How to Build an Orca with Travis Rice

Travis Rice with the Lib Tech Orca Snowboard

About a year ago we had Travis Rice out to Mervin Mfg. to check in and talk Orcas. We had the pleasure of setting him up to build his own board on the factory floor. The following Tim Zimmerman pics will give you an inside look of the process behind every dream board we build. Bearing in mind there’s a lot of steps and people involved that come before and after in the process these pictures highlight. For example; sourcing the very best and most sustainable / up-cycled / recyclable materials, creating the core profile in the wood shop for exacting standards needed to preserve each model’s riding personality, dialing in the top sheet and base art to perfection in our non toxic eco sublimation print house… and that’s just naming a few. Every step of the way is crucial to the overall performance of the board and each engineer, artist, designer, craftsperson involved brings their artistry to the process, putting their dreams in to your board.

Building snowboards at Mervin Mfg

Every Lib Tech dream board is a collaboration of engineers, skilled craftspeople and Rippers. Here Pete, Cobb, Pos and Travis talk shapes, materials and new dreams before heading to the factory floor to build.

Travis Rice building a snowboard at Mervin Mfg
Travis Rice with snowboard press at Mervin Mfg

Travis and Pos head on to the factory floor to an Orca building press and get going. After the parts are gathered they start with laying down the Magne-Traction® edges and sintered knife cut base.

Travis Rice spreading resin on snowboard base
Travis RIce getting resin
Travis Rice with Orca snowboard base

From here on out we’re going to need resin, Travis fills up with our safe, non toxic, non smelly (but not quite delicious) bio resin.

Travis lays down the first layer of resin, it’s important here to wet out all the edge key slots and keep it tight and tidy so you don’t get resin under the base.

Travis Rice applies edge tape to Orca snowboard base

Time to wet out and lay down edge dampening bond enhancing tape…

Travis Rice applying resin to Orca snowboard base
Travis Rice spreading resin on the Orca snowboard base

Travis carefully wets out the first layer of fiberglass and smooth riding basalt.

Travis Rice with wood core for Orca Snowboard
Travis Rice applying resin to Orca snowboard wood core
Travis Rice spreading resin on Orca snowboard wood core

Here comes the fast growning FSC certified wood core, already cut to exact Orca specifications and assembled with inserts in and sidewalls attached. More resin!

Travis Rice laying fiberglass on wood core of Orca snowboard
Travis Rice spreading resin on fiberglass for Orca Snowboard

Another layer of triaxial fiberglass and resin, Travis makes sure wet the glass out evenly over the entire surface. Good squeegee skills are a must!

Travis Rice with Orca snowboard topsheet
Travis Rice with Orca Topsheet on snowboard press
Lib Tech Orca snowboard topsheet

Now were ready for that beautiful eco-sublimated top sheet. Shout out to the crew working the magic behind the scenes to make those vibrant zero hazardous waste graphics, we’re not gonna show you that room… top secret.

Travis Rice building a Lib Tech Orca Snowboard
Lib Tech Orca snowboard 'Whale Tail' feature
Lib Tech Orca snowboard in the snowboard press at Mervin Mfg

We’re ready to press! Don’t forget that “whale tail” form block.

Travis Rice unveiling a freshly built Lib Tech Orca snowboard
Travis Rice taking Orca Snowboard out of the snowboard press

It’s a board! Still a few steps to go before it’s Rice ready though…

Travis Rice looking down the Orca SNowboard
Travis Rice looking at snowboard after the press
Travis Rice looking at the Orca Snowboard Tail

Travis and Steven Cobb do an early inspection on the contour profile before taking it over to finishing.

Orca snowboard looking good so far

Travis stoked so far on the build, now time for some master craftspeople to step in.

Tim McCabe on the band saw rough cutting the board to shape.
Tim McCabe looking at the rough cut snowboard

Tim McCabe on the band saw rough cutting the board to shape. No heavy, hard to repair wrap around edges means it’s up to the craftsperson to recreate that exact Orca tip and tail for every board.

Tim McCabe grinding snowboard edge
Tim McCabe grinding snowboard edges
Tim McCabe sanding the tail of the Lib Tech Orca snowboard
Tim McCabe sanding tail of Orca snowboard

Tim fine tunes the shape to Travis’s perfect shred specifications.

Tim McCabe finishing Orca snowboard build
Tim McCabe putting an edge bevel on the Orca Snowboard

Tim puts a lovely little bevel on the sidewalls for edge hold and tuning access.

Tim McCabe drilling inserts of Orca Snowboard

A light countersink on the inserts makes for easy binding mounting.

Tim McCabe tuning edges of Lib Tech Orca snowboard

Tim puts a precision tune on the steel.

Base Grinding the Orca Snowboard
Base grinding the Lib Tech Orca Snowboard
Inspecting the Orca snowboard base grind

Tim begins base grinding with a course belt to clean up any resin on the base. More base work and tuning with incrementally finer belts and stones to come…

One Ball Jay snowboard wax
Tim McCabe waxing the Orca snowboard

Tim puts a speedy blue ride ready factory wax job on this Orca.

Tim McCabe finishing the Orca Snowboard sidewalls
Tim McCabe scraping snowboard sidewalls
Tim McCabe adding his signature to the finished Orca Snowboard

Final top edge bevel and Tim’s signature on the Mervin Made sticker.

Tim McCabe and Travis Rice knuckle bump

Team work makes the dream work! Travis and Tim stoked on the final product.

Lib Tech Orca Snowboard finished product
Travis Rice with his finished Orca Snowboard
Travis Rice with the Lib Tech Orca Snowboard

A job well done and a dream board brought to life! This exact board went on to ride Jackson Hole river lines and Ak spines.

Lib Tech Orca Snowboard

Categories: Travis Rice