Summer Harvest

[Gilo]

These are my first attempts at skis and I am quite pleased with them - they all have some problems as you would expect though

http://s685.photobucket.com/user/Gilo_a ... sort=3&o=0[/img]

The middle pair ended up being pressed 3 times! 1st time they were too soft so I had to re-press with an extra carbon strip and some veneer, the tips of that veneer didn't stick properly so I cut it back to the line you can see and re-pressed with some different more flexible veneer which I have used before on some powder boards - that didn't take, so I ended up sticking on the carbon that you can see - this comes in self adhesive sheets and I needed two of those - it is chuffing expensive. I think these must be the most costly skis known to man. The second pair I built are the ones on the left - all went well except for a bit of core shift on one and then a peculiar rucking up of the extra carbon strip on the the other - you can't see it in the photo but it may be an issue when mounting the bindings.

The ski dims are 181, 140-100-121. This came as a bit of a surprise! I had intended that they be 135 at the tip and I am not quite sure how this came about but it is what I am stuck with. The core on these two is ash and poplar, ash side walls and core dims are 2-11-2. The lay up was

15.5oz biax
3.5oz UD CF (full width)
Core (11mm)
3.5oz UD CF (full width)
15.5oz biax
fabric/veneer
Topsheet (no top sheet with the veneer

This came out soft on the first ski so I added a further 50mm wide 3.5oz UD CF to the top. This gave me the required stiffness (just hand flexing) but I wonder if the asymmetric nature of the lay up will give me issues later. The tips are slightly early rise as is the tail. Camber is about 1.5cm between the two.

To be honest and I don't know if this is possible but they look like a real handful and I'm a bit scared of them. It looks like I will need a new mansuit and some bigger bollocks when it comes to testing them.

The pair on the right are for my daughter - they came together well except for the tip on one where in shaping the edges I have bent the edge out of flat and so it has ridden up a little in the press so that where the edges meet is uneven - cosmetic but irritating. Core is the same except the dims are 2-10-2, ski is 169. 130-88-119. Lay up is

15.5oz biax
3.5oz UD CF (full width)
50mm UD Cf strip full length
Core (11mm)
50mm UD CF strip full length
3.5oz UD CF (full width)
15.5oz biax
fabric
Topsheet

the ski feels really nice in the hand, light and a really nice flex so I hope it will be good.

All the skis were pressed in a vacuum with top only heat.

Have to wait until January now to test them!



Gilo

[skidesmond]

Interested in how the wood veneer ski will be with the 2 layers of CF on top. I made a pair of CF and flax skis last season. I used 9oz CF 2 in wide top and bottom 2.5-11-2.5mm core, too stiff. I'm making another pair 2-10.5-2 ash core w/ 4.4oz uni-CF and flax.