Lefties AKA Sun Dogs

So, did they work, and how were they? Show everyone proof that your ride was a success (or even a complete failure)!

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Nick's Sticks
Posts: 105
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:15 am
Location: Cascadia

Lefties AKA Sun Dogs

Post by Nick's Sticks »

March 28, 2008 Alpental, WA

With about 16” of post Easter new snow any ski would have felt great.

The Sun Dogs performed well. The width of the ski (137-100-120) really helped plow through the crud. I think the length (184) and light swing weight made them feel a lot livelier than I had expected. The core of the ski is pine and poplar. The tip had a nice even flex but the tails seemed a little soft. I think I will try reinforcing them with metal and thickening the tail to 3mm next time. The core tail on these was 2.5mm.

When I took them out of the press I notice that the bases had warped. They had sat near a heater before I had a chance to lay them up and probably picked up a bend from thermal expansion. I was a little skeptical that they would ski ok since the side cut on the left side of both skis was larger than the other. When I held them up next to a straight edge it was obvious that the left edge on both skis had a tighter radius but on the slope they felt pretty balanced. If it turns out they only go one way on the groomers I can always rename them the Lefties.

I haven’t been able to ski them on hardpack yet. That will be their real test.

All in all I am happy; I am defiantly going to make a second pair with approximately the same dimensions but without any weird warping and with some vds dampening.

This is the link to my build thread viewtopic.php?t=1290
Nick's Sticks
Posts: 105
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:15 am
Location: Cascadia

Post by Nick's Sticks »

I too the sun dogs out for some spring conditions this past week. They skied well on the corduroy after it warmed up a bit. While it was still icy in the morning they vibrated quite a bit but still held an edge. The aggressive side cut really let me lay down arcs. I think some VDS rubber is going to be necessary for the next pair.

I had used some 5 min epoxy to fix a delam in the tail. It didn't work at all. The fix cracked after a few runs but the skis still worked fine.
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