This is sad, sad news. Our thoughts go out to McConkey's family and friends.

This is one of the first things made -- it works! I will post more photos and additional details, but simply put, it runs like a charm! Time to make some skis.

..or ski on one ski...

How about applying some sort of clear tape, then peel away when they get too scratched? You can also try using a buffing wheel and some polishing paste to clean them up from time-to-time.

Lanebobane: Depending on where you live, you can try www.snowboardmaterials.com We also sell a few items in our store: http://www.skibuilders.com/store/ There are a few other vendors overseas, but I forget their www. For edges, you can contact CDW direct. Search this forum for the contact info. Base...

After a long day at work, I relaxed by tinkering for about an hour tonight in the bat cave. Tested the x-axis; gantry can jog at 192"/min, 8 inches shy of my original prediction. Close enough for government work.

I've tried a number of different techniques, but aligning using G-man/rockaukum's stand-offs method seems to work well.

Hi coutureskis,

Best of luck and keep us posted on your progress. Looking forward to seeing your results.

Hi coutureskis, We've used it -- can make a ski feel stiffer. Here's an example of a ski with the titanal. http://www.skibuilders.com/gallery/kaffeine.shtml Notice in the first photo the base is clear and the long strip of titanal shows through. Here's a photo of the aluminum http://www.skibuilders....

more change on its way....

Come to think of it the cores may have had some cupping going on. I didn't vertically laminate them, I just used some single poplar boards bought from Home Depot. I remember when I was profiling that I had the grain such that the apex of the growth rings were on top to help keep the edges from curl...

RoboGeek: several years ago I started working with the so-called 'muscle wires'. I played around with Nitinol (nickel-titanium alloy) shape memory alloy (SMA). The material is really interesting and used extensively in stents and wires for braces. As you mentioned, they are used in some robotics -- ...

doughboyshredder: what you're looking at are simply properties of certain types of piezoelectric materials; namely, the constants that reflect how well they transduce or convert mechanical to electrical energy and vice versa. For example, the d33 value tells you if you apply one volt along the polar...

Put a few more hours into this project after work tonight. Assembled part of the gantry (y-axis and z-axis). Used a hand drill to test the travel of the z-axis -- got 4.75" of travel. Not bad. Y travel is more than 41". Overall, these two axes feel stiff, just what I wanted. My brother Pat...

Hi All, In my spare time I have been reading about how to make my shop more safe and comfortable. The two major things on my list are electrical safety and dust collection. The former is because I've been collecting equipment and so wires are starting to crisscross my workspace, and the latter is ob...

how wide are the skis and what was the outside air temp? pulling them out too early may be a problem if there's a large temp gradient through the thickness of the ski. i'd suggest cooling them under pressure -- longer than 10 minutes.

i doubt the epoxy caused the problem.