Overcast skies and raindrops have brought an end to what seemed to be the longest and hottest summer in my recent memory here in Portland. Summer seemed to want to push all the way through the month of September, but last week, clouds and winds pushed the warm air out and brought in the smell you only get after weeks of drought ended by a cool rain.  Its finally cool enough on the factory floor to be able to wear jeans instead of shorts. And for that, I am so very happy.

For those keeping track, this is our third production season here in our shop in Portland, factory version 2.1 or so. The biggest news recently here at ON3P is the signing of a lease for a new shop space here in Portland – 2500 sq ft is just too small for what our garage born ski company has become. Hopefully, the new location will be able to suit our needs for a few years. It looks big now, but I have no doubts we’ll be using up every inch of space as we get new machines and dream bigger and better. Our team is pushing hard for a mini-ramp spot somewhere inside, but I’m dreaming up a dryslope and foam pit somewhere…

Heres where we currently stand:

In Stock:

171cm Filthy Rich

171cm & 181cm Jeronimo

171cm, 181cm, 191cm Caylor

181cm, 191 Caylor Lite

181cm, 191 Wrenegade

176cm Vicik

176cm Billy Goat

Pressing:

186cm Vicik

186cm Billy Goat

Left to Press (in order of pressing):

196cm Pillowfight

191cm Billy Goat

186cm Pillowfight

193cm Cease & Desist

181cm Filthy Rich

186cm Jeffrey

186cm Jeronimo

As of now, it looks we will probably just be starting production of our last 3 models (181cm Filthy Rich, 186cm Jeronimo, 186cm Jeffrey) around the October 15th deadline, so I expect them to ship out about 1-2 weeks later than we had originally expected.  Definitely a bit disappointing, but as with any manufacturing process, we’ve had a few ups and downs this year.  Overall, though, this year has gone by smoothly and I fully expect all presale skis to be shipped out within the month of October.

As of now, all of our materials have arrived (those who ordered last year can surely remember the troubles we’ve had in the past) and our recently down equipment (stone grinder) is back up and running after being out of commission for almost two weeks.  We’ll be pressing more skis during the late fall and early winter, making stock as we also play around with new skis for next years line.  Now we are just waiting for the snow to fall to get a few new shapes on the mountain.

I thought since we just announced our plans to expand the factory at our new location (still in Portland, just a little more north of our current place), it might be kind of cool to show where we were back in September of 2009 and what the factory has become in the two years since. ON3P signed the lease here starting August 1st of that year, and so in September, we were still building the factory and equipment needed to carry out production for that year. I joined in October, fresh off a year of ski bumming after getting my degree, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here’s some photos for your viewing pleasure:

Topsheets for the Worst Topsheet Ever contest winners. Ferrets…

…Fishsticks…

… and the VIP Section, the employee favorite. We have more unique topsheets, but we’ll wait till they’re on skis before revealing them.

Part of the demo fleet for this year.

The new space. Three times the size of our current factory.

The only downside to this new space is going to be having to get everything thats here moved over there. Thankfully, we should have enough time around our busy schedules this winter to make it work.

In addition to the four full time employees here, we have a few interns that are putting in long hours on material prep and basic tasks to keep the shop running and skis coming out at a furious rate. Erik, Ryan, Trevor and Brian, we dont thank you guys nearly enough for the work you do – cutting fiberglass all day long may seem unimportant compared to laying up a ski or routing a base or stone grinding and tuning, but its one of the 500 steps that have to go perfectly in order to make a ski of the quality we hold ourselves to. This is your shoutout, thank you!

More to come, it gets so busy sometimes that it can get difficult to find time to take pictures, but as we have many skis I’m personally looking forward to seeing (*cough*cough*Pillowfights*cough*), we’ll have another update soon. Morning light is streaming into the office now, time to grab some coffee and hit the day.

Rowen