@ n.marshall -- OK, now your cores design make sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Nice quiver of skis, btw! Looks like you're in business!!!

Hi Richuk, Good question. I haven't looked into different resins. Most of the resins I've used all have about the same characteristics. So, I would suspect that there wouldn't be much of an affect. In fact, I haven't noticed it in the measurements I've taken over the years. If the resins were signif...

Are these worth $19,000!!!???

http://www.carradanskis.com/


"Technology: coriolis ...."

Really?

OK, I finally found the super small accelerometer I was taking about: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=AD22280-R2CT-ND It's two-axis, just needs GND, +5V, and provides analog output for x/y directions. Pretty simple. Here's a picture that shows the accelerometer (...

Idris skied powder recently. Me, not so much... Ben and I started at 4:30 am, swiftly walked over 11 miles, skied a patch worth of 200 vert, then made it back home for breakfast. September turns in the bag!!! This month marks 108 consecutive months of skiing for me (turns-all-year!). Ben is on 24. W...

I admire this guy. He dreams, then dedicates himself. Purely hard core!

Mine have all been bamboo sidewall - really just an extension of the core all the way over the edges (wondering if I stick with bamboo sidewall whether I should actually glue them on as a "real" sidewall?) falls -- no need. I sometimes hot glue my sidewalls on, just enough to hold them in...

Awesome pics! I feel great now :D Me too!! I have similar clamps, and the scrap pieces of wood look familiar!! :) Great photo, COsurfer! Thanks for sharing. So, I suspect they have a horizontal self-feeding band saw to cut cores into thinner pieces? The wood looks like maple, and finger jointed. I ...

Thanks, Richuk, for posting that link. I haven't seen it yet, and I just read it over briefly. Anyway, back in 2007 I first looked more closely at the vibration characteristics of one pair of my own skis, and used a 3D scanning laser vibrometer (same device that Alex used in his post, it looks like)...

About 35% of the skis I make have plastic-type sidewalls; the rest are wood. I try to use really nice and hard wood for the sidewalls, such as Jatoba and others on the upper end of the Janka scale. But keep in mind that these woods will chew up your tools. Anyway, they are expensive but look really ...

That demonstration basically shows just the behavior of the first cantilever mode (like the graph below). I've built a similar setup. True that the left ski appears to damp out that vibration mode faster than the ski without the gizmo, but the real question is: does damping out that mode enhances th...

Hey Kam, I didn't see them do any flame treating and they made no mention of it. This is very interesting to me. I've been experimenting again in my lab (my home ski lab that is) with different plastics with some interesting results. So are they using UHMW for the sidewalls then? We weren't allowed...

COsurfer: I'm curious, does the Ptex after sanding go through the flame treatment process before layup? I've been experimenting with a handful of plastics....

Hi Mattman, I've done a considerable amount of vibration tests, on various structures as well as skis, to look at damping properties and other characteristics. Strain gauges are okay, but require a bridge circuit and a gain stage. There are plenty of basic designs available on the Internet, and even...

How do you like the solid-wood core approach? I've made a bunch of skis this year that way. I can't decide if I like it -- pros and cons. For one, I've found that the cores will warp a bit after profiling if I leave them alone too long before layup. Lamented cores are more consistent, but takes time...