:: View topic - Epic Planks Skis

Well, I have been a long time reader on ski builders, but an infrequent poster. Nevertheless, I have gained a wealth of knowledge from this website and appreciate everyone sharing their ski building experiences. I am not always the best about posting on forums (more of a reader), but wanted to start documenting our project: Epic Planks

In the fall of 2009, my friend Brian and I decided over beers to jump into the world of ski building. Our first useable prototypes were completed in late February 2010 just in time for a road trip that we had planned across British Columbia. Our first prototype (5 pair production run) was coined the Floater, as we designed it specifically for our cat skiing trip in British Columbia and wanted a ski that would perform well in deep snow. Our construction consisted of a poplar core, 19oz triax fiberglass, Crown UHMW sidewall and bases, and PBT topsheets. The Floater was 185cm, tip 151mm, waist 122mm, tail 140mm. Flat camber. Tip rocker 12mm tall & 51cmm long. Tail rocker 9mm tall & 40cm long.

Epic Planks Floater Topsheet by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Epic Planks Floater Bases by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Floater Prototypes by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Floater Topsheets by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Floater Bases by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Overall, we were extremely happy with how the Floater performed. This was a fun ski with a surfy feel and we got to ski it in a variety of conditions on our trip. We ended up making some tweaks in our core design and flex after the trip based on our experience and the recommendations of the cat skiing guides that demo'd the skis. Also, we learned really fast that PBT wasnt going to cut it for topsheets. While they looked great, they chipped up like crazy. A week on the skis and our topsheets were looking pretty beat.

I will post some photos from our trip below and will be back soon to share more from the last couple years.

Map of our route flew into Calgary, drove to Fernie Wilderness Adventures and spent 2 days cat skiing, then went to K3 Catski in Revelstoke and spent 3 days cat skiing, then drove to Whistler where we spent 3 days with Powder Mountain Catskiing . Then we flew out of Vancouver with TIRED LEGS.

Ski Trip Route by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Stop 1: Fernie Wilderness Adventures Cat Skiing

Wow, some first rate ski photos! You guys s/b extremely pleased.

Yeah, luckily we had our photographer friend Lisa along for the trip and she can make anybody look good while skiing

_________________
Epic Planks Handmade Skis

http://www.epicplanks.com

Our Ski Builders Journal:

http://skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3748

Ok I quit!! Taking up golf or something

Ha! Me too, best thread ever!

Are those bases sublimated or printed, or? They look amazing.

The bases are sublimated. Graphics by our friend James (who has since joined us in our ski building madness). The tree is based off of a tree he saw in Michigan and then the part near the tail looks like a water color painting when you look up close.

We have had our fair share of screw up and issues, so don't worry, I plan to share!

Wow! Great looking skis and super pics!! Impressive!

It really looks like you guys have got it going on, great looking skis.

I got to see most of your line at the MRA show at Boyne mt. I was the guy on the blue home built Vandalays.

It was good to meet you and I wish you the best of luck!

Next time you come up to Boyne let me know it would be great to ski with you and maybe have a beer at the halfway house.

Best regards, Art

Small world Art! I remember talking to you outside our tent. It was good to meet you too. We will definitely let you know when we get up there again....never can turn down a beer!

Hey Art, Brian here. I remember meeting you. Hope all is well.

(dummy post to get me up to 2 posts so I can post URLs...)

Hmm.... still no go.... follow up to Bill's post coming soon.

Hey Brian, hope to see you guys next winter. Seeing your website and pics is inspiring me to re-double my efforts!

I've been designing and building some new prototypes, can't wait for next winter!!!

Building on Bill's first post... we got back from our BC test fest in March 2010 absolutely stoked on the Floaters. The skis ripped in deep snow (absolutely, most definitely the biggest permagrin in my life, to date), and we had quite a few guys saying they would be interested in buying a pair if they were available. At that point we decided to try a run of 30 pairs of Floaters for the Fall of 2010.

So heres a quick story of our first production run, including some stumbling blocks that first year. Weve decided to give out some detailed information here, reason being is that it's hard to start building your own boards on a bigger scale and we want to encourage everyone to try, even if that means potential competition down the road from a new microbrew manufacturer like us. If you want to give it a go, more power to you. Competition in the market is a good thing.

