Before doing anything else, I worked out what skis I like that are currently available. This way I can borrow the dimensions until I improve my own designs.
Having skid on the Line Afterbangs before I decided to use that shape.
The interesting thing about the lines is that they are laminated like a skateboard. Instead of lining up planks of wood they laminate thin veneers of maple together. This gives more pop and also forms a stronger laminate.
As much as I would love to do this, Maple veneer is very expensive so until i get the process right I think I'll avoid this type of ski.
Instead I chose to adopt a more standard building approach of vertical lamination.
Jewsons, my local timber yard are selling sawn ash, 2700mm x 100mm x 30mm for £12 a plank so I bought 2 of those and am ready to go.
A lot of my knowledge comes from http://www.skibuilders.com/ they are a great site with great step by step guides on how to do this. Although they give a very good guide, I thought I'd do a blog showing each step and covering all of the problems I run into. I'm almost certain it's not as easy as they make it look buy hey ho.
SO... How did i go about making a template?
There's a brilliant piece of software called snocad. I say brilliant... it seems very limited. You put in your desired dimensions, length, waist, tip and tail but after that it's just tweaking nodes until you're happy with the shape.
I plotted this 1:1 to get the shape of my blank as well as the profile. The profile is useful when making the pressing jig. I'll come onto this in a later post.
With this printed out it's time to get into a workshop...
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