so, here they are ... actually they made it off the press much earlier (already in december) but if there is one thing I dont have its time.
I'm actually quite happy about the result, however the skis do have some minor faults. The topsheet shifted a little and gives you a little insight. Not that beautiful but well, I'm happy. The lessons are learned and the next pair will be better.
The testdrives are done, too. Went to Chamonix to take favor of the perfect steep skiing conditions. By accident I run into Idris in the skibus. He has really nice skis, too bad we only had about 5 minutes to talk. Cheers Idris, was nice to meet you!
Hopefully there will be a skibuilders meeting in Europe, soon. As far as I know plywood is trying to organise something, my suggestion would be Andermatt, thats a place everybody can reach within an acceptable distance.
ok, now let some pictures speak.
pressing the forms. I cut them out by cnc and put them together using dowels. after the pressing everything was sanded on a band grinder, very exactly, very even.
cnc cutting the base. its done by taping the baselayer on some planks.
these are the cores, the trick to get the form, thick in the middle, thin at the ends, is by putting them through some kind of grinding machine that grinds down planks by 1/10mm. So I put the raw cores on a plank that got the correct convexity in some negative form and let the core, together with that negative patternplank through the grinder. Some rubber rotors press the core into the negative and the knives cut out the correct form of the core. kiss - keep it simple stupid.
next: building it all together ... I dont have the exact build up in mind at the moment but i wrote it up and will post it later. its: glass, uni and biaxial, some carbon strings, some glass stings, more glass, somewhere the core varnish and yacht paint.
and at last, the finished product. unmounted
mounted
in action (well yea, its always me taking the pictures, so there is only this rather boring one with a pretty lame move, sorry)
rappelling, at last this one shows a little bit of excitement
over all I'm satisfied with the result. they hold the edge very well in very steep and hard conditions, it was possible to ski down an icy 50° slope (alternative to the Rectiligne Couloir, the orange one in Baud's book
) and did everything well all week long. Also we had to manage some pretty rocky and tough conditions I didnt get any coreshots and the edge kept in place, although I ripped them out a little at some minor places. As soon as there is a little powder the ski starts floating instantly, the superlong and soft tip pays off, the bad side of this is some shattering on very hard snow and gonig at high speeds but still manageable. As I usually intend to ski pow I can live with that but the next skis will have a stiffer tip, will float as well and wont shatter as much. The torsional stiffness is just incredible and my plan to build something as stiff as this one worked out really fine, its done by 5mm woodstrips for the core and several layers of biaxial glasslayers going 45° towards the edge.
The skis are very light. 1600 grams each ... Size: 186 124-105-110 (about, I dont have the superexact figures in mind at the moment). The abachi cores hold the bindings very well, my concerns are resolved. But maybe that pays off because of all the glass and carbon layers, at last, it works. I'm happy.