rockered skis

[mattym]

yeh sorry, ur definition of fully rockered is exactly what i was meaning. Short flat middle section and rising tips and tails, as opposed to say next years seth, where there is a little camber under foot and just a small early rise in the tips and tails. I think something inbetween would be sick.

Yeh i think the salomons are possibly a little sketch too - but i think they have the right idea - a little camber underfoot and then rockered tips and tails. I would like to see them in real life to see how the rocker compares to say a pontoon.

And yeh, pep is the man, i think everyone who skis needs to see that video just to see where skiing can be taken!! And the prophecy of rockered skis can take off

[Chicagoskier11]

so how do people plan on altering their molds to make such skis? Would you cut out the desired shape and make it feasible to bolt the chopped off part back on to allow the pos./neg camber option? Or is two molds better than one?

[plywood]

@ chicagoskier:
as my plans to build such skis grow, i also thought about how to build/change my mold.
i think the easiest and most versatile method would be, to create some kind of addition to your existing mold. like chocks,which you would fix to your mold in the tip and tail section. so you could change the lenght of the middlesection, the amount of rocker etc. very easily.

due to i`m working with relatively low pressures (about 1.5bar) i thought for myself to do this with some hard foam i also used for transformating my mold for making shorter skis. this foam normaly has a blue color and is also used for some isolation works of houses. but it`s not styrofoam, it`s a lot harder. and you can cut it with a hot wire... so it would be quite easy to cut out such chocks. or even a whole new mold made out of it.
you just have to plank the foam with 2sheets of 1mm plywood and then it`s bombproof

@mattym: you description of the seth looks promising! can you say something about the dimensions? how long is the cambered section underfoot?

[Alex]

This is a long and very interesting thread! Unfortunately i haven't had the time to fully read it yet - but hopefully i can add some usefull information:

Last year i started with a reverse sidecut:

viewtopic.php?t=177
viewtopic.php?t=219

I still think this is the best powder ski you can have but as i have to ski some regular groomers between the powder runs quite often i decided to build a compromise:

viewtopic.php?t=605

The skis are 185cm long, the shovel is 8cm high and 250mm long, the tail is about 80mm long and 15mm high, the rest of the ski flat. Dimensions (Sidecut): 120mm, 143mm, 135mm, 140mm, 125mm.

Due to the awfull season we had in Europe up to now i only skied them for one day yet. The first impression was fantastic as there is almoust no disadvantge in powder skiing to a reverse sidecut (a little bit less willing to slide) but a great improvement in Skiing on hardpack. The part (900mm in the center of the ski) with regular sidecut and 0 camber gives good edgehold and control - even permits a little carving.

Further testing is required - but it seems to be close to the ski i always wanted to have.

[mattym]

Some cool looking skis you have experimented with there alex. I bet they are sick in the deep stuff. Inverse sidecut or a fully tapered sidecut is fantastic in the pow, but I definately think the compromise ski is a much more versatile tool.

Plywood: the seth looks like it will be awesome!! I can't remember exactly, but I'll check up on this - I'm pretty sure the dimensions are approximately the same, around 98mm underfoot. I beleive there is a 15cm early rise in the tips and tails, ie. if you measure 15cm from the end of the sidewalls towards the binding, this is the rise. So effectively you end up with a tip and tail, and then were they meet the sidewall there is a following 15cm of rise. Im not 100% sure if this will change with length - I don't think the dimensions will, but not sure about the rocker. A 179 K2 ski is in actual fact about a 183-183 because of the way they measure, so i suspect the running length of the 179 will be about 145cm ish. I don't know the figure for the angle of the rocker/rise, but when u put the skis together it is no where near as obvious that there is a rocker as it is on the toons.

[mattym]

Oo sorry, that might have been a bad call on the running length there, haha, i'd say its more likely to be like 120ish i guess... Because if you take away 30cm of early rise in total for tips and tails, plus say 20-30 for the actual tip and tail. I think thats more like it

[plywood]

thanks for the informations about the seth. so i think that`s pretty much the direction in which we should go for a good ski.
also for park - i have the feeling that a fully rockered ski could be a bit too unstable/squirrelly. a center section with normal camber sure would bring some stability but still prevent some advantages of a fully rockered one.

@alex: i saw your skis and hoped that you would join the discussion. so your new ones seem to work better than the ones with inverse sidecut - nice to hear this!
what would you guess about the tail? you made a swallowtail - if you had a twintip design would the ski still work as good?
so would the long tip be enough for floating or would you need more effort to ski....or what do you think how it would handle? the question basically is: can you mount the binding further in front with a long shovel than with a normal one?

[Alex]

As i'm no park skier and my abilities to go switch are very limited i optimized the tail for regular skiing. In my opinion a swallowtail has two advantages:

- Low tail lift - sinks very good in soft snow.

- In combination with few bending up of the tail you get a long running lenght and excellent stability in the last third of fast bigturns.

In my opinion a twintip feels a little unfirm when exiting the turn.

My experince so far with the long shovels is that tipdiving is almost impossible - you can lean forward as far as you can! But i think mounting the binding to much in front will result in a high tail lift that may lead to some problems.

Your project is very challenging - i have to think a little more about it!

