Ski Builders Forum

Hi,
I am about to build my cat track and have been looking at some 1/2 and 3/4 in square steel tubing at my local hardware. total estimated cost for the steel will be around 400 to 500$ does this seem about right to you guys or is that too high? the press is 8' X 1'4"

Made mine using 3/4" alum. square tubing and it came out to about $200 -- purchased from local metal distributor in 24' lengths. Had to cut and drill them myself, but labor was free. Alum is much lighter.

http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=668

That price does not seem unexpected from a hardware store. You will definitely pay a substantial premium for material like that at a hardware store. I would look into a local building material supplier or a miscellaneous metal shop. Another option is to use wood like shopvac did. I have no personal experience with wooden cat track but he seems to have great results with it.

thanks guys....
yeah, I think I might look into making a wooden one. less expensive and easier to drill.

bigKam wrote: Alum is much lighter.

http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=668

and softer, and it acts as a big heat sink robbing heat from a top blanket, if you are using one.

No offense bigKam, I just hate aluminum.

and softer...

Well, the elastic modulus of AL alloy is roughly 70 GPa. Here are the numbers for other materials:

Structural steel: 200 GPa
Douglas fir: 13 GPa
Oak: 11 GPa
Nylon: 2-4 GPa

From an applications point of view, my guess on how 'soft' it is depends on how it's used/stressed, but I agree the modulus is lower compared to steel, for example.

Yes, wood is probably a better insulator. But using AL with it's ability to conduct heat may help provide smaller spatial temp gradient through the thickness of the ski.... would have to measure this to be sure though. And what advantages does this have? Hmmm...., something to think about.

Finally, power consumption might be higher if an AL cattrack is used as you pointed out due to AL's ability to conduct heat. Agreed.

No offense bigKam, I just hate aluminum.

None taken .

I priced a steel cattrack from a metal yard around $150 for a single ski press.
Obviously bought in lengths and cut and drilled by me not the yard.

if there's a Fastenall chain by you, look for them. We got bars from them, cut to length for like 200 and change. When we brought them back, the lengths were all jacked up and different, we brought them back they got us new ones and let us keep the old ones, they're still useful just the different lengths make it look bad to the eye.

we use 1" along the flat/camber section, and 1" x 1/2" in the tip sections

I got 150' of 3/4" SQR tubing .120" wall for about $85. My cattrack consists of 105 15.5" sections strung together with 3/32 cable. I bought the steel at Wasatch Steel here in SLC. They have a ton of metal in stock for ornamental fences and stuff like that. I priced AL through Metal Supermarket for around $160.

Metal Supermarkets is a retail rip off shit show. Hate that place.

I just priced 1/2" square steel tube from my distributor in Tacoma. It's 6.20 per 20' section. If your press is 16" wide you can get 15 cat track sections out of a 20' bar. A 8' long cat track would have 192 cat track sections. So you would need (13) 20' sections. So, less than 100.00 for a double wide 8' long cat track if you buy the material from a steel warehouse.