Eric's Boards

[EricW]

50 psi, no casualties or fatalities and most importantly, no leaks!

Ok, so I went with 6" rubber and cloth fire hose. I found, much to my relief, that it worked.

The washers around the fitting are basic grade 8 washers. The rubber on the inside of the hose seemed to do a good job of creating it's own gasket to prevent leaking.

1" angle iron and 3/8" grade 8 bolts hold the ends together. I was surprised at how hard I needed to crank them down to prevent leaking. My air tools don't even work at 50 psi, so i guess I never really realized how much it actually is.

Either way I was so stoked to finally start work on this, I was giggling during testing.

The first inflation was to 20lbs and I was about pooping pickles. I thought it would work but you never really know until you do it. I put my air compressor in another room and hid behind the door.

I'm going to make the second one tomorrow. If anyone wants more detailed pics of how it goes together, let me know and I'll take some.

[EricW]

Got the double lung done tonight.

[SleepingAwake]

looking good

[twizzstyle]

The first inflation was to 20lbs and I was about pooping pickles.

hahahahahahah!!!

[a.badner]

i dont understand why everbody drills through the hose at either end.

what i did was bend the hose. and then put the angle iron over the bend. no leaks at all. (obviously putting sealant where the bend is.) in my opinion it is less things to fail in the hose.

[EricW]

I trust a mechanical methods more than adhesives, which is basically what sealant is. Also, if I ever have to get inside to fix anything I don't have to screw around with cleaning out the old stuff and adding new. I also don't like the mess of sealant in general.

The angle iron clamp I have there is probably the strongest part, so if anything were to fail it would be somewhere in the middle. In that case, I'm off to the store to buy new hose.

[Richuk]

The folding method works, but you should insert a steel rod within the fold so that it cannot pull itself through at high pressure - according to hose repair professionals.

Assuming you have a relief valve, which should be tested before each pressing, you should be ok ... fingers crossed.

[EricW]

I got the camber mold rough cut on the bandsaw tonight. I had to do it twice because I made the mold to have 11mm of camber over the length of the mold, not the board. At least I could reuse the material. The template still needs some final touches before I can route off the last 1/16" but it was good enough to get the bulk of the work done.

I'm going to be that guy that mills the camber into the board, so this mold can be directly transferred to from the router jig to the press. Given how limited on space I am, I'm trying to make things modular and interchangeable. Plus I think milling the camber into the core is cool anyway.



I've also decided that when I have the space I'm going to buy a good table saw to cut sheet goods on.

[EricW]

I got the bulk of my router bridge forms done. The 1.5" horizontal sections on the edge will be the rails and will adjust down to zero clearance. They will have positive motion up and down using hex headed machine screws, countersunk into the mdf. 1 revolution on the screw = 1mm, if I can find the right threading that is.

This will also serve to mill the camber into the cores. I think I can wrap the blank around the form and adjust the rails to flat and route a flat spot on the bent blank. When I release the blank, it should bend back to normal shape with a camber in it. Then I can just flip it over and it'll fit perfectly right on the form. Then I adjust the screws where I want them and shape the surface. Piece of cake right? Yeah, maybe.

I still need to buy a router so nothing is cut to exact size yet but here's a picture anyway.

With little posts like this, I'm mostly just sharing the stoke. Most people I know just look at me with a blank look in their eyes.

[Jekul]

You could actually buy ACME screws from Mcmaster that would have your perfect 1mm pitch per revolution. http://www.mcmaster.com/#acme-screws/=9gzw3i
There's not much of a metric selection however. Otherwise the cheaper way would be to use M6x1.0, which has your 1mm pitch.

[twizzstyle]

This will also serve to mill the camber into the cores.

Cutting camber into a core is wasted effort, in my opinion. The core ends up being so thin it has no issues being bent into shape, and the composite layers hold the shape.

[skidesmond]

Right Twizz. You don't really need to cut the camber into the core. But never hurts to experiment.

I did an experiment steam bending cores.... In the end it worked but it was a hassle. It kept more camber in the skis. But my press also flexed too much and was losing camber that way too. I took care of that problem by re-enforcing the press. Have yet to make a set of ski w/ the updated press. Hopefully re-enforcing the press will keep more camber.

If you're pressing at room temp you'll lose some camber (mentioned in earlier posts, 50% loss?). You mentioned that you'd like to start a small ski building business some day. I'm assuming that you'll be using a heating element by then which helps keep the camber and cure the epoxy faster so you can make more than 1 set of skis a day. Pressing at room temp you be pressing 1 set of skis a day.

[Richuk]

I really enjoyed watching SD's experiment. I was sad to see it go : (

I was left wondering whether the wood will be quickly exhausted in any event and thus loss of camber was always going to happen with a cold cure ...?

If heat is an issue right now, I would think about timing how long the epoxy takes to cure sufficiently so that the ski can be removed from the press. Once removed, carefully clamp it in place - as per the photo, and then lay an electric blanket underneath. Hell, if you have two - game on!

Btw - just in case you missed it, a number of people notice that the tail in their first ski is a bit soft, so you might want to head this one off at the pass

[MontuckyMadman]

Btw - just in case you missed it, a number of people notice that the tail in their first ski is a bit soft, so you might want to head this one off at the pass

Yes yes. Offset the core backwarks towards the tail and use more tip spacer in the tip if making a symmetrically tapered core to prevent this.

Or mill the core asym, thicker in the tail.

[skidesmond]

I really enjoyed watching SD's experiment. I was sad to see it go : (

I was left wondering whether the wood will be quickly exhausted in any event and thus loss of camber was always going to happen with a cold cure ...?

If heat is an issue right now, I would think about timing how long the epoxy takes to cure sufficiently so that the ski can be removed from the press. Once removed, carefully clamp it in place - as per the photo, and then lay an electric blanket underneath. Hell, if you have two - game on!

Btw - just in case you missed it, a number of people notice that the tail in their first ski is a bit soft, so you might want to head this one off at the pass

Sorry Rich, Maybe I gave up on it to easily. The steam box was taking up a lot of room in the shop, but I proved that steam bending does work.

Eric, I leave the tail about 1mm thicker than the tip and offset towards the back about 50 mm. Having the tail a bit thicker helps hold you up when you fall into the back seat.