Colorado-based Never Summer Industries (NS) is the last upper-tier independently owned snowboard manufacturer in the US. Family-owned, Tim and Tracy Canaday are still involved in the manufacturing and engineering process as well as business operations.

When the summer is at its hottest and you’re going through snowboard withdrawals, 73 people go to work at the NS factory to make your next snowboard (or skis). The Never Summer factory produces their own snowboards, and they also press snowboards for Sims, Academy, and High Society along with skis for Icelantic, Fatypus, and Harvest, and adaptive ski companies Mountain Man and Enabling Technologies.

Never Summer took us on a factory tour to see just how they make your snowboards (or skis). When you see the website or hear a sales clerk tell you these snowboards are handmade, they mean it. There are quite a few craftsmen who take part in the assembly of each snowboard that goes through the shop.

How is it done? Every snowboard starts out as a block of laminated wood known as a core block. Each core block consists of six to eight snowboards with a production rate of roughly 250 units per day or around 180 snowboards and 50 pairs of skis. After the core blocks are assembled, the sidecut is machined in, sidewall attached and then the block is sliced into individual cores.

Once the blocks are cut to individual cores, they are then drilled for the mounting holes and ran through a programmable wide sander to taper the core for precise flex.

While the cores are being built in one area, the base is being made in another. The graphics are die cut and assembled together. The decals are cut from one color, and the background from a different color. However the cutouts are identical, so from one sheet of PTEX, they get both a graphic and a background. This way they waste less plastic and cut production costs.

The edges come in as a long roll of steel edge. They are rough shaped by machine, and then course shaped to the desired radius by hand using a pair of specially made crimping pliers. The edge is then glued to the base material, or PTEX.

The base goes into a cassette that has been precision machined out of aluminum. This form holds the shape and keeps materials from slipping or moving from one another. There is a set of these cassettes for each board shape and each size of that model. This is when the wood core now comes to meet the base of the snowboard.

A layer of glue is spread across the base, rubber stripping is laid around the edge, then a layer of biaxial fiberglass, more epoxy, and then the core. On top of the core goes any carbon stringers that need applied, and the topsheet that gives the board it’s flex pattern and graphic.

Once all of this is completed, the board goes into a vacuum press where all of the layers are drawn together under vacuum. Hydraulic pressure is applied, as well as heat in order to force the camber profile and cure the epoxy. After enough time, the board comes out and is ready to begin the finishing process.

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The boards come out of the cassette square, so someone takes the time to remove the flash, or extra material, from the board to give it the final shape that makes it look like a snowboard.

Never Summer boards come fully tuned from the factory. The boards are ran over several stages of base sanding from course to super fine belts to get that perfectly smooth base. Then they are sharpened, waxed, and sent to the inspector. The entire build process has taken five days from start to finish.

While the snowboards are inspected each step of the way by a manufacturing manager, there is a final 20 point inspection before being prepared for shipping. Then the shipping department does a final spot check as well. This is how NS keeps their manufacturer defects down to 1% of shipped product and can offer that three year warranty.

Even the boards that have cosmetic blemishes and are used for instructor proform and demo fleets are at an astonishingly low 4%, and a total failure of 1%. If you’re familiar with manufacturing at all, you understand just how impressive these numbers are. This is what results from having managers in each department with 15 or more years of snowboard manufacturing under their belts.

So the next time you hop on a Never Summer Snowboard, remember that there were a lot of people who helped craft that snowboard to bring you a product that you enjoy.

We would like to thank Vince Sanders for letting us come out and see the shop so that we could write this article, as well as setting us up with snowboards to demo so that we could write reviews and bring you more content.

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