Ski Builders Forum

Love the site, me and a coworker are going to start rolling our own. Anyway, we've been brainstorming mold/press ideas with design flexibility as the top priority (i.e. easy switch from making a carve ski to making a powder ski). I thought of a novel way to create molds faster than the current MDF laminate method. The idea is to make a vertical laminate of polystryrene foam (like the blue sheets they sell at Lowes, etc.) and then cut the mold profile using a hot-wire. Then lay-up fiberglass on the foam to create the mold base. You'd end up with a shell of fiberglass with a core of PS foam. The questions are:

- is this easier than cutting out MDF to laminate into a mold (I think it would be but, we're just starting out so we haven't done the mold yet)

- will this mold stand up to pneumatic press use? Certainly it will stand up to a vacuum press, but pneumatic might be too much.

It is much easier to cut molds out this way. I do it for vacuum bagging longboards, it's pretty easy to make new designs. And it's cheap too

I would say it depends on what kind of glass and resin you use, and how much!!!

How about, make a hollow mold this way, and fill it with cement and wires? that would hold up for sure .

http://universalconstructionfoam.com/pdf/eps_data.pdf

doesn't look like the strength is high enough without glass for pneumatic pressing, and having to glass it and then sand it, etc... makes mdf still a better solution imo.

Sure is a great idea for vacuum bagging though.

I'll be trying it with my pneumatic press once I've got it set up. I'll get back to you.
Idk when that's going to be though, hose is being shipped soon.

Hmmm, so you might be able to get away w/o the glass on a vacuum press... that would be quick & easy.

We talked about hollowing out filling with something with more compressive strength (concrete, epoxy, etc.) but that seemed expensive, time consuming and heavy.

Keep us posted Steevner.

I have pressed one board in a mold made of Roofmate foam. My pneumatic press have pushed the foamblock to half of his height. (70psi 60°C)
The board looks like a potato chip with big resin pockets etc.

Maybe for vakuum bagging.

Why not make the hollow mold with the fibreglass and fill it with SAND and close it off with a wooden board of some kind. It's pretty cheap and you can poor out the sand afterwards to use in another mold...