Ski Builders Forum

I'd be interested in hearing how the full length carbon fiber effects the ski. Going to be able to ski them this season, or what might be left of it?

skidesmond wrote:I'd be interested in hearing how the full length carbon fiber effects the ski. Going to be able to ski them this season, or what might be left of it?

Yeah me too. That's why I did them naked because my composite weight was a little light/weak.
I will be able to ski them any time I want, all summer long most likely.
so much snow. MT is swamping the midwest.

Holy crap. That carbon or the ash or the two together is super hard to cut with a jig saw. Completely smoked 2 blades. These are really large aggressive blades and a high quality jigsaw. I usually use 1, but these were completely round smoking fast. I try and go slow and make recess cuts but it was really slow and tough.
Could have been the double heater making the epoxy really hard and contributing to the problem. I think it was the ash.

The flex seems great and not to soft at all. Super boingy boingy. And heavy rebound.
I think the core profile took up allot of the potential softness but the tip has a nice long medium bodied flex, stiller in the tail.
Any hoo. Gonna mount them and ski them this weekend.

What kind of blade are you using? I use a 10/14tpi bi-metal blade and end up getting about 20+ boards per. It still cuts at that point but I usually just end up breaking it somehow. Pictures!!!

Could be both that smoked the blades. I haven't used carbon fiber yet but want experiment w/ it soon, especially w/ ash so I'm looking forward to hearing the results. I'm especially interested in the boingy boingy factor Having worked with ash before I'm sure these will on the firm side and ash seems to have a nice rebound to it.

hey brazen you gotta figure the skis are 190cm and there is two of them and the core thickness is around 12mm instead of say 7mm on a board. I dont have a cnc I leave about a 1/4 inch all the way around just to make sure I don't have the core slip so I am cutting through all that as well.
You have to assume its about 4 times if not more wear on the blade than you are experiencing per board.
Never had a problem with maple and poplar. The carbom seemed to heat up real fast and smoke the blade much faster than any thing else I have had to cut.
Its a wood blade aggressive tooth cut not sure the tpi. I have used them all and this was by far the best one for our needs. Better than the bimetal for wood and composite cutting together.
Usually I use up, I should say half a blade. Use a used blade and pretty much finish it, or start with a new blade and use it halfway. I could cut 2 pair with 1 blade but it would be pushing it.

Ash and Maple - about the same. 1/4 inch is a lot. The matchstick method works MM. Maybe it's a good supplementary method if used in conjunction with what you are doing at the moment, placed at the tips? Gives you the option to reduce the width and see what is possible. The more you make, the more you want to save on costs?

This should take you down to 2mm - which ensures you always have the option to cut by hand if you run out of blades.

rich I know you are right. Its just another thing to adopt in the process. the alignment dowels on the sides work great and with the edge rabbit there is little to no slip.
Its hard to cut the sidewall profile nice and even so I can get an even rabbit for the edge so I leave some on to sand down. I guess its not 1/4 inch because I only have about 1/16 in the flash of core and then the width of the blade kerf, so maybe more like 1/8 overhang.
I had made a few pairs with exact size core using base template but that ended up wasting allot of time IMO.
I'm not really concerned about a blade here or there if I was doing this for real I would have a bandsaw.
Its a real bitch when you profile your core and have some tear out or a break near the tip or tail and have to laminate a small piece on to make up for it and then sand to meet profile so I leave them a bit big.

My cores are built differently - ski shaped from the start. It means I know whether the core wants to be a ski before it is put in the press : )

The other upside is I am only cutting through the 'overhang...???' - about 3 mm thick.

Anyway, just a thought ...

Its a real bitch when you profile your core and have some tear out or a break near the tip or tail and have to laminate a small piece on to make up for it and then sand to meet profile so I leave them a bit big.

this just happened to me
sucks

MontuckyMadman wrote: if I was doing this for real I would have a bandsaw.

Ahha! I just assumed you were using a bandsaw...now it makes total sense. Read hard. )

Did several thousand vert on my carbon layup skis this weekend.
Carbon is tough to wet out. Now I understand the prepreg deal.
They skied great. A little soft in the tip maybe but I wanted these to be a bit more forgiving. Not a High speed crud blaster, more a do anything ride all day ski. I skied 45 degree steep couloiur style and cornice drops and tracked out bumps and slush and corn and grabby wet boot deep snow. these skis did great in most all. They were a little slippy on the steeps but I chalk that up to 106mm underfoot.

The beartooth mountains have seen more snow this year than any other year in the last 30 years. Skiing is stupendous to say the least.

Testing ground





This a continental snow pack. very unusual to see this wall.




Dogs love skiing.




weirdo panoramic pics. I have no idea how to do it obviously.



WINTER ALL SUMMER WOO HOO!!!!

WTF! Climate change...?
Your new skis "sounds" like mine OAC-10's, not so good on the steep hills but fast cruisers!
Take it easy when you go fast(which will be easy), so you don't loose it. You will hurt yourself.

When is the next pair?

BTW:

BTSR 10+:2 = 1 very sliced up thumb

always detune all your AL cassette material. Ouch.

Awesome pics! Motivational! So what was the final ski dimensions and layup? Nice BTSR