Wood Cat Track???

[Danielbroski]

Would there be any major down fall to using square pieces of mdf or other wood for a cat track? I'm making a press and for now I don't want all the bells and whistles, but i figured if i could use wood to make a cat track that would be one cheep way to improve my press.
Thoughts?

[skidesmond]

I used MDF at one time. It works but it can flex and you don't really want that. Solid wood is better, AL square tubing is the best option. At one time I used a solid piece of 3/4 plywood for the center portion of the cat track and used strips of 3/4 plywood for the tip and tail blocks. It worked.

[bhenry]

I used 1" tall x 3/4" wide ipe left over from a deck job. I slightly tapered the vertical sides to help take up the curve.(I read that tip on this site). I have yet to press a ski, but it seems stout.

[vinman]

I build a cat track out of broken hockey sticks for my first one. Now I use 7/8 square hardwood. Works great. Plane your wood out then rip it down. Just use some kind if jig and a drill press to get good hole alignment.

[Dr. Delam]

This is one area where you don't want to skimp or you are defeating the purpose. The material needs to be perfectly straight and as stiff as possible to create even pressure distribution.

You will be spending a fair amount of time cutting and drilling the material so do it right the first time and get some aluminum square tubing or solid stock.

[petemorgan(pmoskico)]

hmmm. I dont use a cat track and I get great even distribution of pressure basically using just plywood.

There are many ways to skin a kitten.

In tbetween my fire hose and top of skis is as follow, (starting from the skis topsheet);

Parchment paper
Fairly thin Alumiumum sheet (with some wax on it)
1/8 inch plywood (finish grade)
1/4 inch plywood (not finish grade)
Then fire hose
top mold (very rough cut)
Steel tubing

The aluminum is smooth so it will give the top of the skis a nice finish

The next layers of plywood help to distribute the pressure. My press gets the fire hose to be fairly flat, i would imagine if you were not getting that fire-hose to be very flat then a cat track might be necessary to distribute the pressure.

[Jekul]

I use wood (pine 1" x 1").

Mdf would be hard to space well and will likely split/crack after repeated use.

[Huck Pitueee]

mojomo015 by Huck Pitueee, on Flickr

Simple mdf cat with heavy fabric holding the parts together.

[gav wa]

I'm using pine. Don't think I'd like to use MDF, its not really that strong.
I'm using 3 bladder hoses though so I get quite a spread of pressure over the whole press, If I was using only 1 hose of about 5-6 inches I don't know if I would use wood.

It does take a bit of work to prep the wood though, you need to router all four corners of each piece so it can curve easier with the mold. Doesn't take long though, on a router table it took about an hour.

[athapoto]

I used 20x20 swedish pine for my catrack and in the pressing test looked like i wouldnt have any problems...