Ski Builders Forum

Hi guys,

Over the next couple months ill be building my first boards so ill be posting here with all my progress and pictures along the way :) so hopefully all goes well.

Looking forward to riding my own board!!!!!!!! :D :) :D :)

Hey guys,

Just a little back ground,

I'm currently living in New Zealand and its going to be our snow season in the next few months so hopefully i can get a board or two done in that time. Theres three of us working on these boards so hopefully we cn get all our funds and press together and hopefully a board built by the time the season ends.


I've just ordered the aluminium and the fire hose for for my press i'm building.
Also i just ordered my heat curing resin and am waiting on a quote for two heating blankets from MEI.

I'm waiting on a quote for the steel and ill be getting the compressor soon as well.

Where is everyone getting the vibration dampening foil from? I know i can it from snowboardmaterials but they charge quite a bit when i want to make a few boards.
I will post pics when things start coming together.

I look forward to hearing from everyone as we progress

Dean

CD Walzholz for VDS. Don't hold your breath waiting for it

Where in kiwiland are you? That vds is a bitch get a bunch and store it cool and dry. Tough in flightless chicken land.

We are based in Auckland and we go down to Mt Ruapehu when we can.

We recieved our aluminium today


and we also received our resin


Received a quote for the steel today as well, it was a bit more than expected but it is necessary so that should hopefully be done next week.

Looks like we are going to be making a few boards

Is that the same epoxy that Kingswood use?
The HPR brand is the same
Adding Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc to the mix?

I'm not really sure if its the same but the supplier down here said that they have a couple of other people using the same product so possibly.


Waiting for all the materials can drive a person to...NEEDING the wine


Also i'm expecting the steel any day now and I've ordered my edge's, the vds foil and inserts.

Tomorrow i'm picking up the bench saw i brought so i can start building my cores. Ill post pictures as we get our stuff in.

For the cores i was going to go with 25mm strips of NZ pine and i'm unsure what to use for the hardwood where the inserts will go..maybe ash or birch as I've seen others using that.

dsquared wrote: Waiting for all the materials can drive a person to...NEEDING the wine

I hear THAT!

So the steel arrived this morning.

2*8 meter lengths of 125*125mm steel square pipe sections.

So the next step is to actually get a grinder and cut them up.
Im thinking 3*2.2m lengths side by side for the top and bottem and then 2 or 3 375mm pieces for the sides giving around eitha 250 or 375mm clearance in the press.

Also the plastic has been ordered from crown plastics 50 meters of each the top and base sheets aswell as some tip spacer.

pictures will come as the things arrive and as the press comes together.

The heating blankets quote i got from MEI was $347 plus shipping which isnt so bad but seeing as I'm in NZ its a considerable amount more

Could anyone please give me some advice as to how to wire them up?

I understand i need a PID and ssr although i dont know what a ssr is or how to wire them up.

the blankets are 14" by 70" 240v single phase 2000w 8.33 amps.

I was hoping to get two of them and run them off our single plug but seeing as its only a ten amp plug i guess i can't. Is there anyway around this?

http://www.skibuilders.com/articles/heatedpress.shtml

http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2690

falls wrote:Is that the same epoxy that Kingswood use?
The HPR brand is the same
Adding Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc to the mix?

This is good stuff, talk to Grant at Adhesive Technologies and you'll be fine, he knows more about epoxys than most do. They have a few brews so do your homework. Look at their website and read the application notes and specs, take into consideration your method - its not just under a low pressure vacuum hold down nor just hand squeezed out - you are pressing at highish pressure , so you may be able to choose a tougher product that still wets out and laminates well under pressure. that said what you have chosen is a very good epoxy, I don't think you'll have too many probs with that stuff. cheers, Richie

Yea grant was the person i spoke to about the epoxy.


Anyways we got our bench saw yesterday and today i put it together. It works really well.


we had some offcuts with our wood so for our first practice boards we are gona make some tiny miniboards


And also all our steel is cutup and ready for drilling and bolting. That will happen sometime this week.

Alrighty,

So its been a while since i last posted but we have made a bit of progress,

We have got our cores coming along:


So we have 3 cores done so far:


Also the press which is slowly getting drilled and bolted is coming together:


We have had the top bottem and tip spacer plastics arrive today they are 50m of each of the top and bottem and 10m of the tip spacer(not in image) so a fair few boards are going to be made:



And any day now we will be getting delivery of our heating blanket from MEI, also edges, inserts and some vds rudder will be getting to us.
So now all we need is the router, some more template wood, finish the press and then we can finally get the boards made.

So, it has been a rather long time since i last updated this journal but we are making alot of progress.

Firsly we have our router brige profiling setup all completed:



Second we have our press all finally bolted together, It has the first ribs in there at the moment:


there are 96 bolts in total holding the thing together, and we only had the good old hand drill to go through the 3mm steel at that stage the bolts wherent tightened but they are now...


So here is a messing looking shed that is slowly coming together:


And our miniboard that we will be building first so not to waste parts on the big ones when we screw it up which on the first one im sure will happen:


we had our friend machine the parts for our edge bender, hopefully it does the job:


And finally we have the first version of the heating blanket wiring, We went with it being 2000w at 240v and got it from MEI. This first version of the wiring is very early stages and im yet to even put switches into it but yea it works and does limit the temperature and the heating blanket does turn on so here is another picture


So yea clearly i love photos
Also it helps people to see where we are at in the process.
So any day/week now we will have our boards coming together, we are still waiting for our edges and vbs from customshop but she has assured me they will be here this week....

what is the span of that press opening?
I can guarantee a fair bit of deflection at 50psi.
You are gonna want a center support IMO.