the best things come in threes

[plywood]

already as i was on my first ski i thought about how the perfect ski should be designed. there i was sure that i wanted a ski for powder mainly, so i constructed a swallowtail with normal camber. the ski works perfect and i`m really happy with my ride.

but sometimes a swallowtail sets some limits. it`s perfect for powder, but it`s not that ideal for a few runs in the park. so i decided to design my next ski for powder AND park. i wanted a more versatile pair.

then came matty and brought up the hellbents and the whole rockered discussion. i thought about negative camber and the influences of it to skiing before, but i came to the conclusion, that with negative camber the loss of stability is too big. but rocker/early rise seemed to be the solution.

so my plans got more concrete:
i wanted to build a ski with powder in my mind, but with the ability to jib through the park and maybe also landing switch in powder from time to time (actually i`m not able even able to ride switch...but for learning it i need a ski which can be ridden switch )

so i made a first drawing:



as you can see on this first sketch i planned a 1m long middlesection with normal camber. then on each side a rocker which rises 2cm on a lenght of 24cm. the shape wasn`t very clear at this moment, so i just drawed something.

by time i started to overwork this drawing. because i still wanted to ride powder i came to the conclusion, that 2-4cm binding set-back are not so much and may be insufficient. so i modified my plans and spaced up the setback to 6-7cm. for a moment i also thought about moving the center section 6cm back too, so it would result a rocker in the front of 30cm lenght and in the back just 18cm. this would have the effect that you stand symmetrical on the effective running lenght.
but somehow i came off this idea... (i don`t know why exactely...maybe you can tell me what you think about it. i somehow didn`t recognise the positive effects this moving back could have...)

so based on my drawing i started with the third pair. the dimensions will be somewhere about 151-120-141 or so. at the moment i`m a bit concerned about the weight... as these babies get REALLY fat also weight may rise to eternity... but honeycomb is no solution - i had to replace the whole tip and tail area inclusive rockered section with it to get a noticeable reduction. but i want to use these skis in park, so they will get ridden pretty hard and suffer abuse, so i can not afford the weakening caused by the honeycomb...

an other concern caused by the expected abuse relates to the sidewalls. i`m not sure about how to do them until now... wooden sidewalls suffer pretty much if you bang the skis together...and for fibreglass sidewalls i had to chose a different method than the last time... any good advices?

[Brodi TofuGnar]

Call me crazy but why are you guys talking about making a powder ski for the park? My idea of a a powder ski is butter soft in the tip, a little muscle in the waist and tail and wide 115-135 and with the described rocker and camber in you're ski design and traditional sidecut. That is my idea of a perfect Colo, MT, UT and here in AK ski powder ski. And my idea of a park is a beater around 85-100mm. But I would love to learn your reasoning for needing such a wide ski in the park. I would think that it would be like Slalom skier racing on a GS ski.

Brodi

[iggyskier]

so essentially your are taking the K2 hellbent and modifiying it a bit to your tastes? Everyone I know who has tried that ski so far has loved it a lot so you skis should turn out sick.

I know a lot of the park guys have recently been seen on skis that appear to be the hellbents (Pep and Andy's PC video) but, just so you know, those skis are actually Made'n AKs with the hellbent topsheet and camber. That is directly from a buddy of mine who asked them at PC.

I think that shape looks awesome though. I am building rocker into all my skis for the moment. Rocker makes anything soft so much better.

[plywood]

Call me crazy

you`re crazy. satisfied?

no, seriously. the point is, that you have to change your ideas of "what is the perfect ski for this and for that". i`ve had many discussions with many different people. most of them older than me, about 40 and up. a lot of them are "normal" skiers who use their ski most of the days of a season on the slopes or go touring etc. and nearly everyone said: "hu, you can`t ride such a wide freerideski on slopes, it will be a pain, you won`t be able to do a single turn on the edges etc."

the problem is that these people never rode such a powderski. maybe i get carried away now, but isn`t this a general problem of humanity? what one doesn`t know can not be good. they made narrow skis the past twenty years, so everything different can`t work.

