that,

14:02 - he'd printed off a graphic,

14:05 - on the printer using a special type of ink called sublimation ink, which goes

14:10 - directly from the solid and then, when heated up, goes into a gas form.

14:15 - So you'll see that that piece of paper has ink on it, that

14:18 - when he puts this into that red, press right in front of him and heats it up,

14:23 - that ink will go from the solid form that's stuck to the paper into a gas,

14:27 - and will impregnate the plastics right above it that he just placed on it.

14:33 - So there, he just applied pressure to it

14:36 - so that the press is going to clean that piece of plastic

14:40 - right up against the piece of paper that he had printed earlier.

14:44 - And that will sit in there for about ten minutes or so.

14:48 - So that the plastic has a time,

14:51 - a chance to heat up, and that ink has a chance to heat up and sublimate.

14:55 - And at this stage,

14:57 - if you rotate to your right,

14:59 - you can see one that has actually come out, the,

15:03 - the sublimation press.

15:06 - This is what it'll look like once it comes out of the sublimation press.

15:09 - And at this stage we take our plastic.

15:11 - And just like we did with the CNC machine,

15:13 - we're going to make it look like a snowboard.

15:15 - And John is just using a router here to router out

15:18 - the correct shape.

15:25 - And now things are really starting

15:27 - to look like snowboards.

15:32 - Once again this will be the base of the snowboard.

15:34 - So this is what you'll see from the bottom.

15:36 - And at the next stage when we go into Leah this will be the bottom piece.

15:41 - And when it gets all pressed together, you'll be able to see

15:44 - that this is where the logo on the bottom looks like.

15:57 - Now that our

15:58 - base is cut out in the shape of a snowboard, he's going to take this

16:03 - and head over to the edging station.

16:10 - Where he's got one

16:11 - set up actually already in the process of being added.

16:15 - A quill here is is bending

16:17 - the edge that is going to be applied to the one that John just did here.

16:22 - This is a handy dandy little jig or a little tool that, Larry

16:25 - Royer, Austin's, Uncle, also built for us

16:30 - and designed.

16:33 - Before we were doing this by hand.

16:35 - And it was a pretty miserable experience.

16:38 - And so this little tool here makes sure that

16:41 - it puts that curvature into these pieces of steel

16:45 - so that as we apply them to that rounded snowboard

16:48 - shape that we just created with the plastic, it'll be easy to apply.

16:57 - It and now

16:59 - John is getting set up and he's already started applying

17:03 - that steel edge like the one that a quill was just bending.

17:06 - And you can see by introducing that curvature into the steel

17:09 - edge, it makes it relatively easy for him to apply it.

17:12 - You can see he's actually using some industrial grade superglue right now,

17:17 - and he's just applying that right to the edge and then using all of these

17:22 - little hand clamps to make sure that it sits in place

17:25 - while it dries.

17:32 - And the purpose behind having this steel edge attached for a snowboard

17:36 - is that when you're riding, you want something that's pretty strong,

17:40 - durable, and can be sharpened so that when you're riding,

17:43 - you can really dig and bite into the snow or whatever surface you're riding on.

17:47 - And the steel edge really helps with that,

17:50 - especially because you can sharpen this steel

17:53 - so that it has a nice, really fine, sharp edge to bite into.

18:02 - And he'll just wrap this steel edge

18:04 - all the way around.

18:08 - Okay.

18:15 - And you can actually see

18:16 - he's using a screwdriver with a little notch put in the flathead,

18:21 - and leaning against it here as a, as a way to put pressure

18:25 - directly on this steel edge to make sure that it stays

18:28 - in place.

18:31 - And here he's

18:32 - just cutting off the excess to make sure that those two steel points

18:35 - will touch at the exact same place,

18:39 - that there's no overhang.

18:50 - Believe it or not, this is actually one of the more difficult

18:53 - parts of the, the job of the snowboard build.

18:59 - Because at this stage,

19:01 - if you're not good at bending an edge and applying an edge and it pops off,

19:05 - then the whole rest of your stage is, much more difficult.

19:09 - So these guys are actually quite talented at this.

19:12 - Not many people that we, that work in the shop

19:15 - like doing this job because it can be a little bit stressful.

19:33 - And again, he's marking exactly

19:34 - where the two pieces are going to meet.

