Ski Builders Forum

So today we finished shaping and profiling our first core. We opted for the planer method for profiling the core. We chose to try a vacuum clamping setup for the wedge. This worked great and caused no chatter in the tips while planing. The risers in the wedge are removable so that we can adjust the angle for each tip. The skis will be a short 157 slalom ski with twin tips (pure fun).

Yup, my girlfriend helps me build the skis!!! How lucky am I?

We are also trying to make the skis capped, not sandwich. This means we will have to preform our topsheet so that it can press nicely in a vacuumbag setup. To do this we are hoping to thermoform the UHMW (clear, thin, durasurf base materal) with our new heat blanket. We finally have the temp controller and blanket running well after lots of help from Kelvin and G-Man (thanks!).

On the left is our outlet for plugging in our blanket and on the right is the 220 power cord to plug into the wall.

Here the topsheet is thermoforming over a shaped core. The core had to be on risers to prevent the plastic from webbing under vacuum. The heat blanket is above the plastic and the kevlar breather insulates the blanket from the bag.

This is the topsheet after forming. The cap section is trimmed to the height of the core.

The two edges were glued on simultaneously to prevent the base from torqueing. An aluminum plate and two clamps was plenty of pressure to clamp a significant length of the base.

This is the edged base. Presented by the lovely Katie.

This is the base after rolling the tips with a PVC pipe. Also, the base is protected with packing tape.

We present to you, the Shane LeGOnkey Pro Model ski. This is prior to trimming, hot off the press...err...vacuum.
The next ski in the pair will have a few improvements. We should have wiped a little resin into the rice paper graphics before laying up the topsheet (there are a couple small dry spots). Seems like it might be stiff, but it is an ice ski after all...and it needs to be broken in

The ski is finished trimming and the final weight is 1400 grams. A mini hand plane worked great for trimming the flash from the tips.

The next ski is being pressed this week.

The pair is finally complete! Their first run will be this weekend.

Nice work mattman. Clever variations on the old themes.

G-man

Just added many updates. Will add pictures of the trimmed ski as soon as it room cures over night!

nice ski guys. I am cheerin about the idea of a twin tip SL. Thats simply great. I am building an SL aswell. never thought about twin tip tho. keep it up, cant wait to see more!

yeh guys, skis are looking awesome, cant wait to see some updated pics!
How did you find the vacuum press? I guess you haven't tried without it, but do you think the heat blanket makes a a significant difference when using the vacuum?

lets see...i got the vacuum pump from a refrigeration repair business...and it is a STRONG pump. love it. the vacuum bag and tape we get from www.fiberglasssupply.com. and as far as the heat blanket goes, we just recently started using it and have noticed a significantly better cure. the resin cures stronger and harder, plus not having to run the pump for eight hours strait is a nice change. now we do two hours at 175, then 30 minutes at room temp, then debag. highly recommend it. once i come up with the $ we will be adding a large HDPE pipe autoclave to the process. that should be sweet.
what i would like to find first though, is an airtight socket that we could hookup through our bag. this would allow us to plug our blanket into the bag, instead of running wires through mastic tape. then we could start using clips on the ends of the bag instead of tape. any ideas for an airtight plug-in anyone???

just added some updates!

nice dude, they are looking sweet - what are the dimensions?

115-69-100 and a 157 length.

final pictures...now i just have to ski them

mattman wrote:115-69-100 and a 157 length.

115-69-100?! Holy shit. Those things are going to turn...what is the turn radius?

that would be a 10.8m turn radius...think slalom!!

After Katie broke her Fischers right before a ski trip, we had to crank out a new (and much improved) second pair of skis. The process used is much the same as the one described above. The new features for the second pair include die cut base graphics (came out great) and rubber tips. The cap also came out much cleaner. The dimensions are the same except the core is slighly thinner (13.5mm vs 14mm) and the tail isnt full height (to reduce the rooster-tail). They ski much better, with an even race flex and MUCH less vibration problems.

these die cuts are awesome! how did you manage to get such clean grafics?

Could you briefly describe how you did the die cut base graffics, I want to do that my pair. Thanks.