A light wide early rise trail breaking ski

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hadley
Posts: 44
Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:07 pm

A light wide early rise trail breaking ski

Post by hadley »

This is the third set of skis I have made for myself with an focus on back country. The first pair I built in 2008 with the help of the information learned at skibuilders.com. The raven ark I are linked on the skibuilder’s site.
http://www.skibuilders.com/gallery/subm ... Arks.shtml
I have called each one Raven Ark one two and three.
I am creating these skis for back country powder, however they still need to work in icy conditions. I want a tall tip to help surface early with back country trail breaking. The tips and tails will have large holes for lashing a rescue sled. They need to be light yet strong. They need to be Phat for float in cascade blower pow, but skinny enough to be stable on ice at moderately high speed.

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Personal Profile: I am 5 foot 10 inches and weight 170 pounds and wear a 11 ½ Telly Ski Boot.

Board design
length:
Total 177 CM
Nose 40 CM
Running 112 CM
Tail 25 CM
Width: 107 MM
Shovel 147 MM
Waist 102 MM
Tail 136 MM
Camber (Height) 8 mm
Nose 55 MM
Tail 18 MM

Core design: I am using all poplar on the core to save weight. I hope to make up for the loss in strength by adding carbon under foot for hardware mounting and a carbon tip to tail for flex strengthening. To push the point further I made a really skinny core. The Foot platform area is only 8.5mm instead of 10mm or 11mm and the tip and tail taper to 2.5mm.

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Tip and Tail Spacers: I used a simple radius so if things slip in the press it will still work. On the back I put a small patch of 6oz cloth. I lightly prayed the cloth with 3M spray glue. Then I welded two tabs on each side with 5 min epoxy to really hold those tip spacers solidly.

Base / Metal Edges:I am using the race base. I acetoned my bases to remove the remaining tape glue from cutting out my base outline. I hope that this does not negatively affect bonding. I have been reading about using vinegar and water and soap to avoid the petroleum residues acetone can leave. I used metal edges around the entire perimeter except in the middle of the back to leave room to make a skin mounting notch.

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Camber profile: In the end I used an early rise which pushed back the front of the skis to a really ridiculous look. However, it seems to work quite well

Graphics and Finishing: I am not using a top sheat since it adds weight. I used a silhouette of a raven on rice paper and included it on top of the 22oz glass. Then I used black, white, and red paint pen to make the artwork. Finally, I used clear coat over to top to make it look more finished and to give it some UV protection.

Some Specific Tricks
Posted on December 29, 2011
I have had trouble getting the bases and the core to align perfectly. Here is my technique which worked better than any technique I have used before.

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We double face taped the bases to the galvanized steel underneath. One strip down the center in the center line. It is in the center third of the ski. There is no mold release in this area. This keeps the base from moving any where. Then when I put my tip and tail spacers on I purposely left the edges wide. I used wooden locator blocks held in place by monkey tape. I also put a front locator. This made a really big difference. The picture below clearly shows the wooden locator blocks.

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Notice the one middle wooden spacer means both skis use the center spacer and therefore become more stable as they lock into each other.

The key was to register the tip spacers carefully when the vacuum was turned on. It was especially important to push forward against the front locator.
skidesmond
Posts: 2337
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:26 pm
Location: Western Mass, USA
Contact:

Post by skidesmond »

Nice job! I've thought about using galvanized steel over my current AL cassette so I could use thin earth magnets to keep the core in place, and can re-position as needed. I think it was RichUK that glued thin wood blocks to the underside of the wood core for alignment as well. I like your method also.

Keep up the good work!
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