Lightningboard overhaul

[plainsman]

First post, here goes;
Got myself a pair of all wood lightning boards, this year's model with the polycarbonate edges. Funky ski, except for those *&*^% edges that have a nasty habit of icing up in colder conditions making for a very unpleasant ride. I'm going to try one more attempt at structuring the bases/edges to see if that helps (which I suspect won't), and if that fails, go into rebuild mode and replace the edges. Since the pcarb edges are fairly thick, this will probably include replacing the ptex base also; I'm assuming a heat gun should do the trick, might have to router out the edges though. Another thought would be just to lay a new layer of p tex and metal edges over the existing base, but suspect this might add too much weight and material to the ski. Lastly, I could just use these as a template and start from scratch, steam bend my own planks, glue on the bases (and edges) and see what I can come up with.

whaddya think?
comments?
advice?
tips?
Help!


thanks

[Bucky Mullet]

Wow, that was my motivation for building my own skis. I had grand plans to integrate the edge and base using lexan. I worried about the brittleness of the material, but then figured that I ought to learn how to build normal skis before building my grand vision (the shape of which has now been built by numerous companies like DPW and Line). but the beefing up the edge and base strength is still high on my list. I'm actually thinking of having my local machine shop make some edges for me, with a wider flange in order to accomodate riveting the edge to the core all around the ski. Tanks for the report on the polycarb / icing problem.

[plainsman]

Talked with Kelvin via email today and am just waiting for his base material to come in for me to order. Went into the shop to start peeling off the old base.....all it took was my regular waxing iron and the base came off like a pair of old skins, in less than 5 minutes I had both bases off. Note to self; find a better glue than what was used here! As for the edges, I'm just using my tuning tool with a rasp file and it is not taking long to file the edges down to flush with the wood. I decided to not remove the complete edge as these are routered into the wood and I would have to fill in with something. I probably could have taken the boards to a shop for a stone grind, but since I'm 75 miles from the nearest ski shop, the file is doing just fine. After that is all leveled off, I'll have to do a bit of sanding to remove old glue residue. Any ideas on a good glue to use for the new base layer? I'm also tempted to resteam the boards as one has about 8 -10 mm more camber than the other, but am undecided as I figure the skis will soften with use. I'm really starting to believe these lightning boards were built on a friday!
Will keep posting on my project, call me crazy about trying to make these planks work, but I have to admit there were glimmers of something unique when I was trying them out, I'm just hoping this will help. IMHO stay far far away from lexan edges - very unpredictable!