Powder Skis, Take 1

Ok Update time!

I just cut out some FAT powder skis! now everything didn’t go as planned with my new sidewall router and so I will be redoing this set. I think a wider center rosewood stripe will look better anyway for the redo, since these skis are so wide..

first off – here’s how they look right now (the pair on the right) – I still need to paint and finish the topsheet –

These came in at 47.7 N/cm. The dimensions are 187 length, 2.5-11.5-2.5 core, 140-115-128 tip/waist/tail, 20 oz fiberglass top and bottom (I also included a 500 mm long 20 oz fg binding mount sheet under-boot), ash core with two 19mm wide maple stringers for binding screw retention, so I think the spreadsheet is underestimating by a decent margin.

so for the things that went right:

camber profile came out as intended – I’ve been getting good at predicting how much I need to exaggerate the camber in order to make top only heat feasible!

I was really proud of my tip wrap job – although while I was doing it I was cursing at how much of a pita it is.

and now for what went wrong

Since these skis are sort of a unique animal compared to what I’ve been making with their long early rise in the tip and tail, I whipped up a new set of tip and tail molds and slapped them on my adjustable rig. The mold has served me well, but I ran into a new issue – I think due to the sheer size of these new tip molds. I think the pressure pulling them together, since they’re so big, caused the tip blocks to bend towards each other with enough force that it actually cracked one of them! what ended up happening is when the tip mold pulled inward, it exposed the sharp corner of the aluminum cassette to the silicone sheet – causing a new tear. fortunately I was able to stick some tape on it and keep the vacuum at around -28in and finish the skis ok – but lesson learned – place some wood pieces between the tip and tail molds to avoid this potentially happening in the future:

Next – I tried to take my new sidewall routing jig for its maiden voyage on this pair – and – well – I need to add a hold-down wheel or safety mechanism to it because while for the most part it worked great, it’s prone to doing this (it happened in two spots):

with that said – where it didn’t gouge my skis – it actually went really well!

but yeah, I think I’m going to add a hold down wheel to avoid the jumping issue – since the ski only rides on like a mm of bearing. or maybe a fence, haven’t really decided yet.