Ski Builders Forum

Its been a while and we all have our own methods of making skis, so why not find out what everyone is using for cores.

Currently for me It is hard maple and bass wood, it is a good balance for the stiffness under foot and the flex and low weight on the ends. And a few skis with one solid piece of poplar.

I’ve been using vertically laminated bamboo flooring, 6 foot long planks, about 88mm wide after removing the tongue and groove features. Adding poplar to the sides to make it wide enough for powder skis. Then after cutting in the sidecut radius I attach Ipe (or other rainforest hardwood) for sidewall blocks. These end up about 10mm wide in the finished ski.
Not so sure I like the bamboo for narrower all mountain carver style skis, about 95mm wide underfoot. They feel too un-damped on firm snow surfaces. For those type skis I may go to all poplar or maybe add some other species in there.

-S

My 2 woods are ash and poplar - because I can get them easily.

My standard core is poplar in the middle and 2 ash stringers next to the sidewalls. In my idea the stronger wood along the sidecut helps transferring the forces from the edges to the binding. Poplar helps keeping the weight down.
In a race ski I built recently I only used ash, and for a strong on piste only ski this wood seems perfect - no wonder ash was used in the completely wooden skis some 50 years back.