19:47 - And trimming it just so they fit perfectly.

19:51 - The goal being at the end of the whole snowboard production,

19:55 - that you can't even tell that this wasn't a single piece of steel

19:58 - that wrapped all the way around.

20:00 - But that, it's actually one piece

20:05 - that is conjoined at some point.

20:08 - And like I said, these guys are pretty good at doing that,

20:10 - so they can't even tell.

20:18 - And John,

20:18 - you want to just show him what the final product will look like

20:22 - once they've finished and let this dry the piece that they were just working on,

20:26 - it will come out looking just like that,

20:30 - with the steel edge wrapped all the way around.

20:40 - And once again, with the base,

20:42 - it'll have the, the logo mason imprinted on the plastic.

20:47 - You can see there that he's actually applied a layer of transfer tape.

20:51 - And that's just a thin layer of tape to protect the base.

20:53 - Like I said before, we want to make sure that this room

20:56 - is as clean as possible with the plastic, is as clean as possible.

20:59 - And so there's a thin layer of tape over there to make sure that,

21:02 - any dust or particles that are in the room right now

21:05 - aren't going to affect the the next stage of lap,

21:09 - which we are about to move into.

21:13 - So we just come out of the plastics room

21:15 - where we have now all of the pieces that we need to make a snowboard.

21:19 - We have the wood core,

21:20 - we have our plastic base that's been sublimated and had the edges attached.

21:24 - And we've cut our layers of fiberglass and our top sheet, and it is now a time

21:29 - to create this sandwich that will eventually become a snowboard.

21:33 - And this stage is what we call the layup stage.

21:35 - This is by far the most fun and the most interesting part.

21:39 - And when people come to tour the shop,

21:41 - or when people purchase a board in the area,

21:43 - we actually invite them to come and be a part of this process

21:47 - where they get to build their own snowboard,

21:49 - where all the pieces come together here.

21:50 - And so right now, John is just measuring out,

21:53 - the amount of epoxy that we need for that specific board size.

21:57 - You can see this is a very exact science and a very exact procedure.

22:01 - Where you, you raise the bucket and drip epoxy right into this scale.

22:06 - And so the way that epoxy works

22:09 - is that it has two parts to it has a resin and a hardener.

22:12 - And so he's now mixing in the hardener,

22:17 - to make sure that those two quantities are in the right ratio

22:20 - so that it will set off the correct chemical reaction, which will eventually

22:25 - make this epoxy, really, really hard and really, really stable.

22:30 - This epoxy that we use is actually specifically formulated

22:34 - for winter and snow and the types of cold and pressure

22:40 - that will be needed and necessary for a snowboard.

22:43 - And you'll see here, he's just mixing it up,

22:46 - making sure that those two components are nicely mixed

22:50 - so that that chemical reaction can be set off.

22:53 - And from here, once he has finished mixing that up,

22:57 - will start to pour it onto the board

23:00 - that is now sitting in this little plastic

23:04 - adapter with the transfer tape.

23:23 - And so he's poured on the layer,

23:25 - and he will take a squeegee here and just spread it out

23:29 - and make it nice and smooth, and make sure that every area of this plastic

23:33 - has a nice, thin layer of epoxy on it.

23:35 - This is also a, a pretty crucial part,

23:39 - because if you put too much epoxy, then the boards will be too heavy.

23:43 - If you put too little epoxy, then the board won't stick together.

23:48 - And so that's partially why we're pretty, exact with the scales

23:52 - and making sure that we have the exact right amount of epoxy that we can use.

23:56 - And you can see now he is making sure that there's a nice thin

24:00 - layer of epoxy on that steel edge inside of those little teeth.

24:04 - It's important to get a little bit of epoxy into those as well.

24:08 - And those little pockets so that

24:11 - those edges really have a nice firm

24:14 - stick and a firm bond at the end.

24:18 - And so we can go through and just use his fingers to make sure

24:21 - that a little layer of epoxy gets in between each of those layers

24:24 - or those, each of those teeth.

24:28 - This process is pretty standard for first word building.

24:33 - And this is, like I said, where the magic happens.

24:36 - This is the most fun part.

24:38 - It's not terribly complicated, which is why we allow people

24:40 - to come in and participate in this section.

