Ski Builders Forum

pretty cool way to make cores, with no additives.
Nidecker is supposedly using this technic on some of their cores.

looks like is take a pretty expesive and large machine to actually weld the wood, but the idea of a bond formed with only the wood and the chemicals released/created by rubbing wood together for a minute or 2 is pretty cool!

maybe one day it will become easier to do on a smaller scale..

http://ibois.epfl.ch/page12311.html

yeh, nidecker is using it on one of their high-performance freeride models. if i remember correctly it was 2 years ago when they first used it. tried to get hands on some woodwelded core but neither nidecker nor the guys from the university where they invented it could/wanted to help me.

that sucks, maybe now 2 years later they might be more open to sharing with the rest of the world...

wow. any more details and application in other industries. wow.

MontuckyMadman wrote:wow. any more details and application in other industries. wow.

I know, huh? I googled it for a while.

Currently Nidecker is the only company using welded wood in an industrial application.

In case you don't know Henry Nidecker is one of the coolest people in snow sports.

word, lets make it a nidecker thread. What has he got to say?

Welding wood could change allot of things not just in snow sliding.

apperently they discovered it by accident
they were using strips of some sort of rubber as an adhesive to be melted by rubbing the wood together at the university, and someone forgot to put the rubber in.

The process described sounds a lot like Friction Stir Welding. Try googling that and you'll find huge widespread applications. FSW is a newer technology that allows for pretty incredible bond strength. They've definitely made some changes to the process but some one ambitious could probably create a FSW or similar set up for wood.