[plywood]

i just found something interesting:
some videos of K2 presenting their new skis. there you can see pretty good how the camber s constructed on the seth and on the hellbents. so on the seth it`s just about a few cm of early rise in the tips. but watch yourself:
http://skieur.com/index.php?action=TV&ido=11
they show the factory series ca. in minute 3:00 so you have to wait a bit.
so i definately think that the best solution lays somewhere in between the seth and the hellbents.

an other interesting ski is the one on the left in the picture below. it`s a line ski.

and in the video it also seems if they had a bit of an early rise in the tips:
http://skieur.com/index.php?action=TV&ido=22

but now for the most interesting thing:
also from line skis, the eric pollard promodel. its a nearly symmetrical twintip (well, actually i don`t have the dimensions in mind, but i think it was about 150-130-148 or so) - with early rise. so nearly symmetrical skis are rideable if you use a rocker/early rise!

[mattym]

I definately think we are on track in terms of finding the perfect compromise. I think yes, camber underfoot will help in the park to some extent, especially taking off and landing, but I think a rocker somewhere between the seth and the pontoon would be perfect. With camber under foot and only a slight rise in the tips and tails, the ski would not butter or press as well as say a hellbent, so I think it needs to have minimal camber underfoot - like 2-3mm, and then a decent rocker.

The swallow tail would be the sickest option i think for someone who doesn't want to ride switch at all. But im still not convinced that you couldnt mount the bindings closer to center. I'm going to ask pep where he has the hellbent mounted and then I'll let ya know. I think with a rockered tip and tail, the perfect spot will be a couple cms back from true/core center. I dont think there will be enough tail lift to cause any issue with tip dive. The pontoons are mounted quite far forward and I never felt this issue at all, and it may be because the shovel is so massive compared to the tail, but i still think with a hellbent or a ski like we are talking about making here it would be fine. Im hoping to get a chance to speak with our K2 rep soon to convince him to bring me in a pair of hellbents to ski on, and possibly purchase

That Line ski on the left that you are talking about is next years prophet 130. Pollard now designs 6 of lines skis - the elizabeths and sir francis bacons are also really cool designs - aiming for a snowboard feel, eliptical sidecut etc. The pollard pro model is super similar to whats being done with the seth (though the pollard will surely be super soft) and I think the fact that pollard and seth have opted for this type of ski shows that this is where its at. I can only imagine what pollard is going to be capable of now!! Hopefully people have been looking at those vids - thats where the salomon one was originally from too, because they give you a really good idea of whats being done with these kinds of designs. Wish i could understand what they were saying too!!

[plywood]

of course we`re on track to discover the perfect ride

i was playing around with the skis i made...and somehow i came to following:
a ski lenght of 177 is great. even for powder/big mountain. if they`re wide enough. stability is no problem.
and now any further: we said in earlier posts that a middlesection of 120-130 with regular camber would be great. i looked at my skis - and 120 is long! i have an effective running lenght of 148. so i came to the solution that about 1m of normal camber would be great and fairly enough.
with my mold it would result a camber of about 4mm with this lengt...seems to be perfect i think.

of course a swallowtail is the best in powder! you can`t imagine how much control and at the same time quickness in turns it adds. it`s a pleasure to ride a swallowtail! so it would also be interesting to compare my skis, which have a swallowtail, with rockered ones....

well i mounted my bindings 65mm back from the center...i think the problem is not the floatation. if the skis are wide enough the would also float if you mounted the bindings on the center or even more ahead. the problem is more that you become a long tail. and in powder you need a tail which can be slided easily and which sinks through. so if you have a longer tail you need more effort to turn.

eliptical sidecut on the line skis? what does this mean?
and yes, the pollard is super soft, i saw pictures of someone bending them - he just used his fingers to press, and they made a huge bow!

[plywood]

finally i found what we all were looking for:
the perfect powder skis http://www.duretskis.com/index.php?idarticle=192

what a joke hahahaha has anyone 2 snowboards left over?

[hafte]

HaHa those are as wide as my teleboard at the tip and tail! The teleboard has more side cut.

Those things must be a bear to handle if you get caught in the wrong conditions.

I tried some atomics a few years back almost as wide as those. It was not the day for that type of ski.


Hafte

[mattym]

I see what your saying with the tail now, so you think just 2cm back from center would solve the problem, at least to a reasonable degree? Im thinkin so...

The eliptical sidecut on some of the line skis basically involves a tight radius in the tip and tail and a medium sidecut underfoot - which enhances turning ability in softer snow and makes it easier to carve and get corked off jumps etc - basically more of a snowboard feel. I think this would make for a super fun ride, some of you may not be so keen.

Those duret skis are apparently just two of their monoskis - one for each foot!! Haha, i think it would be fun to try a ski thats like 177 underfoot!!

[plywood]

i think the key to the question about how much setback we need for the bindings are the line skis.
they are nearly symmetrical, at least the elisabeth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_nyJ4-dA9k
check out 1:45 - i guess it`s eric pollard. if you see how he rides you`ll understand why these skis are the key to everything so: does anyone know the binding position of the line skis?


EDIT:
finally i got access to a pc with the newest flashplayer, so i was able to check out the line skis.
if you look at sir francis bacon: 142-115-139 - pretty near to a symmetric ski. and now comes the most interesting part: binding setback = 25mm