24:43 - And it's also pretty cool that they get to be a part of, of the whole creation

24:46 - of building their snowboard.

24:50 - All right.

24:50 - The next step after the squeegee has put on the epoxy is to apply video tape.

24:56 - Video stands for Vibration Dampening System.

24:59 - And basically this is a really thin piece of rubber,

25:03 - that is going to go along the steel edges around the outside.

25:08 - We apply it to do two things.

25:12 - One, it helps a little bit with bonding.

25:15 - The idea behind it initially was

25:18 - when the steel edges, which have no give,

25:22 - are chattering along with the plastic when you're writing the board.

25:27 - A little bit of rubber in between that gives a little bit of that dampening,

25:31 - will make sure that your steel edges don't actually come off or are separate.

25:36 - At the end, when you're writing your snowboard,

25:41 - you can see they're putting this thin layer

25:42 - around the entire edge of the board.

26:02 - And this doesn't have to be too exact.

26:04 - It just needs to make sure that it covers that entire steel portion.

26:07 - And the reason why is not to be too exact is because later,

26:10 - this board will actually be cut out to shape again.

26:14 - And so any excess that's hanging over

26:17 - the edge will also be cut off.

26:20 - This stage here is throwing on, the first layer of fiberglass.

26:25 - There will eventually be two layers of fiberglass.

26:28 - Snowboards are a composite build where this layer of fiberglass

26:33 - will be impregnated by the epoxy resin,

26:37 - and fiberglass is nice and flexible,

26:41 - almost like a fabric at first, when it's just in this natural state.

26:45 - And then once you throw on some,

26:47 - some of some type of composite material like, like epoxy,

26:51 - it will become very, very stiff and hard, but still flexible and strong.

26:57 - And that's why it's used on things like snowboards.

26:59 - You can see he just cut out two sections for the inserts.

27:03 - Those little metal pieces that are sticking through

27:05 - that will eventually be where you put your feet.

27:09 - When the whole board is together,

27:12 - you screw your bindings into the board using those inserts.

27:17 - And you can see right now they're just making sure

27:19 - that this layer of fiberglass is beautifully

27:22 - and perfectly impregnated with all of this epoxy.

27:26 - You want to make sure that every single fiber is separated

27:30 - by or has a little bit of, is saturated in epoxy.

27:34 - Any area that is not won't get the benefit of,

27:39 - of having this epoxy, making it strong and flexible and things like that.

27:43 - And so at this stage, they're, using these squeegees just to make sure that

27:49 - every layer, every fiber of that fiberglass

27:52 - is nice and saturated.

27:58 - Once again,

27:58 - making sure that everything at every stage in this process

28:02 - is blown off to make sure that any little particles or pieces of plastic

28:06 - that may have been floating around aren't still stuck to the board,

28:09 - because that will affect our bonding in the future.

28:13 - You can see here, they're coating the wood and a little bit of epoxy.

28:20 - And this is just to make sure that any of the pores

28:22 - in the wood soak up some of that epoxy as well.

28:26 - Because any place that it's touching the fiberglass, you're going

28:30 - to want to make sure that there's a great or really nice strong bond.

28:33 - And here I'm paying a lot of attention to the sidewalls, to those black sidewalls.

28:38 - Right there to make sure that there is plastic,

28:43 - you know,

28:45 - to make sure that that plastic has a nice

28:47 - layer of, of epoxy on it as well,

28:50 - because that is the part that is going to be exposed to the elements.

28:53 - So we want to make sure that that part is really nicely saturated and

28:59 - epoxy as well.

29:02 - And here they're using those inserts that we cut out of the fiberglass earlier

29:05 - that we're poking through to make sure that the core is nicely aligned.

29:23 - And you can see that

29:23 - this board has two cherry stringers

29:27 - that run along it as well that are mixed in with the poplar.

29:30 - We use, like I said before, a variety of different woods

29:34 - from Pennsylvania, poplar and cherry.

29:37 - Some words have Purple Heart in them.

29:40 - Some boards.

29:40 - We use bamboo, depending on what type of flex profile we want the board to have,

29:46 - different riders like to have different flexibility in the boards.

29:49 - They like to have different weights.

29:51 - They like boards to be, a little bit stiffer,

29:55 - but to have a lot of stored potential energy.

