KAJE Snowboards -- Just getting started

[boardergirl]

Dear Skibuilders.com,
Let me just start off by saying… YOU SUCK. WE HATE YOU…(sort of). This is our first post to the forum, even though we’ve been lurking for about 5 years now. And for the past 5 years we’ve been trying to convince ourselves that building snowboards and skis is a really bad idea. So here we are, 5 years later and thousands of dollars poorer, many nights sleep lost, and countless hours gone never to return.
We finally caved in and started building a press about a year ago (only because we got next-to- free I-beams). And then the addiction got worse and worse. Now my husband and I are both walking around with bloodshot eyes and feeling like we’ve been in a train wreck. (We can only work on building after the kiddos go to bed and into the wee hours.)
So, Skibuilders, you’ve officially made us poor, child-neglecting, mdf dust sniffing, fiberglass itching zombies. BUT, we just pressed our first real board last night (about 1 a.m.). Pulled it out of the press a few minutes ago and we’re officially stoked that we’re doing this! THANKS A LOT!
We just thought we’d throw a few (ok, a lot of) photos in of our experience so far for you all to check out. We're welcome any advice! (Especially with the whole core profiling pain in the butt). Man, if we had any idea in the beginning how much work this would be, there’s no way we would have done it. But now that we’re pressing, it’s pretty freakin’ cool again. Thanks for all the great advice and help. This site really is awesome!

Cheap I-beams... and so it begins.




Cost me a 20 bucks and a 12 pack of Mountain Dew!


Gotta make 'em look pretty!



I cut my metal at night just cause it looks cooler.


I never knew rolling wheels could be so exciting.


Taking shape.


Looking more like a press all the time.


Putting the bladder together.


Cutting and cleaning up the cattrack pieces.


Ahhhh the feel of MDF dust in my lungs. Nothin' quite like it.




Bottom spacer


The first time bringing her up to pressure. Pretty freakin' scary. I was hiding behind the tool box taking pictures while Eric did the dangerous warp check. She worked like a charm.


More to come later...

[COsurfer]

Wow! Excellent work. With that set up you guys should get some great boards/skis. A little advice, it only gets more addicting the further you dive in!

[twizzstyle]

BEAUTIFUL press, beautiful mold, glad to hear you guys are getting stoked! It is SO WORTH THE EFFORT AND PAIN! You're doing it right the first time, which will pay off later, so nice work! Always awesome to see new people diving in and enjoying it.

(my only advice is you might want to make your top mold a little longer, but I know that photo was only a test inflation)

[MontuckyMadman]

looks like you guys did your homework, mostly.
Where are you located? Some of those shots look familiar.
Good work. keep it up.
and yeah longer topmoldf and I would put the spacers on top not the bottom. See how the badder is squished against the top of the press creating a span in the tip and tail?
Just my .02 cents.

[chrismp]

nice work!
about the sidewalls and planing...seems the best tip is to glue a thin strip of wood with maybe some vds in between to the sidewall with epoxy or polyurethane based glue. then attach the sidewall/wood strip to the core and plane to thickness.
it also helps a lot to set up the feed tables properly and use some waste wood strips placed at the sides of the core at the tip and tail sections to give the feed rollers of the planer something to sit on.

here's a pic to show what i mean (c) by SHIF:

[artski]

Welcome to the insanity!
oh and the sleep thing, yeah... you wont be getting much of that.

[skidesmond]

You did your homework! It's addicting as you now know. But you know, I've never heard of anyone joining Skibuilders Anonymous. Once your in, there's no way out

Would like to see pics of the board.

[bigKam]

Awesome work!!! I'm glad you guys are finally getting started....it's all downhill from here

[Brazen]

You guys have just done an awesome job so far!!! Congratulations on your first board!

[Richuk]

Quality - the reaction you get when you ride your first board will make it all worth while!!!

