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18th October 2009, 21:10:08 : Brrrrrr !
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Wow - some real life actual snow, today just above Glarus, Switzerland. Good job we now have 8 profiled cores waiting to be laminated....
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We profiled these using the planer and crib method with a dab of hot glue to hold things in place. Worked beautifully - on one pair the cores matched to the exact gram which was really unexpected !
17th October 2009, 22:10:31 : Ski Progress
.jpg "Ski Cores - view original size")
^ Ski Cores
We are moving forward with 4 pairs of skis - now all cores are shaped and have sidewalls glued on. 2 cores are profiled and we will profile the rest of them tomorrow.
8th August 2009, 13:08:17 : Ski Progress...
^ really narrow snowboard cores...
So....we started making some skis - 4 pairs on the go right now, 2 pairs of kind of GS skis (I don`t really know the right terminology !) and 2 pairs of twintips. Cores are ash and spruce tightly laminated painstakingly by a first-time skibuilder... We have to make the cores a little wider at the tips as they came out too narrow so we`re adding extra beech laminates just at the tips - or Beech Tip Technology which we`ll obviously patent and market the hell out of ;-)
22nd March 2009, 16:03:55 : Deconstructionism : and a snoCAD-X enhancement
^ Cross section through an atomic Beta-Race 9.28 (ca 2001)
Today a friend and I cut up some old Atomic skis to take a look inside. These used to be Atomic Beta Race 9.8s from sometime around 1999-2000. They have the weird Beta construction with two ribs running down the length of the ski - turns out these ribs are filled with a tiny wood core and surrounded by foam.
^ Alignment holes applied to the DXF template
snoCAD-X has a new feature - when exporting the DXF it is now possible to select which elements of the design will be drawn in the file. Additionally you can add alignment holes - very useful for template building - makes it easier to align on cores for routing, and enables you to transfer the board axes to your materials. Another feature is a nose identifier which marks the nose - useful for nearly symmetrical templates. You could also use this hole to hang your template up in the workshop !
6th September 2008, 22:09:27 : Birth...! Oh my god, TWINS !
^ Other Dan and his new boards...
^ One of the two 152 twins...
The press proved excellent - two boards pressed in one afternoon, trimmed, ground and ready to go !
The boards were pressed at 100`C for 60 minutes at 6 bar, cooled under pressure down to about 60`C for demoulding. Heating from below only caused the camber to be a bit too high, next time I`ll put the heaters in on top too. All in all a good test of the new press design and a good result for Dan`s project work !
3rd September 2008, 20:09:21 : Two cat-tracks one press
^ Double cat-track action - the board goes between the two cat-tracks
^ Smooth curves and even heating...
So I`ve been rebuilding the press since what - January ? Stupidly I didn`t really ever get around to finishing it. Until this week - I took a week off work to finally get stuck in and get the press up to date. All being well this will mean I will get back into making more snowboards - the press was always the sticky point in my builds.
What problems was I dealing with ? - The cavity was too small, I had the tiniest space to push the laminated board into, it interfered with the cat track, which was improperly suspended and the heating shorted out and was a decidedly temporary solution.
My solution was to massively increase the cavity - it`s doubled in size using shims. Then I built an adjustable top mould to allow the firehose to conform properly to the tip curves and give me even pressure. I rebuilt the cat-track in aluminium - the existing steel solution was so heavy I couldn`t suspend it properly.
But the old steel cat-track is staying in the press - it`s going under the board, and the idea is to use it as the heating system - the heating mats go under it, and the cat track conducts the heat into the board. This means the press must be pre-heated before use but it means I have a stable even heating system which is less subject to fluctuations in temperature. The other advantage is that it allows me to use an adjustable mould with a butt-joint without transferring any unevenness to the board - the cat track soaks it up - and provides a good flat surface across the board...
^ No pressure - no problem - plenty of room to load the cassette
^ Hot and getting hotter...
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