29:58 - Some riders like their boards to be a little bit stiffer,

30:01 - but not to store too much potential energy.

30:04 - And so depending on the type of wood that we use

30:07 - and the the thickness of the board in the flex profile, we can

30:10 - we can create just about any type of riding experience for someone.

30:15 - So here goes the top layer of fiberglass.

30:18 - We're kind of completing the sandwich with our wood core

30:22 - being the center.

30:30 - And once again pouring epoxy over the whole board

30:33 - to make sure that that fiberglass layer is really nicely saturated with as much,

30:38 - epoxy as is necessary to make sure that every fiber has it.

30:41 - Some people are surprised at this stage.

30:44 - They think, oh, I thought that this was going to be a clear top board.

30:47 - And it is, you'll see that over the process of them

30:51 - working this, this fiberglass, this is really the stage where you start

30:54 - to notice, how much that fiberglass each thread,

30:59 - each fiber of that fiberglass, absorbs and mixes in with this epoxy

31:05 - that over the course of him working through this,

31:07 - you'll start to see that that will become clear and clear,

31:11 - because ultimately they're just really thin fibers of glass.

31:14 - And so, as we work in the epoxy, that will actually become,

31:18 - clear to the point where you can see the wood core all the way through,

31:23 - and then with the final, final product, you actually can't even tell

31:26 - that there was a layer of fiber, so you can't see it.

31:29 - It looks just like a layer of wood.

32:08 - So this is a really

32:09 - important step in the esthetic of this for the final product.

32:12 - Not a lot of snowboard companies press with clear top sheets.

32:16 - While they build their boards exactly the same way.

32:19 - They'll actually put another layer of plastic over the top

32:23 - with some sort of a graphic printed on it or something.

32:26 - And the reason for that is, this stage is so important to make sure

32:31 - that literally every fiber of the glass is mixed in with the epoxy.

32:35 - Otherwise, you're not going to be able to see

32:38 - the wood core as beautifully, as it should be.

32:41 - You're going to have streaks of fiberglass that you can still see.

32:44 - If it's not perfectly saturated.

32:47 - And this part takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of love to make sure

32:51 - that every single fiber is, is, is filled in and is saturated.

32:56 - Otherwise you're going to get those streaks.

32:59 - And from

33:00 - a manufacturing standpoint, it's a lot easier to just cover the top

33:05 - with a picture, than it is to get this stage right.

33:15 - Now you're starting to see,

33:18 - slowly but surely, that nice, beautiful wood

33:21 - core with the cherry stringers is showing through.

33:25 - It'll become even clearer

33:28 - as you work in the epoxy.

33:49 - Once again, you're going to start

33:50 - seeing them pay a lot of attention to those plastic sidewalls.

33:53 - And those sidewalls, once again, do not like to bond to pretty much anything.

33:58 - And so they're going to make sure using their hands and

34:03 - as much epoxy as they need to make sure that those are saturated fully as well,

34:08 - to make sure that those have a nice bonding surface

34:10 - and have as much epoxy as they need to bond.

34:46 - Now that

34:47 - the fiberglass is nicely and completely saturated,

34:50 - it's time to put on some of the graphics.

34:54 - You can see the bottom one.

34:55 - There is our icon logo,

34:59 - with a man riding up into the hills to,

35:02 - to ride.

35:06 - The mountains are calling, and I must go.

35:12 - Man in the middle at a close.

35:13 - Working on right there is the board information.

35:17 - So that will have the size of the board.

35:19 - The flex profile in there, the serial number.

35:22 - And sometimes we also put custom things in there.

35:25 - For instance, if somebody wants their name on their snowboard

35:28 - or a quote or something, we can print them and put them anywhere.

35:31 - And then of course, our logo up at the top.

35:38 - And then from there, we're going to complete the sandwich

35:41 - with the very last layer is our clear top sheet.

35:53 - That clear

35:53 - top sheet will be the very outside layer of the board.

35:57 - Once again, there long enough to make sure that it is as clean

36:00 - as possible.

36:12 - And it's important in this stage that,

36:14 - they do their best not to get any epoxy

36:17 - onto this layer of the board.

36:20 - And the reason for that is epoxy is hard to get off of things.

36:25 - And you don't really want a layer of epoxy on the top of your board.

