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Originally Posted by tromano  This is a pretty cool thing to do. A few questions:
Do you have a portfolio that shows a list of skis you have made and how they performed?
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A quick response (I'm @ work):
I've made 2 pairs out of the same design. The first pair had ash and cherry cores and came out stiff, almost as stiff as my metrons. I never skied these because I had a pump failure while pressing the 2nd ski, which caused voids in my layup. I considered a de-lamination a sure thing.
The second pair is shown above. These have a pine and cherry core and are much more what I was looking for, a soft snow/tree ski. They were quite manageable on hardpack with a proper tune as well (I got a base grind and belt tune after my first day out, it absolutely sucked compared to my hand tune). I did feel that they were a little short and light for high speed groomers.
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Originally Posted by tromano Define the term slight risk. Are we just paying you costs plus or are we paying a fixed price for a product?
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You are essentially paying my materials cost. I've tried to include a little extra for the things that are hard to measure, like shipping costs of materials, bits/blades, tape, gloves, plastic etc. There are always little things that you forget about. If you were to toss in a little extra $$ that would be highly appreciated too, it would cover my gas to the store, tuning supplies and I would like to toss a $50 gift card for a woodworking shop to the person who is letting me use his shop here in Rochester.
My term "slight risk" comes from the fact that you are not buying from Atomic, Volkl etc. You are buying from me, a new independent builder working on new designs. I can't offer a guarantee, but I will work with you if something happens.
The #1 issue that builders like me are faced with is de-lamination. I firmly believe that this is caused by either brittle epoxy (too much hardener was used) or by dirty materials. I use metered dispensing pumps for my epoxy. I buy chemically treated edges that won't rust before the are put in a ski, and everything I use gets cleaned 2x with acetone. Once as I am laying out the materials, and once right before it goes in the layup. I don't touch things with bare hands once I clean them, as skin oil is a contaminate.
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Originally Posted by tromano I am curious if you could say a few words about the materials and core sections of your form. What are the differences for each choice?
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The term "form" is throwing me off a bit here. For the core I can easily get: Pine, Poplar, Maple, Aspen, Ash and Cherry. Unless you want a super light ski I wouldn't necessarily recommend pine in a core, it is a softwood and has poor binding retention. I like maple towards the outside edge of the ski, as it is a harder/denser material and really transfers energy well. I use it for my sidewalls, treated with epoxy. Ash is going to be the stiffest material there, and also likely the lightest. I would consider Poplar and Aspen secondary core materials, and use the other choices for the primary material.
I also WILL NOT include any defects (knots, bad grain) in the core, and my wood strips are one continuous piece. Many large companies used finger-jointed wood strips (shorter pieces joined together to make a long piece) to eliminate the defects found in cheaper wood stock. Here is a reflection of what you can expect from my cores: (ash&cherry):
The flex/stiffness of my skis is primarily a function of their profile. I have to taper to 2mm at each end to meet the tip spacers, but I can do anything in the center section. I do this taper as smooth as possible to give a good smooth flex pattern over the skis length. This is a really rough idea of what the taper looks like:
I can also add additional layers of composite to stiffen up the ski. I want to start experimenting with carbon and metal reinforcements.
If you have any other ?'s PM me or post here, this benefits all interested.
