Powderboards - season 1

[moonchild]

Hello. I finally find some time to post some of my last year work. I year ago I got a job at R&D for big ski/snb manufacturer. If I would keep the job I would quit snowboarding by now. After a month I left the job, got back to my old full time job as heavy machinery designer and began with my own boards. And I can tell you, making your own snowboards is much more fun, than working for big company. There are thousands of serial production rules, bosses, people who make boards just to get salary... And when you have massive production, there is not a lot of space for something new. If something goes wrong you will destroy 1000 of boards. I taught it will be my dream job. But it wasn't. So I started building my snowboards the way just I like it. I enjoyed in riding them past season, and can`t wait to go on snow again. I am grateful to this forum for the help.

At first I made vacuum mold. I was inspired by boardcrafter mold. I made MDF frame, adjustable ribs for changing length of a snowboard, and cover it with 6mm thick polycarbonate plate.



Then I made 3d models of snowboards:


With advise of Akiwi I bought on ebay Thomas 2660 vacuum pump, which is maintenance free (without oil). I am very satisfied with it. It can reach -0,9 bar absolute.
I bought materials from skibaumarkt except core and top sheet which is veneer. As I am building powderboards only, I decided to make tip to tail poplar plywood woodcores. All early days snowboards had horizontal laminated woodcore too. I made 5 boards with plywood, tested them on snow well and none of them delaminated or broke. I just put the inserts through carbon patch to secure them against pullout.





For centering base and core I made centering extensions outside of board area to see what is going on during lay up.


As all my boards are extra wide, I had to cut the strips of the base rotated 90 degrees and stitch them together to get 35 cm width.
I profiled core to 2,5 -8 -3,5 mm

Nose is pretty stiff, and tail has due to split tail medium flex. Something just like I wanted for pow boards.

Final products:

Reverse sidecut snowboard inspired by springbreak snowboards. The most fun powder snowboard I have ever ridden. Super sketchy on groomers:) It has no steel edge and full reverse sidecut.


Powder snowboard for my wife. Graphics is done by my
friend which is tattoo artist.


Another one for myself, which is suitable for the groomers too.


Powdersurf (bindingless snowboard) I experimented with the base graphics. It is an old t-shirt under clear base.There are some air bubbles caught under the shirt.


And the last one, which was my first regular sidecut snowboard for a female friend.

I am satisfied for my first rides, and have a lot of plans for next winter. At first I have to improve my tools. Core profiler is made out of MDF, bridge is plywood. I will make something more proper with steel profiles. Also the 6 mm polycarbonate plate on my mold was not the best. Some of my boards came out a little concave which was not a problem for powderboards. Although I will try 8mm thick polycarbonate. For the core I will keep the poplar plywood, as I will be building powderboards only.

Jure

[backyardskier]

Very cool boards! One tip I would say is invest in a planner to profile your cores.

[chrismp]

I really want to build a powderhole inspired board too! Your creations look amazing!

What type of sidewall material did you use?

[moonchild]

Sidewalls are 7mm ABS, expect for the last snowboard I used white UHMW which was easier to bend. I used heat gun for bending all the sidewalls. In the future I will try wooden sidewalls.

[Akiwi]

Good to hear you are happy with the Thomas pump.
Your boards look amazing! I'm well impressed. A good variety of different shapes, and the build quality looks good on them too.

[Nokes307]

How did you stitch the base material together for the wider boards ?

[chrismp]

Most people just tape them together with packing tape on the running surface side. Make sure to use tape that is as thin as possible as it will probably leave an indentation in the base which you will need to grind flat after pressing.

[Thelongride]

Those look amazing!
Very curious what program you're using to design those? Looks like a simple interface in the picture