Progress/question

[MonkeyButt]

We made some major progress on our project this last weekend. To date this is where we are: bases cut out, the press is finished, profiler is finished, cores are finished aside from profiling. We ran into some slight troubles when it came to the edges though (what a pain bending those turns out to be). We build an edge bender to bend them, but the prongs which you epoxy to the top of the base started bending up (which kind of scares me). Are there any tips to fix/prevent this from happening? I will keep everyone posted with progress.

[Greg]

I initially tried bending my edges without heating them up first. I had the same experience you did. For my second pair of skis, I heated the edges up with a blow torch first to remove their temper. They bent much easier after they were heated up. Also, they produced a much higher quality shape and consistent bend.

[Alex]

Edges are hardened to keep them sharp and make them resist impact from rocks. The edges i use are completely hardened (not only on the surface). If you try to bend them they will break at a certain angle. Heating them (glowing red) makes them soft again. If you like can get them hard again after bending with reheating (glowing red) and cooling rapidly with oil or water (quenching).