Like most I have lurked here for a long time. Last fall I finally made my first pair. Nothing fancy here. I spent very little time on any one thing other than the cores. Here are some pics of my build. When I started I had a small garage to work in, then we moved and I only have a very small basement....I think its about 12 feet x 6 feet...and with a wife and 2 kids its already fairly full so I have to work outside on the patio...problem is I dont think my swiss neighbors like the noise of a router so much
Starting the template I mixed together a couple of skis: the atomic blog and coax, but I wanted flat under foot, tip and tail rocker and an overall stiffer ski than the blog.
IMG_0914 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrCores are made of Paulownia. Here is Switzerland I have had a hard time sourcing wood. Its either really poorly cut and knotty pine or super expensive for birch. Then I found this stuff, which was cheap and seemed to be in better condition than the pine. Definitely not the best wood for binding retention I later found out:
IMG_0913 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrRan into a snag, easily fixed with some wood glue:
IMG_0923 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrAlso decided to use bamboo for the sidewalls, mostly because it was free and I couldnt get sidewall material into the country and gave up on trying to find maple or something else that was suitable, but not super expensive. Turns out bamboo is too brittle for sidewall material...I later found out:
IMG_1067 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrBut it looked nice and was a super light combo:
IMG_1066 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrFinding carbon was relatively easy. Only one ski at a time on my mini-mold. Ended up putting the core in upside down on the first ski. Flipcore anyone? Worked out just fine:
DSC00913 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrEnd result came out not so bad. Cores seemed to align ok even though the sidewalls were only about 5mm thick...I think I got lucky...twice:
DSC00921 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrBases actually came out really flat, which I was surprised about. Shape came out more or less what I was looking for. The only real bummer, visually speaking, was that the tip/tail spacer ended up being a slightly different thickness than the cores, which I didnt think about beforehand. Oh well:
DSC00923 by jrkoenig1, on FlickrEnd result is that I have about 6 days on them and they ski really well off piste and not so well on piste. The skis arent completely symetrical, but off piste doesnt matter much. I have hit a few rocks and the sidewalls are blowing out and the base has one nice big dent in it. I have never seen that before....didnt rip the base material...just made a big ol dent!
I ended up pulling one of the Dukes halfway off while skiing. I have since remounted with some Plum Guides and will only use them for some small tours. It is a super light setup...just not so durable. Next pair I will make a fatter ski out of all maple including maple sidewalls and some bamboo veneer for the topsheets that I got for free. 3rd pair will replace the first pair, but outside of thoughts in my head nothing has made it on paper yet
but I am thinking a mis of maple, paulownia and bamboo.A huge thanks to everyone on here who has contributed!!!
