Ski Builders Forum

Hello,

I am planning to build some powderonlyskis on very sipmle base. I want to use a horizontal laminated core, prebend tips and then vacuum bag. The skis should have no camber with rocker.

Can I just put the sandwich in bag, some weight on the top of binding area and a brace uder the tip area to create the rocker?

Should i use some plate for bagging for the lower side of the sandwich? I mean between base+edges and the bag.

I would be thakfull for any help in this issue!

Regards from Austria

Jiri

I wouldn't say its a good idea at all, but you certainly could do it. The main problem I see is consistency between skis. You could get one skis that is a totally different shape than the other. Are you going to be heating? I'd be curious as to how much your pre-bent tips will relax once they're covered in resin and possibly heated.

Putting some kind of plate (thick sheet metal) under the ski is definitely a good idea though, just to help keep your base flat (but that won't garuntee a perfectly flat base, the sheet metal can still bend). If they're powder-only, maybe you won't even bother getting the bases ground.

I guess what it boils down to... if you ever plan on getting the bases ground flat, you need to have a mold. The room for error is very small.

As I want to try to build the ski with horizontal laminated core I would lay up both skis together on one piece. On this way I hope both skis will come out same.

Do you think that a prebend tips will come to its original shape in contact with resin? maybe a mold just for tips would help? How about a pipe cut lenghtwise to about 1/3 placed under the tips?

Have a look at 333 skis. Lots of vids on youtube. He uses a pretty thick pre bent aluminum plate. It would be tough to get a flat base without the plate IMHO.

jiri23 wrote:As I want to try to build the ski with horizontal laminated core I would lay up both skis together on one piece. On this way I hope both skis will come out same.

Are you going to have profiled cores? Thinner at the tips, and thicker in the middle? If you did both skis at the same time, one on top of the other, the top ski will have more camber than the bottom ski.

Or maybe I'm just reading that wrong, and you would be laying up the two skis side-by-side... that makes more sense.

I mean side by side. Inspired partly by Davides layup. For cores I want to use 9 or 12 mm plywood planed just like usual core.

This is more or less what I do anyway. I use Masonite to press against. Watch 333's videos, then substitute Masonite for the aluminium sheet and a thick board (I use hardboard braced with 1x2's) instead of his camber frame

I have changed my mind and now I want to use a small tipmold and possibly tipspacers.

As I want to source all my materials localy - what type of material should the tipspacers be? Light, flexible and bondable to epoxy, right? any other important features?

In the Howto section the tipspacers just copy the arc of the wooden core. In my layup can use either tip to tail woodcore without tipspacers or tipspacers attached directly to the straight frontside of the core. Would they hold like that?