Slalom Skis - First Test Trip

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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Jonrezz
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:14 pm

Slalom Skis - First Test Trip

Post by Jonrezz »

So I brought my first pair of skis out to gore mountain today!! These:

Image

There’s plenty of info and pics in my build thread about them so I’ll keep the description brief, they’re 165cm, 12.5 m radius slalom style on piste carving skis. The core is maple/poplar, 2mm/10mm/2mm. The composite is carbon stringer above the base, 22oz triax fiberglass, core, fiberglass binding pad, 22oz triax fiberglass, carbon stringer, veneer with abs protective topsheet. Entropy resin, poured polyurethane sidewalls, vacuum laminated with top only heat.

Here’s a video of some turns:
https://youtu.be/y0xGD8jEtrU

In general I was blown away! They totally shred! I brought my Fischer rc4’s and was switching off between runs to compare:

The good:

- they hold a really solid edge at speed. Sliced through ice and hard pack like it wasn’t even there.
- very quick and springy between turns, they had tons of energy.
- can definitely keep up with the Fischer’s in general.

The neutral:

- they weren’t as heavy and damp as the Fischer’s. (The rc4s have two layers of titanol). While the extra weight and dampening gives more stability at high speed, the light, energetic ride of the home-made skis weren’t necessarily unwelcome either.

- the skis came out with much more camber than I was going for - around 15 mm of it. The extra camber didn’t seem to affect the performance much, however they were a bit clunky to carry around. Bouncing on them in the lift line was kind of fun though lol.

Needed improvement:

- the sweet spot for cranking out tight turns seemed a bit too far back on the ski, like, if my weight was mostly forward, they would turn, but if my weight was neutral over the boot they really really cranked out turns. I wonder if this is a binding placement issue though, maybe I need to move the bindings back a bit further.

- the abs topsheet chipped a bit. It’s not a huge deal, but maybe abs isn’t the best material for the protective layer.

For my next iteration of this pair, I think a conservative amount of titanol (like a stringer or two) inlayed into the core would help to find a happy medium between springy/lively and grounded/steady at speed. That’s probably one of the only things I’d change though. Maybe it would make sense to experiment with either a dual radius side cut or moving the side cut back a bit to address the weight thing, but like I mentioned before it might be a binding placement thing too. Going to mess with that a bit.

Cheers!
-Jon
skidesmond
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Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:26 pm
Location: Western Mass, USA
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Re: Slalom Skis - First Test Trip

Post by skidesmond »

Try sliding the toe and heel backwards to see if you want to move the boot center on the ski. The titanal definitely makes the RC4 damp and heavier. Sounds like a good ski.
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