Ski Builders Forum

Hi All,
A search revealed very little about building cross country skis. There are several mentions of sites for building nordic skis but no names or links. Google has turned up nothing.

I plan on trying to lay up a pair of skate skis which have no metal edge and a flat base. I have an old pair of Fischer RCS sidewall skis I plan on copying as a start for the camber and basic shape. There is minimal sidecut to these skis. I'm willing to jump in and give it a go but was hoping to learn a bit first with the hope of getting closer to a decent and skiable pair without building a dozen pair.

I took a pair of wood core Fischer no-wax skis apart to see how they are built so I have some ideas of how to proceed. Trying to determine the wood species is a bit difficult.

I'm looking forward to the learning/failure curve and will keep you posted. There is also a plan to make up some new tele boards later this summer.

Thanks,

Kevin

i think it's the tv show "how its made", or something like that, that did an episode at a cross-country ski factory.

they showed them laminate with woodcore, and also lamination with injection molded plastic cores which was pretty neat, even though those types of skis really suck.

so if you can find it check it out, i'm at work so i cant search for it

Cross-country skis should be the same method as downhill skis, just no edges, and less complicated sidecut. You will want to add a lot of camber though, and use a stiffer core. I am planning on building some in the next few months, but I was going to pre-shape the camber in the ski by building the core from plywood. We will see how it goes.

i guess that whole injection molded core idea is to seriously lighten the ski. you want a xc ski to be super duper light.

with woodcore you can probably go pretty thin but you probably want it thick under foot.

somewhere on this site is some photos of how someone routed some tread into the base for climbing, etc. pretty neat the way it was done.

knightsofnii wrote:somewhere on this site is some photos of how someone routed some tread into the base for climbing, etc. pretty neat the way it was done.

Would this thread be the one?
Pretty good idea.

I've looked for usefull info as well, and haven't found much. It seems to me, the trickiest part for a skate ski is getting the flex right. too soft and it will be flat, slow, and won't have the spring you want. too stiff and it will be squirly, the tip will dive, and it won't track well. there's a lot of info on flex out there- google "skate ski flex" The other thing is that it will need to be torsionally very stiff. with 3o mm of camber or so, even without much sidecut, there will be a lot of pressure on the tip and tail when you are on edge and kicking.

for core materials, i know the race skis use nomex, and lots of others use foam. If you are going to use wood, I think a very light wood would be best, maybe balsa. you could also try to leave air spaces in the core to keep it light.

xc skis are so narrow you have to worry about a THIRD flex dimension, i dont know what it's called but it would be like left to right flex looking down on the ski.

axial flex? i dont know, its just the opposite of the normal one.

haha and they call me a mechanical engineer

Skate skis actually have a reverse side cut of sort.. under foot is straight then it starts to become narrower towards tips and tails. tips shouldn't dive because skate skis are used on hard packed trails so the flex only depends on the weight of the skier. Fischer's newer skate skis (2000 and up) have a very complicated side cut that involves almost two elliptical side cuts just in front and back of the straight underfoot portion and then continues to taper towards the tip and tail. for cores look into using a core that would be like a vertical lamination core but missing every other stringer so you have gaps and fill those with some kind of rigid foam. this cuts weight and give optimal spring to get the extra glide that you want while skating.