First off, Hi. I am new here and would love to build a set of skis. I have been doing some in depth research, but have a few questions. If someone could help, I would appriciate it.
I did some searching about swallow tail on this forum and a few other sites, but didn't get much out of it as far as techinical information.
My question is this... Is there any benefit to a swallow tail ski. I read somewhere that it might assist in lowering the tail end, therefore raising the tips and keeping them out of the pow. Is this true, false, are they just an aesthetic piece of the ski? Thanks in advance.
Swallow Tail
Moderators: Head Monkey, kelvin, bigKam, skidesmond, chrismp
hi there!
well, my 2 cents: i`ve built a ski with swallowtail and as i started i had pretty much the same informations as you do. basically nothing
i started with searching for other skis with swallowtails. most of those skis from the big players had a very tiny swallowtail, only about 2-3 inches deep. i decided to go bigger because i really wanted to feel an effect.
sadly i gave away those skis, so i can`t measure the depth of the swallowtail, but i guess it was about 20cm deep.
now for the ride: i once attached a camera to my leg to see if there is any snow floating through the swallowtail - it`s not. and this also was pretty much the feeling i had when skiing them. it didn`t feel like the tail was lowered more in comparison to a normal ski...
so as long as you skied some normal, wide turns you couldn`t feel much of a difference. but when doing those abrupt stop-turns you could feel that there was not that much resistance in the tail as on regular skis. their back slipped around a bit faster and easier. so i think on such stop-turns the snow really got pushed through the swallowtail.
you can truly notice a difference when skiing a swallowtail (as long as it`s deep enough). but i think the main effect of a swallowtail is the cut up torsion in the rear end of the ski. it destroys the torsion in the very end of the ski. because of this i felt like the skis were easier to get out of a turns. it didn`t lock you that much into a turn as a regular ski.
an other sideeffect: the skis look absolutely sick everyone will ask you what kind of skis those are 
so to sum it up: try it out. i`ve built now 5 pairs without swallowtail because i focused on other things. but actually i`m in the middle of planing a new shape which will have a split-tail (basically a cut in the middle of the tail or a very very narrow swallowtail - because of the torsional stuff i wrote above)
well, my 2 cents: i`ve built a ski with swallowtail and as i started i had pretty much the same informations as you do. basically nothing
i started with searching for other skis with swallowtails. most of those skis from the big players had a very tiny swallowtail, only about 2-3 inches deep. i decided to go bigger because i really wanted to feel an effect.
sadly i gave away those skis, so i can`t measure the depth of the swallowtail, but i guess it was about 20cm deep.
now for the ride: i once attached a camera to my leg to see if there is any snow floating through the swallowtail - it`s not. and this also was pretty much the feeling i had when skiing them. it didn`t feel like the tail was lowered more in comparison to a normal ski...
so as long as you skied some normal, wide turns you couldn`t feel much of a difference. but when doing those abrupt stop-turns you could feel that there was not that much resistance in the tail as on regular skis. their back slipped around a bit faster and easier. so i think on such stop-turns the snow really got pushed through the swallowtail.
you can truly notice a difference when skiing a swallowtail (as long as it`s deep enough). but i think the main effect of a swallowtail is the cut up torsion in the rear end of the ski. it destroys the torsion in the very end of the ski. because of this i felt like the skis were easier to get out of a turns. it didn`t lock you that much into a turn as a regular ski.
an other sideeffect: the skis look absolutely sick
everyone will ask you what kind of skis those are so to sum it up: try it out. i`ve built now 5 pairs without swallowtail because i focused on other things. but actually i`m in the middle of planing a new shape which will have a split-tail (basically a cut in the middle of the tail or a very very narrow swallowtail - because of the torsional stuff i wrote above)
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
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shakedownma
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:04 am
I appreciate your insight. My background is in engineering, and my thought process is much the same as yours. Depending on how the skiing is done and the snow conditions, it "can" be beneficial, but for the most part, it just looks fing cool. Video of that was a great idea for direct feedback.
Does anyone else agree or disagree, or other comments are much appeciated.
Does anyone else agree or disagree, or other comments are much appeciated.