This is ground cotton:

http://shop.ezentrum.de/1727539/nJIohnS ... rtid=48697

Sorry - it's in german - but maybe the picture helps.....

Very interesting construction! Two question regarding things i've been thinking of too: You are using flexibilizer in the epoxy as a replacement for damping strips. Do you use the flexibilized epoxy for the entire layup or just for the hollow glass layer? How many flexibilizer do you use? Which type...

That's rigth endre - just rubber and some plastics e.g. provide progressive characteristics. The thing i'm talking about is the way you combine different materials in the layup. Depending on the position in the laminate and the way the force is brought into the material layers take different amount ...

I'm not 100% shure about it but i think think it is possible to create a different spring characteristic (progressive/degressive) with the combination of materials with different mechanical properties. A ski might be compared to a leaf spring (single leaf). But this definetly needs further analysis ...

I think pop is the way the stiffness of a ski changes when flexed. This depends on the materials use an the way they take the load. Most Skis are a mixture of materials with different properties (Young Modulus). Carbon bands for example take load very quickly at small bending angles creating a stron...

I used a mixture of resin and cotton flakes that i spreaded carefully on the base with a squeegee. The result is an allmost flat surface above the base/edges setup. My base was perfectly flat after pressing.

Additonally you get a stronger compound edges/ski.

Without biax above the core you move the neutral grain close to the carbon layer - virtually reducing the thickness of the core. I personally would recommend to create a carbon torsion box (above and below the core) with lighter carbon (e.g. 125g/m2) to gain stiffness without weight.

Can somebody sell me a small amount of VDS rubber (just for one or two pairs of ski)? I'd like to try it but wasn't able to find such a thin rubber in germany.

Thanks!

Alex

Interesting idea davide - do use some form of attachement at the tip of the skins to prevent them from peeling off?

Black diamond has some short skins that might make a good starting point (if cut them in two pices) for your idea: http://www.bdel.com/gear/glidelite_kicker.php

I've seen in the trip reports many of you do ski touring with their homebuilds. I'd like to use some fatter skis for this purpose (my regular touring ski is sometimes just a "sinker"). The question i have is about fitting the skins - to keep them adaptable to different skis. Normally one s...

Instead of sanding (which may damage the laminate) you can use a special fabric (don't know the english word for it - a translation may be "tear off fabric"). It doesn't bond with the epoxy and can be easily removed from the cured laminate leaving a very rough surface that bonds perfectly....

@kelvin: you're so quick in trying things - amazing! So your experience is that sliding suffers from the regular sidecut in the front half? Is it still possible or does this ski behave like a regular one? @Greg: I'm curios how your tree skiing construction works! I'm thinking about more stiffness to...

If just space is the problem making you think about clamp presses and zero camber i would recommend to think about vaccum bagging. I pressed my ski in the kitchen with about 2,5m *1,5 workspace using a mold for just one ski and a vaccum bag.

@littleKam: yes that's exactly the thing! After a lot of skiing with my reverse sidecut - i came to a similar design idea. Not that radical but with a little regular sidecut in front of the binding. I'm quite optimistic that this will compensate the realy ugly behavior of a reverse sidecut on the pi...

Just got a view on the shape of this new Ski - really exiting!

It has a regular sidecut on the front half and reverse on the rear:

154-130-120

This is a thing i definately have to try!