I bent brakes for a pair of fatties a few years back and yes, I had one hell of a time. It's definitely all about getting a very strong clamp and a long pipe for leverage. Before I had them bent right, I lost a ski in a backcountry bowl and it shot about a half mile across the bottom and back up the...

Here are pics of our progress so far (Steve and I are working on these together)...
http://picasaweb.google.com/skiingfreak/SkiBuilding

krp8128, are you able to reuse your vacuum bag each time if you seal in the vacuum line? Or are you just making a new bag each press?

Those are great! I was able to find the page with the specs: 122-90-115 http://www.dieskischmiede.at/der%20Ski%20BD.html I see you've made many pairs of that ski with the same graphics. Did you order a sublimated graphic layer or was another method used for graphics? So many questions! I just got my...

Using more vacuums won't work. It's all about the pressure difference between the inner and outer surface of the bagging material. Once you've removed all atmosphere and there's a total vacuum, you can't reduce any further. It would be like trying to create a vacuum in space... it's already a total ...

Awesome, thanks. I can't expect to get much info when buying it... I have no idea who is selling it and why, but it looks like this will get me started!

It looks like I can get a vacuum pump new from someone locally for $75 or maybe a few bucks less. It sounds like a good deal, but I don't know anything about vac pumps so I want to make sure it will work for our needs. Here's the link and details about the equivalent or same pump elsewhere (as far a...

So are those prebent tip spacers? It doesn't look like wood core all the way to the end.

Also, after he jigsaws the pressed ski, is that basically a router mounted to a table to angle the sidewalls? It looks a lot like the concept modeled on this site.

Awesome, thanks. It may be a bit lofty for my first build, since I have no idea if I'll be able to keep my core lined up or locate the inserts in the prime spot for the bindings on my first try. I know I have a long way before the sticks will be durable, but I'd like to think that at a certain point...

I just found this site and I'm totally gung ho to build some skis. I was thinking about inserts from a quantity of bindings perspective. As my quiver grows, I'd like to have a couple quality bindings, perhaps one randonee, and be able to switch them on skis without causing damage. Will the quality i...