[boardergirl]

Holy crap! Thanks for all the compliments! We've pretty much used every single one of your journals/posts as a guide through this whole process. So, thank you all!
We just finished up our second board last night and I'm soooooo stoked about it. It turned out way better than I ever thought it would. I still can't wipe the grin off my face. Now it just needs to dump so I can go try her out! I'll try to get some pics posted today.
@chrismp-- thanks for the help. We were thinking about adding some extra wood next go round. We also cut out the shape before profiling last time and I think that was not good. We'll probably just leave it square and try it. Really? VDS? Hey, we're willing to try anything!
@Montucky-- We're located in Northern Utah... Near the Utah/Idaho boarder... But my shop is located in my basement. It also shares space with various lawnmowers/kid toys. Now there all nicely coated in MDF dust!
@bigKam-- thanks again for the help/advice. We actually did press our first board a couple of weeks ago, so we really did need those edges! Board #3 was just started last night! Maybe if we crank we'll press again this weekend!

[boardergirl]

Building the crib. Hope this sucka works!



Eric LOVES Excel! Crib calculations...



Some supplies showed up today. Wahoo!




First attempt at a board we decided to go easy. Instead of destroying a real core, we thought we'd just laminate some super thin plywood together and do a practice run. This is actually a PowderSurf... super short and fat board that will have no bindings. Just surf the wave baby!


First edge bending attempt. Eric has mad skills. It went pretty freakin' smooth!


Base cut and attaching edges.


It's about to get serious. Even though it was just a practice board, we were both pretty nervous at this point.


Single lay-up photo. We were a little busy as I'm sure you all know.


She's in the press and now we're crossing our fingers. I know, I know... the outfit is HOT!


It came out pretty good. Everything stayed where it was supposed to and it laminated really well. Nice.



Our little dump sharing the love!




No topsheet on this one. Just did a poly finish.


Pretty stoked!

[skidesmond]

Big grins all around! Wait till you ride your first board. It brings a whole new level of excitement and fun to the sport!

[OAC]

I'm with SD, and it will fun to read the next chapters in your journal!...

[boardergirl]

So, we moved on to board #2. Decided that we needed to do a real core this time. Holy crap. This added a whole new element. A painful element, I might add. Building cores is not easy. Actually, profiling cores is not easy. So, here we go.

Doesn't look much like a snowboard to me. Uhhhh, we got a long way to go.




Glued up a nice stack of poplar for this go round.


Sliced and glued.


We cut it to shape before we profiled. Not sure this was the best option. I think next time we'll probably leave it nice and square for the profiling. Our planer is a beast!


Epoxied on the sidewalls after cleaning with moist towel and an air hose. Also did a litttle flame treating. We were in high hopes at this point, but since so many others have had problems with planers ripping off sidewalls, we didn't expect much.


Drilling out insert pattern after a frustrating core profiling session. As you can see there's a nice chunk o' core missing in the tail section. We were about 2 passes from being done with a successful profile and the crap hit the fan. Ripped off one sidewall pretty clean and took that nice shark bite out of the tail. We were pretty bummed, but just decided to go with it anyway. Superglued the sidewall back on and figured that the epoxy would fill the gaping hole.


Had to take a break in the middle and do a little of this! 14" of fresh pow in the local mountains... We've gotta teach our kids about the importance of freshies!

Mini-shred!


Edges glues, tip and tail spacers attached.


Ready for layup. Sorry about crappy cell phone pics, but you know how it is.


Midnight and she's in the press. Now there's nothin to do but wait. Right now we're cold pressing, but we had the heater in our shop cranked up to 80 degrees. Not much fun for working.


Next day we pulled it out of the press and this is what we found. Not bad!


Oh yeah!


Cleaning up the edges and sidewalls. Have I mentiones that I have no idea what I'm doing. At this point I'm freaking out that I'm gonna screw something up and we're almost done. Good thing I have a rockstar for a husband! He's got alot of faith!


Drilling out the inserts. Hmmmm, that was easier than I thought it would be.


The reveal: Can you see the surprise/stoke!


OK. Full on stoke! This board turned out so much better than we expected. Now, hopefully she'll ride like a champ!


Eric with the PowStick 156.


Did I mention, we're stoked? We actually started on board #3 before this one even got finished last night. Did someone say something about addiction?