besides, i`m the same like all these people. i thought a swallowtail doesn`t make sense on a ski. whenever i saw a manufacturer with a swallowtail in his product range i thought: it looks pretty gay, what a stupidity, a ski is way to narrow so a swallowtail wouldn`t have an influence etc. - look at the first ski i made. furthermore i was absolutely sure that more than 135mm in front are dumb....

but now back to the skis. by time i got more into ski design...and i came to the conviction that the width of a ski doesn`t has such a big influence like everyone affirmed. you may need a slightly bigger effort skiing them because you need more power to put them on the edges...but that`s it. and besides: we`re talking about some single centimeters! they don`t have such a big influence like everybody says.

so as i said, width is secondary! there are more important things. for example weight. and i think this is the main point. weight goes hand in hand with width. there i fully see the negative influence of width.

so maybe you should just throw away your fix ideas of how a park ski has to look like, and how a powder ski has to look like, and to see them as two different and contradicting types of skis.

i strongly believe that it`s possible to unite all the abilities a ski has to offer for riding park and riding powder. maybe you should forget to express your ideas of the different types in numbers like 115-135 and 85-11 and to focus on the attributes of them.

then you become (basically in my case) for powder: floatation, stability and agility at the same time. and for park: softness which is forgiving and twintip. ok, very simplified, but do you still think that you can`t unite all these attributes?

sure, you don`t NEED such a fat ski for park. but you need it for powder. and i personally like the idea of having one ski which is capable to do everything. so i`m really looking forward to have them done. i have to admit that i myself got some doubts about how they will be to ride because of their width...so crash and learn

[mattym]

just to clarify, as far as park skiing goes with fat skis, here how i have found it.
Fat skis = bigger platform = easy to stomp landings, great stability on rails. As long as they aren't too heavy, they still spin the same and everything.
Then with a rocker - easy butters, no catching of tips or tails spinning on rails, easy presses on rails. All kinds of new tricks can be done, you just gotta think out of the square. And in the pow they are crazy good!!!!!
The hellbents are incredible, and so are the pontoons and the seths. There definately seems to be an inbetween that would be perfect, and I think plywoods skis should turn out right about on the mark! I know u took photos dude, hurry up and post!!! hahaha

[rockaukum]

I would agree with Plywood in that if it is not tried than how would one know if it works or not.... So that being said, how about not having a flat bottom ski for those of you that do the park stuff (rails ect.). It might work for the buttering effect that I just read about also.
RA

[plywood]

so i started to modify my mold for camber today. i took hard styrofoam for the inserts (the blue ones) so that i can use my mold. the styrofoam worked great on the second pair, so i hope it will do it`s job also on the third.

so some pics of the mold below. they give some kind of first impression of the amount of rocker. and it looks pretty good i think
i still have to glue the foam together, grind it a bit, then plank it with plywood and fix it somehow to the mold. but i hope that i can press the first woodcore on wednesday.

[plywood]

it seems if someone had something against this skibuildingproject.

the reason why so much time passed is....because there was no progress on my project.
i just laminated the cores and profiled them.



since then i`m waiting for edges&base. practically i organised edges months ago...but somehow my order was forgotten. so i asked an other supplier - who also forgot my order. and now there is Easter over here. holiday from friday to monday. without edges.

so my time is definately running out. the resorts over here are opened for 3more weeks from now...so there is not much hope left for me.
the problem is that i really needed the opportunity to ski this new pair a few times - to see if they hold up, how they ski etc. because i`m visiting new zealand during summer and i just can take one pair with me. so i really NEED a pair which i can trust. a breakdown in down under would be fatal. damn it!

but maybe this is a good sign - on the first ski i also had some troubles and they came out great

[plywood]

good lord,what have i done?!

straight out of hells kitchen, hot off the press...

because of its dark appearance and a somehow angry aura i decided to name them the EVIL TWIN





and now for the facts: about 177 in lenght, dimensions are 150-115-140. the shape is a bit special. due to the rocker/early rise i just have a contact area of nearly 1m. for this part i applied a radius of about 16m (i don`t know exactely, i took the radius of some bought skis. stöckli SL). so it`s the same radius as on my second pair, which is narrower than the one on the first ski. but this radius goes just over a lenght of maybe 120cm. so in the tip and tail area, which is rockered i applied a bit of negative sidecut.

did i forget to mention something? - no i don`t think so. well....probabely: just watch the background. flowers everywhere. but nevertheless i`m going to get the bindings fixed tomorrow morning and shredding these two diabolic sticks tomorrow

[powdercow]

Great looking skis plywood. The idea of combining reverse camber/sidecut with a traditional camber/sidecut is one i am looking forward to playing around with myself.
I am really excited to hear how they worked.

