Ski Builders Forum

Yeah you can do vinyle diecuts and finish with an epoxy topcoat. You could try and seal the ink with eeither an acylic spray or urethane spray before you finish it.

I wouldn't recommend using a glossy vinyl then trying to poly over it. You *might* be able to get it to stick for awhile but it will chip off. Especially if it's in a high stress area. Matte finish vinyl bonds and covers better.

Thanks for the vinyl tips.

Here's my press from yesterday. All carbon fiber. They look good, but I have a mild disaster to fix with the edges. Lesson learned not to skimp when applying the super glue to the edges...

I was super stoked to cut these out and mount them up with some Bishop Bombers I picked up off of Cragslist last winter. It looks like I've got some peeling and re-epoxying to do. Hopefully I can clean this up without making a mess of the skis. It did this in about three spots actually.

Just fill the gap with a ptex repair stick and claim it to be your version of magne traction

those look sweet, hope you can fix em' up.

that pid box is badass.

chrismp wrote:Just fill the gap with a ptex repair stick and claim it to be your version of magne traction

Ha! My first thought was of the Praxix skis that have the 3 contact points.

I actually considered just leaving it.

I'm going to cut them out tomorrow. I'm thinking I should be able to fix it without too much pain. I'm not looking forward to it.

Performed surgery on the worst of the blowouts last night and I think it's going to survive cleanly...

to get a really clean fix for this type of thing you need to cut the edge out and replace it, kind of like when you hit a rock and pull out an edge.

1. cut a rectangular piece of base out using a metal straight edge clamped to the ski as a guide.

2. peel the base patch out

3. cut out the edge area that is the problem with a dremel

4. cut a new edge piece to fit, clamp and epoxy in place

5. epoxy a new base patch in place, maybe with some VDS in there for good measure.

6. re-profile the sidewall

7. base grind as usual

gives a nice clean repair and if you do it well you get nice tight edge seams and all you see on the base is a rectangular score line for the base patch.

they make screws for edge replacement as well. pretty slick.

I haven't updated on here for a while. The repair of the carbon skis went well and the skis look fine after they were tuned.

Here are a few others that I made last winter...










These are fiberglass but the same dimensions as the previous carbon with bamboo ski. These are for me and have turned out to be an awesome alpine ski in just about all conditions. 185cm long, 115 under foot, about a 21M side cut. I think the tip/tail dims are 140mm and 130mm


All carbon fiber for a friend. Super light.


Miller Studio topsheet over a bamboo veneer.

So far this winter I've put out two pairs of skis is all. One for a photographer friend and one for me.




These are all carbon fiber and bamboo. No fiberglass at all.








And for my latest personal skis I took a page from I think it was Big Kam who built a pair of skis out of a pallet. I did the same, but wanted them to look old. The inspiration for this comes form my other hobby, old Volkswagens. This last summer I bought a '58 bug that is solid but has a ton of surface rust on the body. It will eventually be polished as is and clearcoated to preserve the "patina". So I'm calling these my patina skis. After getting the cores profiled I used vinegar and tea to make the wood look old again. I even glued in some of the old nail heads. The fiberglass didn't end up quite as transparent as I was hoping, but I still got the look I was going for. A burly pair of rough, but indestructible looking skis.

I'm a sucker for bamboo topped skis, those all look fantastic!

Thanks Twiz. I had been hesitant to pull the trigger on the clear vinyl topsheet from Miller over the bamboo, but your totem skis from last year convinced me. I still think it's hard to beat the look of hand painted graphics over the bamboo, but it is definitely much easier to do the printed topsheet. And yeah, still looks amazing. Hand painted takes too much time, and without the plastic over the top they get beat up.

Unfortunately our local source for the bamboo veneer (Urbanata/Bamboo Hardwoods) is no longer making and selling the veneer. I even tried to buy them out of any scraps they might have laying around but got nothing. I've got some scraps leftover that I might get one or two more pair out of.

The bamboo topsheet is so easy to make look good though, maybe this will keep me from getting lazy and stale with the look. I may try to print a full graphics sheet on paper and cover that with vinyl for my next layup.

I'm curious to see if the vinegar with adversely effect the bonding of your epoxy. Vinegar which is acidic will neutralize active mixed epoxy. I use white vinegar to clean uncured epoxy off my tools and tables after layup.

The4 skis looks great but let us know if you experience any sort of delam as a result of the vinegar treatment on the wood.

I thought that about the vineger as well.
Looks like you are also useing different lengths of glass to change your flex pattern, seems like a gamble to me and may make the ski feel hingey? Not a word but maybe you understand what I mean.
I useally try and adjust the core profile for flex change in sections of the ski as opposed to sectional change of composites.