Ski Builders Forum

So I made a pair of skis... they look good. I flexed them a bunch in the past few days and I am already seeing some delamination between my p-tex sidewall and the fiberglass!

I search the forum and found different answers. Seems like flaming is hard to accomplish properly. Any tricks? Do you sand your sidewalls? Do you sand before or after flaming them?

Does putting p-tex sidewall really worth the risk of seeing delamination? For people who experimented with it, would you do it again or would you just stick with wood sidewall?

Thanks!

Alexis

Normaly, the order is sanding first to roughen the surface, then flaming to release surface tensions in the material.

P-Tex might be better than wood for impact resistance and it also will seal the core against moisture. Anyway I used wood sidewalls (maple) for my first skis so I remove one source of potential problems. I will test my 2 pairs of skis + splitboard a lot all the winter and see if I really need to switch to P-Tex sidewalls. Bamboo might also be a nice alternative,I'm not sure about using it for a core (fibres are quite short compare to usual woods) but for sidewalls it could be nice, I wait for some feedbacks about it.

I have done one with HDPE sidewalls and had good luck with the bonding (beginners luck). After reading about the problems others were having with bonding and the flame treating process I have shied away form that and gone with wood sidewalls. I have not had any hard hits to the skis, so they are holding up fine. Just seal the wood with a spar varnish (?).
When I did the flame treating, it went the same as ben-mtl, sand to roughen then flame treat. Remember to clean just prior to the lay-up and no touching wiht bare hands!
Good luck,
ra