@barnboy, I am in full support of a ski building summit/show off some skis and drink beer. I live in washington state however though, so traveling to the east coast is unlikely. And this is actually fit for another thread. I would vote for Crystal mountain as the location in late March or early Apri...

i know quite of few folks on the site have graduated into an actual business and i am curious about the technical business aspects: insurance, LLC, ect. I have sold exclusively to friends and friends of friends. and i have had almost every single client help with the lay-up of the skis so they had s...

Wooohoooo! that is a sick autoclave!

Alright alright alright. i have not heard about anyone venturing down into autoclave territory. but maybe i havent been looking hard enough. has anyone posted about a home brew autoclave that wouldnt cost a fortune? would it be possible to construct one using just a huge PVC pipe ( maybe 2 foot diam...

for my first coupla pairs of skis, i didnt bother with the lamination of the cores. i was interested in the entire process and anywhere i could cut corners, i was cutting. first pair takes a long time to crank out, any way you slice it. (though some areas are worth not cutting corners, like i spent ...

i have a website in progress showing off some of my ski building adventures over the years. check it out!

http://www.precisionmotions.wordpress.com

You can use clear base material and decorate underneath. I have put fabric underneath as well as had someone with more artistic talent do some sharpee tie die. The sharpee bled and produced some cool tie die. I was nervous to try other paint because I wasn't sure if some paints would have negative e...

I am curious what other folks are using for the mold release layer. And how are you aligning your bases with your cores? I use two sheets of 1/8 inch thick Vinyl - acrylic (plexiglass) to sandwich my layers. it costs about 100$ for a 4 by 8 sheet if I remember right, though it has been a while since...

yes igneous has to make multiple passes on their cores. they have capabilities of raising and lowing the planer with a lever, quickly so the cores can return to the front of the planer without leaving the rail system. i am pretty sure there are skateboard wheels incorporated one way or another. prob...

Nice work, that is sick! Igneous skis in jackson has a pretty sick setup for planning cores. their planner will move up and down as you push the cores through which are on a tray with rails, similar to the rail system that ski builders shows for using a router tray on rail. what i understand what ig...

I have thought of Doing something similar to that, but you still have to glue cores to rails. I want to get away from hot glue. I was thinking of some how being able to push the core thru at an angle like with a fence that is angled. But if I simply clamp a fence that is angled, the cores will just ...

I was wondering if anyone has thought About using a bandsaw to profile cores. I have an 18 inch bandsaw that can resaw cores beautifully, but I'm not sure how to resaw at an angle. Does anyone have a good idea how to set up a jig or fence on the bandsaw to resaw the cores at an angle? It would leave...

I am wondering what kinds of patterns and philosophies folks have on mixing wood in skis. basically where do you put the hardest wood and where to put the softer wood? I want to incorporate some lighter weight wood into my cores. My goto hardwood is hardrock maple, but an entire core can be fairly h...

i typically go from 10-12 mm in the middle to about 4-6mm on the tails and 4-6mm on the tip. the reason this works for me is that i am making rocker tip flat camber skis, a so the ski doesn't need to flex very much because it is already in the correct shape to shred the pow. at 4mm they have a lot o...

I made a pair of 155cm with 95mm underfoot, and put some dynafits on them... those were super lite! i am 5'6" so those skis were on the short side for me but were sick to tour in! and made great turns to boot. little rocker tip and i could actually ride them in all but the deepest days. at madm...