Ski Builders Forum

find out how Dave Lee did his vac mold for his ETT episodes.

It LOOKS like they pressed one in a press with board materials.

IMO it looks almost like he's using a larger, wider board with the proper bend, to envelope-bag boards on the fly as a portable setup.

Knights is right, Dave Lee sometimes uses an existing board as a mold for vacuum pressing. He just puts the layup on top of the existing board and shoves both into a vacuum bag.

After quite some time I have an update on my first skis:

1. I improved my mold. The upper part is now made of "Siebdruckplatte", a coated plywood with two andvantages: Its is airproof and it is easy to peal of the vacuumtape.
2. The next ski came out pretty good except for a slightly shifted topsheet. The problem was that the ski has inserts and those were marked on the topsheet. But since i could slightly feel one insert, it was easy to figure out were the others are.
3. Then my two prepared cores were used and I had to make a new one.
4. Yesterday was the time for the next layup. I wanted to fix the topsheet with little wirenails to "wings" I previously attached to the core to prevent it from shifting. Worked great during testlayup. Did not work at all with all the resin around. I simply couldn´t find the whole where the wirnails were to fit in. Why? The "wings" were made from small pieces of black plastik and the resin had a blue pigments. The resin filled the whole and I gave up searching because time was running.
So this morning unwrapped the ski and there were three ugly bumps under the topsheet, about 1cm wide, 5 cm long and 2mm high. Looks as if there was to much resin on the upper glasfiber. Besides that the topsheet bends upwards at the sides of the ski. During breakfast I decided not to be frustrated since the base looked ok. So I cut it out to try it.
Next thing I saw was that both skis were not exactly the same. I measured the template quite a few times...

So the next pair will have better templates.
And what I am thinking all the time (since I had twice problems with the topsheet while building three skis): What happens if I leave the topsheet away? In summer I made a longboard and I really like the look of the fiberglass. Has anyone tried this? I think the glasfiber is less durable then a topsheet but there are quite a few people around who use veneer on top. I see the mainproblem with ultraviolett radiation damaging the resin. Maybe there are coatings available that work like sunscreen?[/img]

No Topsheet is no problem. A lot of builders coat their skis with several layers of clear coat instead of using a topsheet. would advice you to build without topsheet first, and when you figured all the other little problems you can try a topsheet again.

I think it's tme for an update.
My first ski performer better than I thought even though it was a bit soft in groomers.
The next pair had a few updates.
1. better template
2. core made from ash instead of birch
3. a few strips oft carbon
4. Instead of topsheet I used peelply and coated the ski with resin afterwards.
5. a bit more camber. In Kombination with Super SAP CLR and a curingtemperature oft 35 degree Celsius the camber came out about half of the camber the mold.

Up to now I skied it three days. Performance is about as I wanted it to be.
Right now I am in Chamonix waiting for better conditions.

You had a good dump in Cham, no? What better conditions? Too much wind i guess, same as here little bit more south

It is too much wind and in the upper parts too clouds. The loser parts are too wer, there are many avalanches just down too the ground.

Just move a little bit south. Blue sky and good conditions above 2000m since tuesday!