Okay, been way too long since I updated this.
I love my first pair, I can't scrape the smile off my face.
So, the first pair have had 3 days, second pair mounted awaiting the chance, and the third pair are still a twinkle in my eye but hoping for this weekend or the next depending on the availability of machines at work. They'll be something a little bit narrower underfoot with more asymetric flex.
Working for some turns:
The first day was on boilerplate snow - hard, hard, hard HARD and slick. I skied them for a couple of runs and was reasonably happy with the performance on a surface they weren't really designed for. Then I stomped back into my old Salomons, did one run, and realised that I'd actually overestimated the conditions, and my Kerfs (name of my ski) were actually better than the old skinnies for grip and turn on ice! Neat. There's a pair of skis made redundant in one fell swoop, Which frees up a set of bindings. The kerfs didn't get so flappy in the early rise as to compromise things on the slick stuff or cords either, they haul ass when required.
Then I had a weekend of really springish conditions, super soft going to corn in places. F%$k. Me. Dead. They rock. The loft up in the tips is great, the tail doesn't catch, and the ski is so springy and poppy that it just chucks you into the next carve. All the things that I had thought were weaknesses on the boilerplate day became strengths, and I had to ring up the girlfriend to get her to deflate my ego a bit. I get a s$#t eating grin plastered all over my face just thinking about how they performed.
So, learnings from this design for me:
Amount of pop underfoot - makes it a bit unforgiving underfoot in frozen chop, but awesome for carving in medium / soft. I will definitely have to work on making the next pair (which will be made with harder conditions in mind) a bit damper - need ideas on this. I suppose my lack of plastic sidewalls probably doesn't help.
I had felt that I'd perhaps made the flex too symetrical - but a few turns switch in the soft stuff convinced me otherwise - for this pair. The next ski I design will be a bit more asymetric, I'll extend the flat zone underfoot back some. When I was really pinning it on the slick icey stuff it was definitely the tails that would start to wash out first.
I love how stable they feel, and I love how nimble they are, I suppose it's a fairly short running length with each side cut about 2cm...
Things I definitely need / want to improve on:
Edge joint placement. as noted my the inimitable Mr Madman I have a weak spot at the tipspacer joint, and I stupidly put the edge joint right there. This looks like an obvious failure point in hindsight.
I'd like to make the tip geometry more eliptical, so that it blends into the early rise a little nicer.
Layup speed - need to get faster, we're dancing around on the edge of our pot life.
Graphics - I'm experimenting with paper graphics at the moment using our plotter at work, seems to have potential but haven't quite cracked it - need better wetout.
Inserts. Next pair will have inserts.
Sidewall bevel - we did the first to pair with a tilting plattern on a belt sander. Not really as perfect as I'd like it to be, I may need to acquire a router or transform the laminate trimmer in the showroom into a "demo machine", and pretty quickly after that into a "second hand machine"...
aaaaand having written out all that I need to skive off work early to head to the mountain.
Cheers.
On a topsheet it would look sick. I was hoping to laser cut some vinyl stickers for the topsheet.
)
