70cm Skis For My 2yo Son

ByJon

My son is turning two years old soon and the snow is starting to fall here! I’m putting together a 70cm pair of skis that we can get started learning on, sliding down a hill in the backyard!

The Design & Specs

Before getting started, I laid everything out in CAD and made sure the proportions were right for a two-year-old. At 726mm overall length and a 3m sidecut radius, these are designed to be stable but easy to pivot. I used a Poplar and Maple core, one of my favorites.

Dimensions, Materials and Specifications for my toddler’s skis.

Preparing the Core and Sidewalls

The process started with machining the wood cores down to their profile. I use a variable depth groove so that I’m minimizing my use of urethane.

Profiling the Poplar and Maple wood cores on the CNC
Machining the variable-depth grooves to minimize urethane usage.
The finished core profiles ready for sidewall pouring.

Pouring Sidewalls

Pouring a white urethane sidewall and plane the cores flush:

Pouring the white urethane sidewalls.
The core after being planed flush, revealing the integrated sidewall.

Bases and Edges

Here I’ve cut the bases out, cut and bent the edges and applied superglue around the perimeter. The superglue temporarily holds the bases together but epoxy will form the final bond.

Hand-bending the steel edges to match the base.
Bases prepped and edged; held together temporarily with superglue before the final epoxy bond.

Topsheet

I used the laser to cut dinosaurs out of dyed veneers and it’s backed with a piece of quartersawn redwood veneer. I then used veneering tape to hold it all together.

Laser-cut dyed veneer dinosaurs inlaid into a quartersawn redwood backing.

Into the Press

The camber mold and workshop was a prepared. I set the mold for a slight camber to give him a little bit of extra control on the bunny slope. They spent a few hours in the press, reaching 180 degrees F to ensure a full, high-strength cure.

Dialing in the camber mold
The calm before the storm: Layup materials and equipment organized and ready.

Under Vacuum – These remain in the press for 4 hours and heat applied up to 180 degrees F.
Topsheet fresh out of the press with the flashing visible.
Bases fresh out of the press with the flashing visible.

The Final Result: Custom 70cm Toddler Skis Ready for Adventure!

After deflashing the excess composite and a few coats of KBS Diamond clearcoat, they’re ready for the snow!

What Could Have Gone Better?

  • Since the skis are short, they stayed suspended above the mold when I was starting the press process. This was stressful because usually the whole layup sinks to the bottom of the camber mold in the center, keeping the alignment registration pins engaged. Well this time, the bases and aluminum cassette sank to the bottom of the camber mold, so I had to apply lots of weight to keep the pins together while closing the cover and pulling the vacuum.
  • Had a strange issue with the vacuum breaker valve. It needs to be checked and potentially replaced.

What New Techniques Went Well?

  • Brushing a layer of epoxy ontop of the entire topsheet during layup in order to even out the finish right out of the press worked great! definitely going to do that on all future builds.

What’s Next?

  • Another build of course!
  • A Belt Tuner to flatten and finish the bases?!?!!

more to come,

Cheers!

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