Ski Builders Forum

Doesn't get much more slick than that. Great job.

G-man

earlier this week i corresponded with jason (hydrant71), asking him about the value of the spring constant for the coils he used in his press design. in lieu of a number, he left me with his secret: 13" long door springs available at Lowes or HD. armed with this information i immediately raided a local Lowes and HD for all their springs -- i acquired the needed 14 springs, $2.5/each (i cut each spring in half, giving a total of 28 springs, approx. 6" long). on my way out of one store i picked up two 6-feet long galvanized angle steel with pre-punched holes, hoping they would come in handy. i was not disappointed:



now satisfied with the mechanical system, i switched into electronics and control systems mode to finish the heater. Ebay is a nice place to shop --for about $50 i'm a proud new owner of a controller and solid state relay. i put in about $30 more to buy misc parts that include a couple switches, wires, etc. below is the assembled system. the last photo shows a test run where the controller nicely brings the temperature of the blanket to 175F. it all works like a charm!

clean, clean as a whistle. can't wait to blow up your pm inbox with
1,000 questions about controllers and ssr's this summer.

jason

sorry... i've been looking around the site... i'm thinking of building a pair soon...

whats the cattrack do? and I noticed in one of the pictures that when the hose was inflated there were lare gaps between the hose and the mold where the mold curves up... how did you make sure the ski got pressed there?

sorry if these are stupid questions...



edit: never mind- i looked around on some other thread and found the answer

bigKam wrote:obviously, i'm more excited about working on Kublai than devoting weekend time to my day job -- yes, i'm one of those work-alot-people... i have to just to maintain buoyancy.

i assembled the mold, cattrack, and hose. here are two photos of Kublai at 50 psi:







again, i'll write up an article describing the press, as well as a method for layup. stay tuned...

hello
what the length and width of metal girder?

BigKam,

How did you secure the top mold to the top beams?

Is it hanging by the springs as is the hose and cat track?


thanks,
Matt

The metal girder is about 18" wide and around 7' long

To secure the mold, I used a two threaded rods, a few nuts, and made a securing cross member out of wood. I drilled the mold in two places (holes much larger than the rods), pounded nuts into the wood from the bottom side, then threaded the rods as shown. The cross member rested on the I-beam flanges. I hope this sketch helps:

Yes, thanks for the sketch it helped out. I was going to put some holes in my beam flanges, but your approach is better.

Thanks

Is there any possibility that you could post a scimatic of your entire control system for the heating element, including positive and negative wires, and where they all connect?

I just built a press and am trying to install the heater... yet having a little bit of a hard time with the wiring.

I believe My control components are very similar to yours.