36:29 - And so you'll see, the next thing that they're going to do is actually cover

36:33 - this with a sheet of plastic,

36:36 - to make sure that any excess epoxy

36:39 - doesn't drip onto, onto the top sheet or onto the rest of the board.

36:43 - That will then have to be removed later, because it is not fun to remove epoxy

36:47 - from things.

37:11 - So this

37:13 - little piece of plastic is

37:17 - another one of those plastic materials that is designed not to bond to anything.

37:21 - As you can see, there's little pieces of epoxy that over time do build up.

37:25 - It's not perfect.

37:26 - And it also shows how aggressively strong epoxy can be.

37:31 - Which is a great thing for your snowboard because it means that your snowboards

37:35 - not going to come apart, very easily.

37:38 - It's kind of an annoying thing in the manufacturing process,

37:41 - because if you're not incredibly clean, with it,

37:45 - if you get it on your clothes or something like that, it's

37:48 - not going to come off.

38:17 - And so now this entire

38:19 - sandwich of snowboard has been made,

38:22 - and it will get thrown

38:24 - into the pressing system.

38:29 - The pressing system then

38:30 - cooks the board at high heat and at pressure to make sure

38:35 - that that chemical reaction is started with the epoxy really kicks off.

38:41 - And that all of the pieces, all of the layers that they put together,

38:44 - stay in the right place and really get squashed together

38:47 - to make sure that they stick properly.

38:50 - So now the board is ready to come out of the press.

38:52 - It's sat in there for about half an hour and got cooked, temperature

38:56 - and at pressure.

38:57 - And they're just pulling it out of the pressing system right now.

39:00 - And here you can see that all of those different layers have come together

39:05 - to make what we call a snowboard square.

39:13 - And these layers of plastic sheeting that they're pulling off of it

39:16 - once again are just making sure that any excess epoxy or any resins

39:22 - aren't going to spill onto the floor or any other places.

39:31 - And here they're just

39:31 - pulling off that top layer of tape that was protecting them.

39:35 - Foreign.

39:43 - And pretty soon

39:43 - they're going to pull off that bottom layer to reveal

39:49 - a beautiful snowboard.

40:06 - And this is what we call a snowboard square.

40:10 - The reason we call it

40:10 - a snowboard square is because it's not in the shape of a snowboard anymore.

40:14 - There's layers of fiberglass and epoxy

40:17 - that were pressed together, had to be pressed around the shape.

40:20 - And then at the next stage in the finishing room, we'll be cutting them out.

40:24 - And as you can see right now, John is just taking off that layer of transfer tape,

40:28 - that we've put on in the plastic room to make sure that no little bits of dust

40:33 - or anything got into the board as we're pressing it and making it.

40:38 - As you can see, this is a custom board that somebody ordered.

40:42 - Apparently his wife is German,

40:45 - and she wanted the German flag on the base of her snowboard.

40:48 - And so we had our graphic guy, Stephen,

40:52 - come through and make a beautiful custom base for her.

41:02 - You can see real quick at this stage, they'll just do some inspections

41:05 - to make sure that there's no areas where there's excess epoxy

41:09 - that are sticking up or that had leaked in a quote.

41:12 - Right now, it's just peeling off a little bit of epoxy and transfer tape

41:16 - that got stuck in during the process.

41:31 - And now they flip the board over

41:32 - and do the same thing with the top to make sure that

41:35 - that beautiful clear top sheet came through,

41:39 - that the fiberglass was saturated beautifully

41:43 - and completely.

42:09 - To reveal a beautiful, clear wood top.

42:13 - Snowboard.

42:16 - Now, at this stage, the board is about as strong as

42:20 - it will be

42:22 - trimmed out and cut the shape.

42:26 - Once again, what you're seeing there is the actual wood.

42:29 - The Pennsylvania poplar.

42:35 - Which used to press with a completely clear top sheet

42:37 - so that once this board comes out, you can see the beauty of the wood grain.

42:41 - You can see the beauty of the natural landscape

42:45 - and natural resources that we have here in Pennsylvania.

42:48 - We also just like wood.

42:52 - Now, at this stage,

42:55 - Apple is going to cut out

42:57 - our snowboard square using the bandsaw.

43:01 - He's going to remove all of the flashing is what we call

43:04 - the excess material after it comes out of the press.

