First Real Custom Ski Build: 165cm Slalom Pair with Poplar/Maple Core & Carbon

Big milestone — I finally pressed my first real pair of custom skis built to actually ride on the mountain! After so many test runs dialing in the vacuum press, heat blanket, adjustable camber mold, and edge glue-up process, this pair marks the start of my production of custom skis.

This build is a 165 cm slalom ski, inspired by my trusty Fischer RC4s but with my own twist on core layup and flex. Here’s what went into them:

Base: sintered P-Tex base with half wrap steel edges.
Reinforcement: Uniaxial carbon fiber stringers laid between the edge tangs plus a full triax fiberglass layer above and below the core.
Core: Maple and poplar combo for good pop and strength.
Topsheet: Gray-dyed oak veneer under a matte clear topsheet for a clean but custom look.
Mount Pad: Extra triaxial layer in the binding zone for retention strength.

I skipped the titanol layer this round — worried it might come out way too stiff for my size and conditions. Good call: these still came out stiffer than the old Fischer RC4s but not dead stiff.

To address base warp, I glued both edges on at the same time and didnt remove the base clamps until it was time to move to the cassette:

Here’s the composites and cassette laid out ready to go! I decided to do layup on my saw horses instead of on the mold, laying up on a flat surface then moving it onto the mold was definitely easier than doing layup on top of the mold:

This is the first pair run in camber mold v2 — same adjustable camber design but cleaned up with better tip/tail blocks and painters plastic underlayment for catching drips and squeezeout.

New detail: added an oil mist eliminator from Solberg to the vacuum pump. Totally solved the oil smoke problem that set off my basement smoke alarm last time!

Moment of truth — popped them out after 4 hours:

Heat cycle: 1 hour ramp from 80°F to 180°F, hold 2 hours at 180°F, ramp down to 140°F.
Camber: Came out ~15 mm peak — a bit higher than planned, probably because the composites aren’t identical top and bottom with carbon in the mix. I’ll see how it skis.

I rough cut the shape on the bandsaw and used my belt sander and spindle sander to clean up the edges and bevel. The spindle sander’s adjustable table angle makes it pretty handy for sidewall beveling.

Here’s after the rough cut on the bandsaw:

the bases are flat and didn’t warp. core alignment was ok, the tails were off by a mm or two but not a huge deal, I poured the sidewalls a bit wider than needed in case that happened.

all in all its shaping up to be a pretty good build I think! looking forward to getting them cleaned up and bindings mounted for a day on the mountain! It’s actually snowing out as I type this!

Cleaned them up on a spindle sander! I think I’m just gonna use the spindle sander to bevel the edges too, you can adjust the surface angle from flat to like 45 degrees, its this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-Osci … /202459151

anyway, here’s some pics!

Looking forward to making the next pair and trying these out in a couple weeks! next pair is going to be a more relaxed all mountain shape with rocker camber rocker profile for my friend. Another buddy wants a snowboard too. gonna be a busy winter!