We didnt start out with a few hundred grand in the bank to finance a factory and all of the tooling you need to do everything on your own. We started out with a modest budget, a press wed had built out in California, and some hand tools from Home Depot, packed into Bills garage in Grand Rapids. (Thankfully Bill has a very patient wife that allowed us to use the garage for pressing skis, trimming, brewing beer, etc. Vehicles can sleep outside. Thanks Kath!)

The press:

Ski Press by Epic Planks, on Flickr

We'd pretty much finalized our materials order in early spring, and were pumped to get rolling. As we were tweaking our graphics for our first real production run, we found out via the TGR boards that a custom ski manufacturer in Europe already had a shape called the Floater. That was an oh shit moment for us, because we'd already leaned hard on James (our original graphics maestro, and now business partner) for his time to finish the design, and time was tight. We finally ended up settling on a new name: Crop Duster, which has generated its fair share of laughs along with some unintended consequences Like how people feel way too comfortable ripping farts in and around our demo tent while calling out Crop Duster. Its not always the easiest name to explain either, like when Akihiko Mizutani of Japan requested that we teach him the origin of the name Crop Duster.

Cores ended up being one of the toughest things to get ahold of that first year. We knew we needed to use quality, consistent cores, but didn't have full confidence to produce the same core every time because of our limited machinery. We decided to outsource our cores to a guy we found on ski builders from the East Coast. We paid him, and he promised delivery by May. After months of excuses, we finally received our cores in September, when we had hoped to have production wrapped up. Some cores were great, some werent, but the moral of the story was that they lacked consistency. We used the ones that were useable and found an alternate source for the rest. This was one of the first lessons: it sucks to depend on others to get what you need, before you have the capability to build or do everything yourself. The core situation completely screwed up our production schedule, and with promised deliveries there were some sleepless nights.

The cores once they came in:

Poplar Core by Epic Planks, on Flickr

While we were waiting on the cores we were starting in on some of the other tasks. Our bases were cut with the run a router around a machined wood blank method, which obviously isnt optimal but it is acceptable if you pay attention and clean up rough spots. Our straight steel edges (from CDW) were bent by hand tons of fun without a quality edge bender. It took a loooong time to bend the edges for all of the skis.

Attaching edges

Attaching edges to base by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Other material sources we used that year : Fiberglass from Vectorply, sublimated nylon (again, we wanted to get away from PBT) topsheets and UMHW bases from Miller Studio in Washington, sidewall & tip/tail spacer material from Crown Plastics in Ohio, and Resin/Epoxy from QCM Industrials (now Forrest Paint).

Once we finally got the cores in, we were ready to rock and roll. Pressing went pretty well, and we finished up production just in time to unveil the Crop Duster at a Dendrite Studios/Poor Boyz double film premiere we threw in Grand Rapids.

Crop Duster, get 'em while they're hot

Just pressed by Epic Planks, on Flickr

We ended up selling all but a couple pairs of skis out of our initial run of 30 pairs (we also lost a couple of sales because of the delay in getting our cores, thanks again dude!). Those extra pairs were used for the athletes that we hooked up to sponsor and help get the word out about Epic Planks. We have worked hard to target guys that are great skiers, but more importantly, great people. This has been amazing for us for getting feedback on our designs and being able to make quick modifications to meet their needs. We have been fortunate enough to sponsor backcountry ski guides, big mountain skiers, and park rats.

In February 2011, we attended our first retailer show/demo, the MRA Test Fest at Boyne Mountain Michigan. This was our first real ski show with buyers from shops throughout the Midwest. We had a blast meeting new people and getting into some shops. There were quite a few people stoked on seeing a small Michigan based brand, while some of the sales reps for the bigger brand definitely were giving us the cold shoulder. We walked away from the show pretty pumped, with an order from Skis.com/Summit Sports and Bill & Pauls Sporthaus.