43:07 - All of those square layers of fiberglass and the top, see,

43:12 - will have a little bit of excess material

43:14 - that we need to remove.

43:19 - We use the bandsaw,

43:20 - because it is powerful enough to cut through

43:24 - this really strong composite that we've just designed.

43:28 - The fiberglass,

43:29 - the plastics, the epoxy all stick together.

43:32 - It can be done using other tools.

43:34 - Other handheld tools as well.

43:38 - But the bandsaw is generally the quickest

43:41 - method that you can use.

43:47 - And you can see

43:48 - he's going in and actually using this steel edge

43:51 - that we've put on before as a guide.

44:16 - And you can see

44:16 - it is now looking like a snowboard.

44:24 - And you can see

44:24 - he has to raise it to go up around those nose and tail,

44:29 - which have a little bit of curvature in them.

44:35 - And here he's going to go in and just clean up those edges

44:37 - and make sure that there are no sections and,

44:41 - access epoxy or other materials

44:44 - that are floating on there.

45:06 - So this stage doesn't have to be absolutely perfect.

45:09 - And the reason for that is it's going to go through another edging stage.

45:14 - Actually, two more edging stages,

45:16 - to really buff up those edges and sharpen them.

45:19 - But the idea is that the more that you can get off with the bandsaw at this stage,

45:23 - the easier your time will be in the future.

45:25 - The bandsaw removes more material than an edger

45:28 - well, and edges essentially just a grinding stone.

45:31 - And so the more you can get off with the bands on cut off entirely,

45:34 - the easier your job will be for the next few stages.

45:48 - This is by far the most dangerous part of the snowboard build.

45:51 - Band saws are dangerous and this is also one of the scariest parts of the build.

45:56 - Because at this stage you've gone through all of this work to put together

46:01 - this snowboard and you're pretty much in the final stages right now.

46:04 - And if the steel edge or the board gets nicked

46:08 - with the bandsaw here, you spent quite a bit of time,

46:13 - getting to this stage,

46:14 - only to have a board that you can't really sound or really ride.

46:18 - And so that can be somewhat stressful at this stage.

46:22 - And these guys have somewhat nerves of steel to be able to go through

46:25 - and take all of their hard work and put it up against a bandsaw.

46:29 - At this stage in the game.

46:42 - And all right, from here,

46:44 - the board then is going over to the first

46:47 - grinding station.

46:57 - And this is where we touch up those nice steel edges.

46:59 - Make sure that they're nice and and sharp.

47:03 - Any epoxy that might have been residue, that might have been stuck on the side

47:07 - that didn't get cut off by the bandsaw is taken off

47:11 - at this stage.

47:24 - You can see

47:24 - he does the entire board, the nose, the tail,

47:28 - the sidewall as well.

47:35 - Once they've gotten

47:36 - their first edging, they then go over to get routed.

47:39 - This puts a really nice bevel around the snowboard.

47:47 - And we've made this little table up here

47:51 - to allow him to,

47:55 - router effectively.

48:02 - This also does a good job of cleaning up the edges

48:05 - that are not your steel edge, but you're the top of your board.

48:09 - Once they come out of the bandsaw, they can be a little bit jagged.

48:13 - And at this stage, by riding them and creating that little bevel,

48:17 - you also clean up the top of the board and kind of give, your board

48:20 - a nice standard snowboard look and feel.

48:31 - Highly.

48:55 - Now we're just going to flip the board over

48:56 - and do the other side.

49:23 - And you can see he's just brushing off any of the excess debris.

49:25 - And the reason for that is he's

49:27 - using the base of the board as a guide for the router.

49:31 - And so if there's little pieces of plastic or anything that are going to bump

49:35 - the router out of position, you're going to get a little mix. Up.

50:03 - Now that router is complete,

50:04 - the board gets over to the final edging station.

50:07 - This is the second edging station.

50:16 - This machine will remove

50:18 - any of the last little bits of excess material that is on the board.

50:22 - It'll also sharpen up the edges for ride ability when the board hits the snow.

50:29 - You want a nice sharp steel edge that will really dig into the snow.

50:33 - And this is the station that will also start to create that.

50:37 - Also, this stage will do

50:42 - a little bit of an

50:43 - edge on our soft edge technology.

50:47 - Now, not all snowboard companies have to use two edges.

