Ski Builders Forum

MontuckyMadman wrote:there is no doubt that if you have a wood sidewall ski you cant just leave them in the snow all night or in the car. You have to bring them in and let them dry. Yes, and a treatment once a season is also required. For every 1 gotamas that fell apart there were 10 that didn't. No doubt about that.

We have used maple, ash and even poplar for sidewalls. The poplar doesn't have good impact resistance. the ash seems work work very well.

Agreed! With wood sidewall there is a certain degree of maintenance (wipe ski/board off when done, store in dry place, inspect occasionally and seal) . To me it's no big deal. It's called taking care of your stuff. But in another post about Joe Public, well he's clueless, which is why Gotamas fell apart.

Maybe depleted uranium sidewalls...

plenty of uranium in australia, just not much depleted. we send it offshore for depletion...then create plans to get people to pay us to take it back afterwards.

That must be what fuels those insano spiders I've heard about. And that always bugged me..."depleted" uranium. Really? Have you checked the half-life on that stuff?!?

falls wrote:Mine have all been bamboo sidewall - really just an extension of the core all the way over the edges (wondering if I stick with bamboo sidewall whether I should actually glue them on as a "real" sidewall?)

falls -- no need. I sometimes hot glue my sidewalls on, just enough to hold them in place. I know some major manufacturers use double-side sticky tape -- I use this too sometimes. The point is, the epoxy and fiberglass on the top and bottom surfaces of the sidewall is what holds everything together, assuming you don't have a major delam all up and down the full length of the edge. If you're using wood, separation is minimal compared to poorly treated plastics.

Oh, I've even used a few staples to hold the sidewalls in place, then layup!

I have found that the easyest way is to build a cap construction instead of using sidewalls. Works good for me!

you can have them profile the base material, then they refinish and re flame it.... factory treated... you can NOT get any better than that for bondability for uhmw. Only way to do better is go with wood.
That would probably save you some shipping weight too if you had them factory shaped.