:: View topic - Europe trip (Dec/Jan)

just recently returned from Europe. my friend Greg Louie and i toured around the Alps with friends Michael and Corinne Trommsdorff. Michael's brother, Christian, guided us around the last week of our trip in Chamonix, France. Davide, sorry we couldn't meet up. maybe next time.

i brought just one pair of skis with me, the Karbs. they were new and i made them one week before leaving. the Karbs were made with the heated press. we used a new mold with significantly less camber than before, but the skis still came out with lots of camber, around 20mm. it was ridiculous. i think we should have let them cooled in the mold like Kelvin's most recent two pairs that seem to work well.

anyway, i skied the Karbs in Austria for three days in the backcountry. the snow was so, so good:

but the Karbs were NOT so good. first of all they were too stiff. i used a small piece of carbon fiber that Kelvin bought off Ebay. i should have made the cores thinner. second, the camber made the skis really difficult to maneuver. there was just too much camber and they wouldn't turn. i struggled to make the tele turn. most of the time i was doing a lot of this kind of skiing:

but overall it was a good lesson to learned, for the second time (the Kaffeines also have a lot of camber).

while in Chamonix, i rented the Ross B3s, Atomic R-9, and the Head Monsters. they were great and a lot easier to maneuver compared to the Karbs. i know what needs to be changed for the next pairs i make.

more photos from my Europe trip can be found here

http://www.leang.com/kam/mountains/Alps0506/

I tried out my new home builts this past weekend and was very pleased with the results. First some details 125-92-115 with 8mm camber, they are a 21metre radius ski. The core is 9mm thick at the center and tapers to 2mm at the tip and tail, they are fairly flexible but not dissimilar to my Dynastar Big Fats for flex. The core is poplar, sidewalls and tip fillers are UHMW, the layup is 8 biaxial+18oz triaxial then core then 18oz triaxial and then 8oz texalium which is visible through the topskin of clear p-tex.

By the way texalium is just aluminized fiberglass so that it looks like silver carbon fiber.

We had typical Eastern Blue Powder, which makes really good drinks but won't cover the steel edge on a powder ski. The amazing thing was that they carved nicely on the hardpack and never let loose on the ice. These skis were not made for these conditions so I'm really looking forward to a backcountry trip out West in 2 weeks to test them out in appropriate conditions. My daughter is at Whistler and finally got bindings for hers so she is skiing perfect conditions for them right now. She telephoned from the top of Spanky's to inform me she loved her skis. I understand she stuck Armada stickers on them so they don't look home made.

The skis were made using MAS epoxy and pressed at about 12 psi in a vacuum press. I see no indication of delamination even though I carved them hard over ice on the weekend.

Once I figure out how to upload my pictures to a website I'll post them, I'll try and get some photos out West so I can show how they really work.

I used 1.2mm clear Durasurf as the topskin and my one disappointment is that it is hard to see through to the nice fabric underneath.

Do you think it is the extra thickness that makes it so opaque? I ended up coating the durasurf with a clear coat in order to make the topskin more transparent but I'd rather have a much clearer topskin. This stuff seems strong though

Nice tonyt! Sounds like a great success. Looking forward to seeing those pictures.

Nice! I'd like to see pics too.

The p-tex top is not very clear. We are using thinner ptex for the top and it is more translucent than transparent. One thing that helps is to spray armour-all on it. It's not permanent, but looks good for a while.

-kelvin

Here are a couple of pictures,

Tony[/url]

sweet looking skis!

Too bad the texalium doesn't show through better. Still looks great though.

Is the texalium only cosmetic or does it have different physical properties? Where did you get it?

-kelvin

The Texalium is used in a lot of commercial skis because it covers up the cores and provides a nice surface, I decided to use it because the triaxial glass that I have access to is 18oz. I noticed that the +/- 45 fabrics were the same as the 23 oz cloth that you guys are using but the longitudinal fabric was 5 oz lighter. The texalium and the glass I used on the bottom were both 9-10 oz biaxial so that gave me the 5oz I wanted and also put some transverse fabric in which I think makes sense as the ski gets wider since the edge loads are getting further from the center of the ski. As far as properties go it is only fiberglass so the aluminizing of the cloth is purely cosmetic. The material comes from sollerpaddles.com. They supply some pretty interesting material and he is the best mail order place I have ever bought from. Always ships the day of the order and sends copies of reciepts,insurance and waybill by email. They sell a range of carbon and fiberglass sleeves which I notice K2 wraps the core in to make a torsion box out of the core. They also sell coloured fiberglass and carbon/kevlar fiberglass tapes in a variety of thicknesses.

I am going to try a ski without a topskin because the epoxy that I use is very clear and provides a nice surface with the tex fabric. I wonder what materials ski manufacturers are using to provide such a transparent covering.

Saturday was the great day and to say it briefly they worked fantastic!

The condition were quite variable with 10-20cm cold Powder getting more dense with the sun warming it. Handling of the skis is extremely easy. They feel much shorter than they are and turn very well. In spite of the realy soft flex they run very stable at higher speeds and remain stable when crossing grooves from other skiers. Floatation is exceptional preventing rock contact very well :-)

The biggest sensation of the reverse sidecut is the sliding making you really surf! I got pretty addicted to that...

Talking about using them on the slopes: Ok not really funny but managable. It's a bit like skiing your old "toothpicks" from 20 years ago. Don't even think of trying to carve them - the ski will turn into the wrong direction!

Fascinating how people react when they see the ski's: amazement up to somebody who wanted to buy them instantly!

nice pics!

Dude, that powder looks really nice and those mountains look huge! Not to mention that the skis look totally awesome. It's good to hear another person agreeing about reverse sidecut in the soft snow. It is a whole world of difference.

Alex: very, very nice!!! it's good to hear that you're skiing on them.

i'm going to be in Munich on Dec. 28th. heading to Cham from there with some friends....

@bigKam: great - if you like we can meat in Munich and talk a little about skibuilding while having a nice beer