50:50 - They can just go through one stage.

50:52 - But because we have

50:55 - a double edge system on our three dimensional bases, we actually have to go

51:00 - through two steps of edging, and use, multiple machines

51:04 - to do this.

51:25 - So at this point, he has shifted the machine

51:29 - and repositioned it to be able to get

51:33 - the other edge.

51:40 - Once again,

51:40 - with our soft edge technology, we have to use

51:44 - a couple different machines

51:45 - than what standard snowboard builders use.

51:49 - To be able to access the different grooves in our three dimensional base.

51:54 - You know, most snowboards are flat on the base.

51:57 - And, we're one of the first companies

51:59 - to come out with a three dimensional base design.

52:01 - And so having this three dimensional base design meant that we had to invent

52:05 - some of our own tools for different things.

52:07 - And we also had to,

52:09 - design different methods for how to tune our boards and to create them.

52:15 - Fortunately,

52:16 - we have some really, really intelligent people on our team,

52:19 - some amazing engineers, some amazing builders who were able to figure out

52:23 - all of this stuff and streamline this process to be able to create,

52:27 - everything that we needed to build these beautiful boards.

52:48 - And, Now,

52:52 - the edges are all nice and sharp on this board.

52:55 - We'll just get cleaned up around the edges,

53:00 - get a nice wax, it'll get brushed off.

53:04 - And make sure that there's no little pieces hanging off there

53:07 - from all of this grinding in these processes, it'll get wiped down

53:11 - and it'll get passed through that

53:14 - little window directly

53:16 - into the shipping bay, where the board will get

53:21 - a nice layer of wax, will get boxed up and sent to,

53:26 - lucky customer

53:27 - who ordered that beautiful German custom board.

53:32 - All right, so now that the board has come out

53:34 - of the finishing through our little hole right here,

53:38 - it gets a couple more little final touches before it goes into a box to be shipped.

53:44 - This machine right here is a waxing machine and the bottom of your snowbird.

53:49 - You want to be nice and slick? It's like, as possible.

53:52 - So we cover the snow boards and, very thin layer of wax.

53:56 - And so this machine is, it's kind of cool.

53:58 - It's a rolling hot wax machine where you'll just go along

54:02 - and give the whole base of the board

54:06 - a thin layer of wax.

54:07 - Here.

54:18 - So this machine is actually heated, and there's wax on this roll right here.

54:35 - Just give it a little quick inspection to make sure

54:37 - that it's a little layer of thin layer of wax across the whole thing.

54:41 - And then we'll take it over

54:43 - to the opposite side of this machine, which has a nice brush,

54:46 - which will make sure that if there's any little globs of wax that came on

54:52 - and those globs will come off and get smoothed out,

55:13 - That's a pretty looking sort.

55:16 - And from here,

55:18 - it is just about ready to ship.

55:21 - We choose to ship in

55:23 - as environmentally friendly boxes as we can.

55:27 - We wanted to use something that would be able

55:30 - to be thrown away because we know we'll just throw all sorts of stuff.

55:33 - And we knew that

55:34 - if we packed with styrofoam or anything, that people would be throwing them away.

55:38 - And so we chose to use cardboard, and we trusted that our snowboards are built

55:42 - strongly enough, that they're not going to be damaged in transit in any way.

55:47 - And so here we just seal up the box after we've thrown in,

55:52 - we got our manufacturers warranties

55:55 - and instructions.

55:57 - We'll get thrown right in here.

56:00 - And we just box these up.

56:03 - And so,

56:05 - we've actually come to the end of our tour here at Gilson Boards.

56:09 - Now that we're in the shipping bay,

56:10 - these boards will head out to their respective riders,

56:14 - the people that have ordered them

56:15 - and are really excited to ride the new technology.

56:18 - I just want to say thank you guys for taking a tour of our shop

56:21 - and seeing what it's like to build snowboards here in central Pennsylvania.

56:25 - We're very happy to be here.

56:26 - And we, we hope that at some point you'll get a chance to come.

56:30 - And actually build a board with us at some point.

56:33 - Or if you would like a board and you can't come to the shop to build it

56:36 - yourself, you're

56:37 - welcome to go to Gilson boards.com and go check out the boards that we make.

56:41 - Thank you very much. Appreciate it.