Neilg's Skis

Document your personal work here. Show photos, movies, and share your secrets.

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Dr. Delam
Posts: 423
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:07 am
Location: Truckee

Post by Dr. Delam »

That doesn't sound ridiculous at all because that is exactly what I did for my last pair!

I chose the largest wave picture I could find on Google images and then used Photoshop to enlarge and enhance it. Mine is a bit blurry up close as well but with a wave I think it looks appropriate.

There are plenty of websites where you can find large images to pay for but they are usually expensive or you have to pay x amount that will be good for say 10 images.

Vector graphics are scalable to any size but the good ones I have found you have to buy those too.

I'll take a look at GIMP too. Thanks for the tip. I just need to spend more time getting up to speed with the image editing programs. I know they have the ability to do what I need but at the moment I don't!
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SHIF
Posts: 280
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:43 pm
Location: Wasatch Mountains
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Post by SHIF »

Here is a web site that offers some wicked graphics that might make a nice ski: http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/

Some are up to 7680 pixels wide. Some are free, others for a modest fee.

Personally I'm sticking with clear top sheets over fabric graphics while I concentrate on refining my ski designs and construction. The Coda topsheets are definitely the shiznit, perhaps I'll do them in the future.

-S

Hey Delam, did you catch the Big Wednesday at Squaw this week? I was looking for your Soul Surfers among the millions of fatties on KT.
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falls
Posts: 1458
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:04 pm
Location: Wangaratta, Australia

Post by falls »

The resolution issue is hard to get past. I think that is why so many ski designs are actually a mashup of multiple different designs made into one picture. My brother had some 12 megapixel photos from his SLR and even these only covered about 1/3 of a topsheet
For a 185cm ski the resolution is something like 4000 pixels by 23000 pixels. Pretty massive.
I think one good point to remember is that the binding and boot cover a good almost 1/4 of the ski and this area doesn't really contribute to any actual graphic. One method is to have a feature in the tip and one in the tail that blend into a solid colour in the middle.
The other thing my brother did for one graphic was actually use the pixelate or dot matrix filter on Photoshop. This is a graphic feature in itself and just makes a positive out of the negative that blowing up a small picture creates.
Personally I'm sticking with clear top sheets over fabric graphics while I concentrate on refining my ski designs and construction. The Coda topsheets are definitely the shiznit, perhaps I'll do them in the future.
remember the clear topsheet on skibuilders ends up about $20 for a pair. The CODA graphics are only $40. I guess that is double. Just food for thought.
Don't wait up, I'm off to kill Summer....
NeilG
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:46 am
Location: Too far south

Post by NeilG »

So, the eyeball skis work, *sigh of relief*
The reverse sidecut (about 1-1.5 ft of length at the tip and about 1 ft at the tail) works great. Skis pivot and shed speed easily while the bit of regular sidecut in the middle makes them carve pretty well (not too surprising considering the effective edge is about the length of a snowblade!)

I went down to Silverton a week or so back to ski right after that storm that pounded them, it was awesome.

I've skied a few days in not so deep snow conditions (Copper, Steamboat) and they're decent. Again they edge all right but I think the second pair with the ski free monster is better in crud. My theory is that the second pair's more traditional shape lets the tip cut through choppy snow a bit better. Or it could be a flex issue, frankly I don't really know.

I ended up getting some Barons on them and have some skins that fit so they're my new backcountry skis. A bit heavy on the skin up, but hey, I like the down part better anyway!


Dr. Delam:
The sidewalls seem to be holding up just fine. The topsheet is chipping in places but that's to be expected. Again, no sign of delam or anything yet.

Shif:
It crossed my mind that I should probably work on my methods first but I have a schedule which isn't really that conducive to ski building. Someday though when I have more time I'd love to really crank out a system that gets me good quality in a shorter time (metal press, heat, better profiling method, cnc...I wish, etc.) Thanks for the website thought! Some amazing images on there!

Falls:
My thoughts as well on the topsheet issue.

Some pictures of Silverton
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Sorry about the poor quality, it's a still from a short video clip

Image
Looots of snow...
NeilG
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:46 am
Location: Too far south

Post by NeilG »

Got to ski the eyeballs in UT a few weeks ago. Amazing place out there for sure.

New pair of skis, I call them the Johnny Cash skis for obvious reasons.
I tried to take a few more pictures of my build process, pretty primitive compared to what a lot of folks are doing, but it works more or less. Someday when time permits I'll get stuff CNC'd, vacuum table for cutting base, etc. etc.

In the meantime, I route the bases out from an MDF template with a lot of clamps, works ok.

Gluing on edges
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Press w/out air in it, also shows the size of the shop I use more or less...
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Flame treating sidewalls (also scuffed with sandpaper)
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Router set up
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Graphic
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Finished skis, 139-115-125 or so, 35m turn radius, stiff as all get out
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Tip rocker
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Slight tail rocker
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Bit of camber
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I hope to ski them at least once before the season's up!
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Brazen
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Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 11:26 am
Location: San Bernardino, CA
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Post by Brazen »

Best. Graphic. Ever.
"86% of the time it works 100% of the time".
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