Getting started!

[falls]

Hi Everyone. Thought I would start a log of my progress to look back on, especially when I feel like I'm not getting very far! Like most journals I firstly want to say thanks to everyone for their input and answers to often pretty elementary questions. The "I wouldn't be where I am without this site and forum" catchphrase is well worn but very true. So thanks.
I started about a month ago, start of Nov 2009 in Wangaratta, Australia. My ski materials from this site arrived on a day where it was 42 degrees celsius (108F) here - hardly the weather to inspire skiing!
I am planning to build a steel press along the design lines of mongo/ben mtl that is welded, but in a few pieces so "transportable". MDF molds that I am getting CNC cut. I have found a CNC place in town that is bored with cutting kitchen cupboards and happy for a change. They charge 100 bucks an hour and think I can get some rocker tips, standard tips and ski templates done in 1 hour. Aluminium cat track. PVC layflat hose.
I have got some ideas for vacuum hold down templates for base material that I will post when I get them cut (a mate went to the Kingswood factory recently and has given me a few ideas!).
Planning on using bamboo floorboards for cores by thicknesser method with full length crib. Poplar and other classic ski woods are scarce in Asutralia as far as I have looked. Have got the boards. Unfortunately they are varnished which is a real pain and something that has been recommended against, which I knew but couldn't find raw boards. I would definitely recommend avoiding varnished boards!! I want to look into some native australian timber in the future and see if there is something we have that is ideal. Bought a 13 inch thicknesser that I am having trouble with from the start (parts were missing when I unpacked it and other parts were loose in the box), but will take it back and see if they can fix it on warranty. One of my friends told me the other day though his grandpa has a professional type thicknesser in his shed so I think that will be the go!
If you're still reading by now, well done! Some pictures of my planing crib



2m long 25mm thick MDF base with 19 plots for adjusting heights and shape of core contour. 1/4 inch drill holes. Base surface has had spade bit used to recess a hole for t nuts that will hold height adjusters on.



t nut mounted in place


19mm thick by 42mm pine rectangular pieces (19) in all
Router used to recess spaces for bolt heads. 1/4 inch bolts with washers.


spacers made of aluminium sheet in 1mm, 1.5mm, 2mm, 2.5mm thicknesses. to adjust height of pine blocks and form the shape of the crib.


crib with all blocks in place with Al spacers to form inverse shape of desired core shape.


crib covered by flexible 9mm MDF board. Will cover with skateboard grip tape (not attahced yet). The CNC guy just ripped one of my CAD ski templates to show me what could be done. I think he had the offset wrong because the template has a 153mm tip!


blocks with aluminium shims underneath. 9mm board on top of shims. Bamboo floorboard on top (ski template out of kitchen cupboard veneered chipboard on very top).


bridget with her ski cores!

I haven't had a chance to try it out properly yet, but pretty happy how it has turned out.

Had an aborted attempt at sealing some firehose I bought last weekend. Wall thickness was 5mm and very rigid (it was for travelling irrigator). Just wouldn't clamp airtight. Using the 1inx1in angle iron technique from head monkey. I used nylock nuts too and I think some of the hose from drilling through got in the thread so the nuts jambed on and we had to angle grind them off to salvage the steel angle pieces.
Just ordered some PVC layflat hose similar to the stuff on the ski builders store so hopefully that goes better!

Heat blanket just about on order from Hi Heat industries. Just waiting on their PID quote which he thinks is about $100 (if that is for the whole thing wired I think its a steal, but if its just the PID its a ripoff compared to ebay).

My girlfriend works at an aviation business that restores WWII fighter planes so aluminium for cassettes and heaps of MDF is pretty readily available. Aircraft grade Al cassettes! You could put that on ypur website if you were selling these skis!

That's it for now. Will post a bit more when I achieve more.

A few Aussie ski pics too....



Mid october (very late in australia) touring out across the snowy river.



Not a bad snowpack for mid spring downunder!

[KevyWevy]

fantastic start! i love the different aluminum thicknesses for your planer crib. great idea, especially if you got the aluminum free! You're build quality looks superb. whats wrong with 153mm at the tip? powder ski!

keep us posted and keep up the great work!

[falls]

Yeah 153 is good. I don't have any sidewall plastic trying to keep it simple. The floorboards are 160mm wide but the Tongue and groove rob 5ml on either side so I don't have the width to make that ski!
Free aluminium! I spent a day searching for scraps and cutting on the guillotine and drilling.

