Ski Builders Forum

alexisg1 wrote:Hi,


I understand your concerna about pressure, but did you manage to make links between the skis you made and the fact that you were using vaccuum ?

In one word, does vaccuum make worse skis ?

add : one of my friend combined vaccuum and mechanical press, awesome results

Well, I think that vacuum press makes good skis but with a bladder press should improve quality drastically.
Although it is quite difficult to heat a vacuum press.
All this is coming from reading ather post and experiences on this we site.
I think that combining a vacuum and mechanical press is a great idea in particular if you want to do a cap construction.

Anyway this winter in Valle d'Aosta will say if I'm right or wrong.
Ciao

luca

Luca,

Thks - I've been putting my topsheet ideas on hold because it was making my head hurt.

Cheers,

Rich.

Thx for the answer Luca.

I've just pressed my skis. See below :



I am really happy with the result, but haven't skied them yet.

The thing is, I really dopn't understand how a mechnical pressure is better than vaccum. It should be all about pressure by surface...and vaccum is unbeatable (unless you have a bad vaccuum system).

I'm not good at physics, but I understand that if you reach 0bars in absolute, or -1 bar in relative, the pressure is the highest you can get, and you'll never be able to reach that pressure/surface with a mechnical press.

Does the mechanic have an effect on materials that I do not understand ?

Sorry to use your post to tell my story, but I'm very looking forward your tests.

lucacasty wrote: Back to the press we considered the use uf steel H and C bars and it is made so that you can press two skis together using differend moulds (two floors press)
These are 1cm thick and this guarantees that it will not bend under any pressure you can possibly reach using air.
Pieces are welded
.

This is exactly same design I was going to build. You will hear from my patent lawyer
http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2588

How toll it is? Footprint looks narrow. In metal fabrication (I was told) height equals wight or at least 3/4 of it. 1200 lb not bad, mine probably over 1ton and can be wheeled around by one person.

MadRussian wrote:
This is exactly same design I was going to build. You will hear from my patent lawyer

haha this made my day.

MadRussian wrote: How toll it is? Footprint looks narrow. In metal fabrication (I was told) height equals wight or at least 3/4 of it. 1200 lb not bad, mine probably over 1ton and can be wheeled around by one person.

The press is 2 meter tall by 1 meter wide.
Actually I'm not an engineer but I tried to push it to see if it could be turned over and I couldn't move it one cm.

alexisg1 wrote:
The thing is, I really dopn't understand how a mechnical pressure is better than vaccum. It should be all about pressure by surface...and vaccum is unbeatable (unless you have a bad vaccuum system).

I'm not good at physics, but I understand that if you reach 0bars in absolute, or -1 bar in relative, the pressure is the highest you can get, and you'll never be able to reach that pressure/surface with a mechnical press.

Does the mechanic have an effect on materials that I do not understand ?

Sorry to use your post to tell my story, but I'm very looking forward your tests.

I think you are a little bit wrong.
I'm not good at physics as well but what I understood reading this forum is that with vacuum you can get a pressure of 1 bar while with air under pressure (fire hose system) you can get to 7/8 bars.
In order to improve vacuum performance you should use an autoclave.
If you lurk a little bit the forum you can find a lot about this.
As soon as we will be ready I'll definitely post my first impresions and experience differences between vacuum and air.
Ciao

Luca

Hi here are somo picture of the new press.
The press and the stell mould work great and results are definitely much better than vacuum pressing.

The mould is made by a 3mm stell plate and an other layer of 2mm laser cut bolted to the 3mm one. Using this system eliminated any problem with edges and during layng-ups.




While this is the press. The heating is done with hot water that flows into an aluminium bar with holes in it.





This is a glossy picture of the press in action


This a video of the cnc milling the bamboo core:


While this is the final result:

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Excellent! Are you in production now?

Beautiful skis!

Hands up if you want a pair!

OAC wrote:Excellent! Are you in production now?

Yes, we are making around 20 pairs per type (actually two) to see if there might be a small market ready for this sort of skis.
The wood finish is really natural and simple, let's see how it goes.
We even set up a small web site because we would like to do direct sales but in Italy it's not that easy.
The web site is in italian but within next week the english version should be up and running.
If you want to give a look the address is:
www.leafskis.com
Consider that all the pictures are made by us.
Ciao

Luca

Wow, great looking skis! can you elaborate on your water heating system? How are you holding down your wood on the CNC machine, vacuum?

Thanks!

That is awesome!!
One question: what are you using for mold release and how are you going with not getting epoxy stuck to your cassette with the two parts fixed together idea.
Again awesome press and skis!

Actually two questions: You guys have "day jobs" in the woodworking industry as I recall, and from all the nice toys you have (eg CNC).

Having been lucky enough to see these skis in person. I can only say they are of the highest quality - finish - attention to detail, etc. that I have seen anywhere. Absolutely flawless