Ski Builders Forum

When do you put the fish scales on the base material? Before you even route them out with your template or after the entire ski is made? Seems smarter to do before you even start I guess but it could be done afterwards if you are careful. I put my first ski in the press today and it went pretty smooth. I am so anxious to see how it turned out tomorrow. I think I will build the other one tomorrow afternoon.

right on. nice work. welcome back.

Nice inlay work.
On the base... I used a router, put a shim on one side of the router to get the angle. Placed layout lines on the base to make the cuts look good. I placed a piece of wood on the base located to the layout lines to prevent the router (or me) form going too far with the cut. Make the cuts from one site to the other and then move the wood to the next line and repeat. I did mine after the pressing of the ski.
On another note. I gave a piece of base material to a friend who then took a punch and punched into the base material at an angle with good results. What it did was put a bit of recess on one side of the punch while raising the base on the other side, leaving a positive pattern. He did this to just the base material placed on a hard surface (anvil), so it would have to be done prior to pressing. Don't know the effect pressing would have afterwards. I have not tried this myself so experiment away....
ra

We finished my skis this past week. They turned out really nice. I did end up cutting some of the whales back off. They are the same as my brothers pair but they have 1" carbon fiber on top of the core instead of the 3" wide cf.

Very cool! I haven't really tried any inlay yet but it's on my to-do list. I did try some very basic stuff using burl veneer but burl is very finicky.

I so love that you played with the patterned inlay. Those skis are so important and amazing. For your cat. Because tiny killer whales.