[twizzstyle]

Forget the skis, I see lots of airplane parts! Where do you work??

(<--- airplane nut)

[Dr. Delam]

Everything is looking sweet. I am envious of your workspace and access to materials.

Yes, prefinished bamboo will take a toll on planer(thicknesser) blades. I haven't been able to find any unfinished either. Have you tried Kingswood to see if they could help out?

Also, you can always attach wood sidewalls if your raw core width is too narrow. I like shaping the core and attaching wood sidewalls.

Looks like you are headed for success. Have fun.

[falls]

Wood sidewalls on the bamboo core would definitely work. Good idea, thanks. Kingswood are across the ditch in new Zealand. He sources bamboo direct from china as he had early troubles with it being too dry or too wet. Now it's custom done for him. I've talked to a few wholesalers here who can get me vertical lam bamboo without any finish in a specified thickness and dimensions. One said with a lead time of about 2 months I could get small amounts. Another is getting back to me about a quantity of order I'd need to make. I feel a bit silly because I think they think I'm in real business when I'm pretty green at this building thing. It would be good to get some experience and make a small business that was a niche in Australia but that would be a long way off. As far as I know obsidian is the only ski maker here in Australia currently. I got the floor boards (29) for 12 dollars each as they were surplus. Pretty cheap I think. Not sure about prices for raw ply yet.

@twizz
I do some ski building jobs at my girlfriend's work. It's called precision aerospace productions in wangaratta Australia. Good names over here! She works reconstructing wrecks of world war 2 fighter planes. Mostly she is building the wings for kitty hawk planes for private collectors. Pretty cool place hangar about 2 football fields in size. Some sea furies, kitty hawks, aero cobras and a grumman goose sea plane being worked on. I think some Japanese zeros too. Also a humble 1968 cessna 182 we are working on for ourselves. Ski building is the distraction from the real weekend jobs! There is an airport about 10 minutes drive from Mt hotham here where we ski a bit. We're always wondering if you can mount ski racks to a cessna roof!

[KevyWevy]

i've been able to source untreated bamboo flooring here in the states (near Seattle, WA) for $4 U.S. a board (surplus). they're 182cm long and once the tongue and groove are sawed off they're 85mm wide by 15mm thick

i've checked on plywood prices, and they're insanely expensive... at least here. also, pretty much all the bamboo plywood i've see are cross laminated. so one layer at 0* and the next layer at 90* there are usually 3-4 layers depending on how thick you're looking to get.

you've peaked twizz's interest, he works at Boeing

[twizzstyle]

@twizz
I do some ski building jobs at my girlfriend's work. It's called precision aerospace productions in wangaratta Australia. Good names over here! She works reconstructing wrecks of world war 2 fighter planes. Mostly she is building the wings for kitty hawk planes for private collectors. Pretty cool place hangar about 2 football fields in size. Some sea furies, kitty hawks, aero cobras and a grumman goose sea plane being worked on. I think some Japanese zeros too. Also a humble 1968 cessna 182 we are working on for ourselves. Ski building is the distraction from the real weekend jobs! There is an airport about 10 minutes drive from Mt hotham here where we ski a bit. We're always wondering if you can mount ski racks to a cessna roof!

Holy crap that is so cool!!! Sounds like an awesome place to work (I'm a flight test engineer at boeing)

[falls]

that sounds pretty cool too!
I'm a vet and part time cessna rebuilder who does what he's told by the boss who knows much more than me about rivets, aluminium and air tools!

The bamboo boards I have are 150mm wide when the tongue and groove are gone. At 90mm wide you'd have to glue two together for a ski wouldn't you?
I've seen the plywood with a horiz lam on top and bottom and a vertical lam in between. It seems the standard for benches, doors, furniture etc. But they assure me if I order I can have the plywood just vertical and in a custom size. Big things will be the minimum order and price per board. I'm already in pretty deep with materials for 11 pairs. If I'm getting more I think I'd have to be finding other testers/users and probably getting some donations towards materials from them. But I guess if they'll let me order a small number of sheets at a good price I suppose it will just stack against a wall for the future. The same supplier gets bamboo in for a skate deck maker. I'd like to try making some longboards too when I get a bit more experience. The guy at kingswood has some skateboards and a fair space of smooth concrete floor to cruise around on. Sounds pretty cool. My friend's new wife bought him a pair of kingswoods along with a factory tour on their honeymoon because she thought that enough of the wedding was about her and that he needed a present too! She's now talking about her husband's bromance with kingswood and it threat to bring down their marriage!

