Ski Builders Forum

I'm looking for some opinions.

The past few pairs of skis I've made have been fat - very fat. The skis I made last year were 155-120-140, and I LOVE them.

For my first pair this year, I decided I needed some new park/all-mountain skis. I'm really really happy with how the shapes I did last year worked out on the powder skis (very short sidecut section, with the tip and tail staying wide for a long time). I decided I would just take my powder shape from last year and scale it down laterally, and then fine tune the tips as needed.

I did that, loved how the shape looked on the computer, then last weekend I CNC'd the cores and an MDF template for doing base/edges. Now that everything is cut, I think I've realized I'm just making more powder skis - oops.

So what do you guys think... the dimensions currently come out to 160cm length (remember I'm tiny), with widths of 125-97-113.

Is it crazy to call that a "normal" "non-powder" "park" "all-mountain" or whatever else name you want to call it? Or are these just more normal powder skis? I considered putting the cores back on the CNC to cut the widths down a bit, but getting them lined up perfect won't be easy.

I feel a bit silly if 97mm is "skinny" to me... My old beat up 10 year old park skis have a waist of 76mm!

Twizz that design will work for what you want, you just have to get rid of any tip and tail taper. Have your sidecut go all the way to rollup for your tip and tail. And if you have some early rise, thats ok because when you tip them up on edge they will still engage.
I've been on skis like that for about 5 yrs. actually a little fatter. Here in the midwest I've skied all kinds of conditions on them and they work very well.

Thanks. I am using the same mold from the powder skis, so there is a lot of early rise on both ends. The sidecut basically ends around the same point as where the tip/tail rise start.

That is about spot on for an all mountain ski In The west. If you look at most of the popular skis they are about a 98mm underfoot.

For an all mountain ski (in pist and outside of it) I would build them with as long an activ edge as possible. But your dimensions sounds fine to me.
Another thing that I have buildt into my own allmountain ,and pist, skis are a "agressiv" short rocker/early rise. - a very sharp transition instead of a smooth one. It makes the skis turn fast and fun on hardpack and as a normal rocker on soft snow.

100mm underfoot is fine for an allmountain ski. I think that's the new normal, really?

Yeah I guess so...

It's funny, since I started building my own skis, I really stopped paying much attention to the current state of commercial skis. I used to know like every model K2 or Line made. Now? I probably couldn't name one ski.

I went ahead and epoxied the sidewalls on my cores, so I'm committed now. I think they'll be awesome skis regardless! Just need to figure out graphics for a topsheet... I'm having some writer's block there

Damn, I really want to come to America for one winter, you have to have sooo much snow - at least the way you design your skis tells me ;)

Working in Austria as skiing instructor all winter, my idea of an all mountain ski is about 80-85mm underfoot ;) Here, a ski with 100mm is regarded as pure pow ski already...

pmg wrote:Damn, I really want to come to America for one winter, you have to have sooo much snow - at least the way you design your skis tells me

Working in Austria as skiing instructor all winter, my idea of an all mountain ski is about 80-85mm underfoot Here, a ski with 100mm is regarded as pure pow ski already...

Wait, you're saying Austria doesn't get a lot of snow? I've been then there a few times and always shad lots of snow. Perhaps it's a difference in the back country skiing? Where do you teach?

Well, there are quite huge differences in Austria regarding the total amount of snow in one winter. The Arlberg region around Warth is one of the regions with the most snowfall in the whole alps, while many resorts closer to the central alps couldn't do without artificial snow. (Though all resorts have mosts pistes equipped with snow cannons).

From what I heard of others who have been skiing in the us, it seems to me that you have much less real hard snow - thats why you can ski these fatties all the time ;)

I'm working in Serfaus Fiss Ladis resort. Here, there are at most 10 days where fatties would make sense. Means for me at least 20-30cm of Pow - Everything else can be skied well on piste skis ;)

Ok gotcha. I skied the Arlberg region (St Anton) many years ago. I ski the North East US and we get a variety of conditions as well.

Back in 2005 I was skiing on skis with 98 midfoot and people in the lift line looked at me like I had two heads. How far we have come since then.

Head's Cyclic 115 is as wide underfoot as the skwal I'm building. I don't do smilies, but, as I saw a pair yesterday:



Man, dat's fat.

I'm with twizz on this one.
Last years favorite pair of "all mountain" (do almost anything 'cept hard ice) were 117 under foot.
We don't get too many icy days here. Worst case is hard packed bumps and they even did alright there.


sam