[LordGlassbot]

Evil twin, just as the snowboard of Bataleon

[billl]

plywood, your skis look amazing!

I am also planning on experimenting with early rise / rocker... probably a little narrower than your design and certainly with different tip/tail shapes but anyhow I am VERY interested in hearing how they perform... Hopefully you can find some April pow for a conclusive test

billl

[hydrant71]

wow, really nice. topsheets look really good, what are they? very evil indeed.

jason

[plywood]

@hydrant: topsheet is black ABS. seems to work fine, was a lot thicker than the transparent one i used the last times (nearly 1mm)...so i think it`s a good protection for the ski too.

sadly there was nowhere april pow just spring conditions. which means: icy and hard in the morning, then in the afternoon more water than snow.

so i couldn`t really test the ski...but i had the opportunity to ride it in the worst conditions immaginable for a freeride ski.

so on saturday when i came to the resort the snow was already wet and pillowy. so i was very curious how the ski would perform and if tip and tail would start vibrating. so...what can i say...of course had to accustom myself to the new ride. but i was extremely surprised how good they were! because of the relatively narrow radius (i copied it form a stöckli slalom ski) they were really fun to ride. the snow was grippy, so you could put them on the edges and carve sharp and narrow turns. so i flew down the slopes like on rails.
surprisingly the vibrations were not that big - not bigger than with a normal, soft powderski in the same conditions. except if you rode straight downhill the skis were a bit unstable. so you really had to put weight on the skis to control them. but with a little accommodation time this was no problem.
so in soft conditions the were more fun to ride than my first pair the swallows - mainly because of the shorter radius of the evil twins.

but now for the hard facts: on sunday i wanted to ride them in the hard and icy conditions of the late morning. and so i did. i tried to carve them like the day before...but on the hardpack there were some problems: the little bumps and hits in the slopes initiated vibrations of tip and tail. these vibrations translated back to the middlesection which lost a bit grip. so carving such skis on hardpack is not a very good idea. maybe the width of the skis also increases this effect. so somehow you should reduce the vibrations by trying something with rubber maybe or reducing the weight of tip and tail...but normal slideturns were no problem and could be done very easily because of the shorter running lenght of the skis.

so as the snow got wet again i tried to ride them switch. i never really rode switch, but within 2 runs i was able to ride down nearly the whole slope switch. and i`m not very talented in learning new things - so the rocker in the back and the short running length really help you. they create an agile ski, so it`s easy to learn to ride switch, it adds more control and you can turn quickly back to the normal position. so it adds a lot more safety. turning back is also super easy: just put the weight back so that the ski "stands" on its tailrocker and butter a 180.

and yeh...almost forgot. i somehow can predict how the ski will act in powder in the late afternoon the snow got really wet. so there were some areas with small lakes of water, maybe 4-5m long. little waterslides. i glided through even with very slow speed. and there was no need of putting some weight in the back, i could ride through if i skied on solid ground. somehow promising for powder, right?

so, all in all these skis were a hell of a lot fun to ride. super turny, versatile and rideable in all conditions. there are just some limitations in hardpack...but i think this is kind of normal for freerideskis. maybe the bad characteristics there could be reduced if you made a longer middlesection with shorter early rises.

anyway, these skis were built to see if the concept of combined rocker with camber works. so in my opinion i really took things to the limits. the width of the skis and the lengt of the rockered section are really on the upper side of the maximum that makes sense. so the middlesection is really short... and it even works with such an extreme ski!

[plywood]

here a short video of yesterday. riding in spring conditions. maybe you can see the vibrations of the skis in the last slowmotion close ups a bit...