Ski Builders Forum

Greetings,

Been lurking and am very impressed with all the skis I've seen on this forum (and on skibuilders.com).

I've been sufficiently motivated to consider making my own skis. However, I'm going to warm up by taking a pair of old skis that were destined for the garbage heap and see if I can make powder boards out of them.

Here's my idea. I have 200 Pre M3's which is a soft flexing wood core ski from the early '90's. I plan on takings 2.5 cm off the tip and 12.5 off the tail. Then I'm going to rip the ski in half and space the two halves with dowling. The top will be capped with a yellow birch lathe and I'll build a binding platform onto the topsheet. The center will be filled with foam, sureformed down and the base built up with P-tex. I may cut out a swallow tail for aesthetic appeal and to reduce the weight. The finished dimensions I'm looking at are 155-135-142. I've done boat construction so feel fairly confident with epoxy and wood working skills. The consequences are minimal IMO and it should be a good learning experience. And who knows, maybe the skis will actually work. I plan on skiing them Tele, powder only and in the trees.

Your thoughts please. Am I wasting my time? What about the dimensions? I'm a big guy at #250 and need all the floatation I can get.

I suppose you have seen this: http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=174

Thank you Davide, yeah, I did read that thread. I even corrosponded with the Pyride guy a little.

I guess what I'm most curious about is the dimensions of my planned skis and if they're realistic.

Those dimensions should make for a pretty good powder ski. I am pretty convinced that 150 to 160 mm wide is about as wide as you ever want in a ski. Much wider and you have to really keep your legs spread just to keep the skis from running over each other. You will probably have to put leashes on them if you mount downhill bindings, and they are going to be pretty heavy, but with all the float, weight shouldn't be too much of an issue.