Gluing Two Skis Together

[daveyheath]

Hey! I'm new to the site and the ski building hobby but I have some experience woodworking and working with composites and think you are all doing an awesome job. The craftsmanship is amazing.

OK... I once heard of someone making a pair of fat powder skis out of two pairs of skinnier skis. They took each pair of skis and split off one edge parallel to the centerline. Then they glued the two larger portions together to make one very fat ski. Supposedly it skiied very well on the groomers too.

Has anyone else heard of doing this? Done it themselves? How would you glue the two halves together and still have them hold up to the stresses of skiing?

Would you necessarily have to glue on a new topsheet to pass the shear or could you simply cut a slot in each side and insert a wood strip down the center? Would you have to replace all of the base material or could you simply put a patch strip down the middle?

I was thinking you could use a router and a finger joint bit to cut "fingers" in each side of the joint to increase the surface area the glue would contact. The fingers would automatically line up the two halves. The only problem I see is that the bit will eat through a portion of the topsheet at the tip and tail but it seems to me that it would still be stronger than a simple slot and strip mod. Any suggestions?

D A V E Y

[davide]

This French guy did it very easily:
http://www.pyride.com/dossiers/dossiers ... dossier=18

Now an Italian also is doing the same:
http://www.skiforum.it/skiforum/viewtop ... 11&start=0

Pictures talk for themselves, but if you need I can do a translation.

Good luck.

[daveyheath]

Thanks. Those seem kindof crude though. I can't speak, much less read, either site and was interested to find out if they held together. If someone could give me a hand on the translation I would be very grateful.

D A V E Y

[davide]

The french guy wrote that he started working on that without thinking to much, solving the problems as he found them.

He grinded away the inner edges.


To bend the wood he used hot water, then he applied pressure. It works also with cold water by the way.


Pay attention to the fact that the ski sidewall are not perpendicular to the base, so it would be better to grind or to cut the sidewall, in order to have better contact between the skis.


The italian guy is basically doing the same thing. Their skis will be 170-132-150, 190cm, 10Kg for the pairs (without bidings).

[Chris Downing]

You should try
http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=467
to see what I've been doing with old skis