Senior Project - Logging Process

[knightsofnii]

if you're going to build your own core, under this "get it done before school ends" time line, you may want to consider just going to home depot and getting a solid piece of either one piece wood or laminated spruce or something. Like has already been said, building the core, especially the first time, can take forever, and you may end up screwing it up anyway first shot.

I'd donate you a core but you're building skis, I do have a couple extra snowboard cores.

[cstoneskis]

April 9, 2010
8:14PM- 8:40
26 MINS

Went with my good friend to get some wood for the core of my skis. She searched patiently with me as I roamed the wood to see what was available. I ended up choosing poplar, because it was cheap and light. I also looked for some epoxy. All they had was garage epoxy at the Lowe's I was at, so I will need to search around a bit.

April 15, 2010
7:25PM-8:36
71MIN

Today I finally got to cut the poplar for my skis. I sketched out the shape onto the wood and got to cutting right away... Only to find out that the light went out in the lamp I use. Unfortunate, right? So working in sort of dim light I went about the work anyways. One board done and I was half way through the second board when, for no reason what so ever, the blade snapped. This time I am baffled. So I am going to stop by a hardware store on my way home from work on Saturday and finish this, unless my mom picks one up on her way home from work tomorrow. I also received my top sheet and edges yesterday, which was extremely exciting for me . It's supposed to snow tomorrow, which is also exciting. The skis are looking to be done by the end of next week (because I am getting some guidance through the rest of the project by a neighbor of mine), so I will probably hike up the local mountain a bit when they are done and try the skis out on the patches of snow that dot the mountain. Until later!

[cstoneskis]

I haven't been keeping up well with my blog, but my work has not stopped yet.

April 28, 2010
12PM-2PM
120MINS

Today I went to the local hardware store, Country Three Corners, to see if they had any blades available for my sabersaw. I couldn't exactly remember what the blade actually looked like, so I had to go home and grab a blade to make sure I grabbed the right one. The new blades for the saber saw are huge, but they worked well. I finished cutting out my skis and unfortunately took a gash out of the side of one of them with the saw. We will see what I can do with this later.

April 29, 2010
7AM-11AM
180MINS

I have no idea why I would be up so early to work on this project, but I was. I went about sanding down the sides of my skis, so they would be straighter. My cutting is horrible. Anywho, I spent some time researching more about the next process, cutting out my sidewalls. Skibuilders suggested using a table saw, which worked for all of one minute until the saw jumped (I didn't know it could do that) and almost destroyed my sidewall materials. I was not pleased to say the least and stopped for the day.

April 30, 2010
9AM-6:45PM
585MINS

I know, I am surprised with that time too. I spent almost the entire day working on the skis. Still frustrated with the sidewalls, I spent a lot of time trying to decided a new way to go about cutting the pieces out. I settled on my best friend, the saber saw, which proved to work well. The difficulty was trying to keep the pieces even, especially because my piece of sidewall was curved to begin with. When I finally cut that out I went about cutting out the topsheet. This was difficult because it kept trying to roll up on me, so I had to lay it flat on the ground and hold it down with random objects in the room. When the cutting time actually came, I had to use a piece of wood underneath it to be cut with the material, because it wasnt stable enough otherwise. Then I did something similar with the base, but cutting it out to the size of the ski itself. Finally came the fiberglass material. I had no idea how to cut this, and tried just about everything. First I attempted to use the saber saw, which obviously was not working. Then i tried a razor blade. Also a no go. I eventually tried scissors, and wouldn't you know that they worked the best. I then tried to epoxy the sidewalls onto my cores, but it was not working out well in the space I was in and I did not have enough clamps to hold the sidewalls. My mentor, my mother, called up our neighbor and he said he would help me with this part. He had a much easier work table to deal with, and he had plenty of clamps to hold my sidewalls in place. He even helped me fill the gab where I had cut too much out of the ski by filling it with epoxy. I left the skis overnight to cure properly.

May 8, 2010
8PM-9PM
60MIN

My neighbor had brought my skis back over and had even profiled the skis to an even width, the one I wanted for the center portion of my skis. I was so grateful, because I was afraid I would destroy my skis with profiling them. I began to sand the skis a bit to thin out the tips and tails, but I was getting frustrated by the lack of progress with my current sander. The sandpaper was too fine. I stopped for the night.

May 9, 2010
11AM-12:30PM
90MIN

A friend of mine and I both went out to the shed and found a belt sander. With the belt sander we found tons of rough sandpaper. It was perfect! Then we couldn't figure out how to replace the old sandpaper, which we cut off and eventually found the lever that allowed you slip sandpaper over. I had to hold my ski in place with my foot to sand because it would try and slide out under the force of the sander. I looked ridiculous The only thing was that the sander took forever to work with, and I got tired and needed to go to work, so I stopped for the night.

May 11, 2010
6PM-10PM
240MINS

I sanded for what felt like forever, and finally got the thickness to my liking. Unfortunately I clipped a piece of a tail off. A friend of mine suggested making them into twin tips, which I am considering in order to rescue the tails of my skis. I also fine sanded the top of the ski, for painting A friend of mine came over and helped me paint the core of the skis which we hope will show through the fiberglass. I feel like it will, considering I have seen pictures where the core is visible despite fiberglass being used... so we will see.

May 13, 2010
10AM-1PM

I am spending the morning putting together the final pieces for my senior project, such as the trifold and my binder of papers. While I have not finished my skis, I am still proud of my work thus far and feel that people will enjoy my project tonight at expo. Wish me luck!

All pictures will be uploaded at a later date.

[skidesmond]

Glad to see you stuck with your project! As we have all learned, it's a huge under taking. You should be very proud. I've enjoyed following your ski build.
Looking forward to seeing more pics. Good Luck at the Expo!