Section8 - Going Old school

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:12 am

Why? It was a ski I saw from www.lightningboards.com that really got me interested in ski building. Still working out the process and details but I'm thinking of going old school with as little man-made materials as possible. Hope to complete this project before the season is over. The skis will have steel edges... it's a must for this area. After that, I don't know. I'll be experimenting different things.

Ideas kicking around are:
1. www.certainlywood.com has 1/16 veneer that I'm contemplating using as a base material instead of P-tex base. The process of applying edges to the veneer base will be the same. Will use standard exterior wood glue or polyu glue to attach to the wood core.
OR
2. Apply edges by routing a slot into a wood core, glue edges in the slot w/ epoxy or polyu glue. Fill the remaining gap with thin wood strip.
OR
3. May use a P-tex base/edges if the above proves not to work out. Will I need FG between the P-tex and wood core to keep the base from peeling off??? Will epoxy alone be enough?? Thoughts please.

Ski Dims: all mtn ski 174cm 120-72-104
profile dims: not sure yet..... 4-14-4?? Since they'll be no FG I'm thinking the core will need to be extra thick.

How am I going to bend it or introduce camber??? Looks like a steam box will be necessary or as Ben_Mtl has done, wet the wood and dry it in a form.

OAC · Post by **OAC** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:04 am

That will be interesting! I have no answers for you on this one.

Will you also do the "Shot glass ski"?

In Austria they have "einen Meter bier"! Same theme.

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:27 am

If the ski is a total failure, I can make a shot glass ski out of it.

lex · Post by **lex** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:03 pm

LTB a snowboard/ski company/factory out of Czech does a wood base. As you can imagine, it's for powder & doesn't hold up too well on hard snow. You could use durasurf topsheet material, it's .6mm then combine it with a veneer. There was a guy in wisconsin that made old school wood skis with edges, but think he now uses a polycarbonate base. That comes from northern michigan...same stuff at the mako snowboard

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:07 pm

First test: I had an old core from one of my very first builds that I never used. I think it's oak. The tail is 5mm thick. I put the tail of the core into the tip end of the press to see what would happen. I got the press up to 45psi. Here's the results. It cracked. No surprise really. I also noticed that at 45psi the core did not press fully into the tip mold.

A friend of mine has an old wood ski. I noticed the tip of that ski had a very thin horizontal slice in it, but was filled w/ either glue perhaps FG. Although I don't know if FG was used when this ski was made. It has no metal edges and no name on it. It's probably from the 40' or 50's. I wonder if that slice was to aid in bending the tip. I think he should mount bindings on them and give it go.

I should take some measurements of his ski for ball park dimensions.

That's it for now.

OAC · Post by **OAC** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:34 pm

If you wet the wood(tip) in warm water over night, you should have some vinegar in the water. I've heard this from a reliable source when I started the ski building era. I haven't tried it...

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:18 pm

Lex - Are you thinking of lightningboards? He uses polycarbonate and is from Ohio I believe.

OAC - I'll give that a try. I have 2 boards ready for this build. Ash with cherry sidewalls.

I'm not going to profile them just yet. Need to finalize the dimensions.

lex · Post by **lex** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:01 pm

Wow, not the sharpest marble am I? Yeah that's guy, I just spaced the link. Not sure if this guy also does classes on building wooden skis. One thing is you can go to the library...found cool articles on building wooden skis. Funny, all my research use to be thru the library, not sure if they still have them....

fa · Post by fa » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:33 am

The skis will have steel edges... it's a must for this area. After that, I don't know. I'll be experimenting different things.

i very much like that idea, interesting project!

I found (2) is the simplest to build (maybe you could even skip the wood strips, and fill the gap with some epoxy mix)
pros of (1) probably are a nicer (cosmetic) base, and the fact that you ll create a sort of a laminated structure (between base and ski) that could help forming the camber profile & provide consistency in time
about (3) i don t think you ll need glass, just find a way to ensure that the wood wont soak all resin up

some woods love steam bending, some are dogs
you d probably go for a hardwood
i ve heard ash is ok for steam -not the easiest, but it keeps the shape. quite heavy wood though.

good luck & please keep updating if you go on with it

Mongo · Post by **Mongo** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:18 am

Decent bit from Signal on making a primarily wood snowboard. It might not entirely translate to skis, but based on the couple of splitboards I have made for friends and the relevant torsional forces across that wide of a dimension involved I would say the lack of structural competence for a entirely wood set of sticks without composite is lacking for longevity especially in the longitudinal axis. Lignin in wood has a susceptible plastic deformation point, regardless of its ductile properties when exposed to the relatively small vibrational deformation forces from conventional hardpack to pow skiing.

Also, Signal has a fantastic edge bender. It is similar to the Skevik/Twizz/Three Rolls etc. style bender except with the automation built into the feed and bend radius axis. Second vid below if you haven't seen it yet. Their feed roller sublimation setup is also killer IMO.

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 11:43 am

Great videos! We have the exact same reasons for making a wood ski/board. Nice to see there's a few other nuts out there as well. AND the idea of a veneer base works, although in the end it didn't survive. Seeing that video has gotten me psyched about this build now. The core they made looked pretty thin.

(Thinking out loud...) If I have a 2-10-2 core, with a 2mm tip and add 3 1/16in veneers (1/16in base, 2mm tip, 2 - 1/16 veneer on top) that gives almost 7 mm thick tip. After laminating it will be roughly 7-15-7 in round numbers. My skis I've made so far have tip thickness of 7 - 9mm.

And if it seems too soft afterwards, I'll just add another layer of veneer.

I'm a little concern it may not glide very well, so I'll have to read up on "old school waxing" techniques.

Time to shop at www.certainlywood.com.

Richuk · Post by **Richuk** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 11:54 am

SD, how much pre-bending of the core do you intend to do? Maybe just the middle?

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:53 pm

I was going to try to get away w/o doing any pre-bending except for the base/tip.

Richuk · Post by **Richuk** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 2:40 pm

Maybe worth laminating a few veneers to see if the results add up. Just to be sure three is going to be enough to give you the stiffness you require and hold the camber.

i don t think you ll need glass, just find a way to ensure that the wood wont soak all resin up

May pass them through a desktop laminating machine, I noticed this gives a better result when printing. I'm assuming this essentially tightens the fibres and makes them a little more impervious to fluid???

skidesmond · Post by **skidesmond** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:27 pm

Richuk wrote:...
i don t think you ll need glass, just find a way to ensure that the wood wont soak all resin up
May pass them through a desktop laminating machine, I noticed this gives a better result when printing. I'm assuming this essentially tightens the fibres and makes them a little more impervious to fluid???

You mean run the veneer through a laminating machine before layup? I never heard of that. I have one.... I'll run a small sample though just to see if it will works.

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Section8 - Going Old school

Section8 - Going Old school