[falls]

finished up the planing crib and gave it a test run today.

trimmed up deck of crib and applied grip tape over a 180cm long area

I screwed it down with countersunk screws - 2 on the middle piece and 1 countersunk screw on the tip end to keep the deck down as it goes into the thicknesser. Left the tail end free.

Gave it a trial run with some crappy pine backing board.
It worked pretty well. Definitely need to create some correct height supports for infeed and outfeed to stop the crib pivoting and flexing, but for a trial run I was pretty happy. Planed down to 11mm in the centre and 3.5mm at the ends before the pine board started splitting because of the groove routed down its centre.
The pine was a bit bowed to start with and ended up with a pretty rockered tip and tail after planing. Pre-bent cores!!!







Unfortunately the thicknesser didn't get on well with the bamboo again today. A lot of screws and bolts rattled loose when trying to plane and fell out on the floor. Nothing structural as yet, but hardly inspring. It seems to go OK when taking off very very small amounts like .2mm which means the core shaping could take a very long time!! [/img]

[falls]

Finished up the fire hoses for the press today.
Had to get new hoses after the original ones were too thick and not very flexible and I couldn't get them to seal. Ended up with PVC layflat hose. Using 2 x 4" diameter hoses that layflat about 6.5 inches wide each. Wall thickness is 2mm. They are the red type, similar to the hose for sale on the ski builders store. It is rated to max working pressure of 130psi. The stuffups by suppliers continue and despite ordering and being charged for 6m of hose only 5m arrived. I am going to make do with 2 x 2.5m hoses and hopefully it will be OK.

I have sealed them using happy monkey technique with a few modifications. McMaster Carr don't ship to Australia. I got some panel mount couplings and threaded hose tails locally. We made some rubber washers using hole saws and haven't used the aramid/buna N washers (rubber washers seemed very hard to find!).

sealed hose end. 1x1" angle steel. one bolt in middle of hoses. 2 through each hose and 1 outboard of each hose. I got the idea from ben_mtl's photos of the extra piece of hose doubled over in the outboard bolts. When you tighten these without the hose it tends to bow the angle iron and affect the seal. With the hose in place the spacer between the angle iron pieces remains constant and you can tighten all the bolts/nuts to apply even pressure. thanks ben_mtl


ghetto rubber washers 3mm thick. made using 1.5 in hole saw for outer diam and one size smaller than 3/4" for inner diameter (panel mount couplers had outer thread diam of about 3/4"


bolts, washers and nuts for sealing hose ends.
3/8" bolts of hardened steel grade 12.7 (fastener store had no grade 8 bolts in 3/8 so they recommended these ones with allen key heads)


finished product. Seem to do the job


placed wood block inside hose end to stop accidentally drilling into the other side! Used the same hole saw just smaller than 3/4" for the panel mount coupler's hole


order of washers for couplers. brass base of coupler followed by metal washer 1.5", then rubber washer (then hose) then rubber washer, then metal washer and finally nut for panel mount coupler.


panel mount coupler in place


hose tails in place. plumbers tape on thread. also some tape on outer thread of panel mount coupler for nut to tighten on


first inflation!


have to work on a better system for holding the air in!!


All in all pretty happy with first test. Not sure what psi it was as haven't set up regulator and gauges yet, but hoses were pretty hard and difficult to dent. Could not hear any air leaking. Need to rig the proper system with regulator followed by in line tap and gauge. then do proper inflation and check with soapy water.

link to video of first inflation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12819412@N ... hotostream

tomorrow some work on the other project!
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[carnold]

Hi. Where did you get the hose from?
Chris

[falls]

Http://www.hoseonline.com.au
It is 4 inch diam when inflated. $14 per metre.
http://www.hoseonline.com.au/product_in ... cts_id=606[/url]

[twizzstyle]

Once again I am more interested in the airplane parts than the ski stuff in your photos

What a seriously cool place to work in, I love the painted wall!

[falls]

I love the painted wall!

The hangar was built as an aircraft museum, which has since closed.
There are still exhibits hanging from the roof and here and there amongst the planes being worked on. It is a good workspace just very hot at the moment 43 degrees C inside most days!