We wrapped up the 2010/2011 season with a ski trip back to British Columbia with 3 of our sponsored riders and our friends from Dendrite Studios to TLH Heliskiing in Gold Bridge, BC, which was un-freaking-believable. We and the other guys wrote up a couple articles about the trip: ESPN Freeskiing (clicky), Dendrite Studios (clicky), b4apres (clicky), and Untracked Guides (clicky). The trip was a blast, except for the blown out ACL and torn meniscus that Bill took back to Michigan as a souvenir.

Here is the edit Dendrite put together from our trip.

And a few final photos:

Crop Dusters by Epic Planks, on Flickr

This photo kinda gives you some perspective on how gigantor a place like TLH is that is a BIG heli, a Bell 212, sitting on a glacial moraine.

Heli on a moraine by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Then, looking across the glacier and where the heli is sitting in the above photo, this is one of the faces the guys shredded that day (I was sitting across the valley with Athan filming the shots, some of which come up in the video we posted above.)

One of the faces skied by Epic Planks athletes Alex Blais and Jon Whelan at TLH Heli Skiing. by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Speaks for itself

Alex Blais at TLH by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Cheers,

Brian

Nice man! We're really stoked about our new shop (pics coming of that soon) and our greatly increased ability to proto skis in a hurry. I hope yours turn out well.

Wow great story! Good luck with the business. Selling close to 30 skis your first year is pretty good.

Thanks! Yeah, we are definitely excited about everything so far. Last winter sucked of course... seems everyone was bumming about the crappy winter, and everyone had slow sales, including the big guys. We're pumped to keep moving forward though, lots of exciting stuff in the works.

Thanks for sharing the Epic Plank story. I'm pretty jealous as I've been wanting to send it myself for a few years, but here I am still working for the man. It gets harder and harder passing on a dependable pay check, ya know. I realized that even though I really love building skis, I hate selling skis. Anyway, it sounds like you guys are going to be building your own cores now, but if you aren't, be sure to check out Revolution Mfg. in Orem, UT. They are easy to work with and turn out a great product. There is a minimum order of 40, and it has to be placed by the end of May. I bought 40 last year (still have about 15) and they worked great. The price for a shaped/profiled, p-tex sidewalls attached, core was about $10 more than my raw material price. The order did take a couple of months to complete though. They had to order new belts for their profiler to handle my ash cores. Send it all!!!!

Nice, thanks for the story.

Would have liked to get out to Fernie Wilderness with you guys.

The guides there are a lot of fun.

I left my ugly reverse/reverse skis up there this year.

I know there was a guy from Sweden skied them for a week straight.

If you get the chance to get out this way again look me up.

sam

Hey Sam, yeah FWA is definitely one of our favorite places to ski. Great laid back atmosphere with fun guides and a great lodge to hang out at. We are actually going to try to visit there next year early season, so it may work out to meet up. We will keep you posted as our plans come together. How was the snow in Fernie this year?

We had some pretty epic days this year, -25c and 50-70cms make for pretty blower conditions.

Unfortunately I had to work for every storm cycle so only got leftovers.

Guess I gotta pay the bills somehow.

Ya, keep me posted, with a bit of notice I should be able to get some much needed time off.

Still have a prepaid day left at fernie wilderness.

Probably buy a couple more for next year.

Should have a couple new designs built by then.

sam

thanks for sharing Epic Planks... great story..

One last quick post to bring us up to present day, and then pretty soon were going to start posting about the move into our new manufacturing facility in Grand Rapids, which we are stoked about.

This last 11-12 season was the first year we sold our Vaporizer model, which is a true symmetrical twin, center mount, camber underfoot and rocker on the tips and tails, at 117-93-117. This was our first rockered park/all mountain ski, and was actually built with the same core profile as the Crop Dusters (economy of scale type of thing with keeping our tooling setups as similar as possible). The skis turned out well, very playful and poppy, and it was our first full year of park durability testing with a stable of riders beating on them. They were a little too stiff though because of the Crop Duster core thing, so we are going to end up shaving them down a little bit again next year. Weve also been trying to build somewhat lower tip profiles (i.e. less rounded) just to do something different, and the actual tip height is pretty close to what a regular camber ski is anyway. The low profile tips also seem to get caught up less doing stuff like mutes. The tips seem to weird some people out though, and they are a bit less optimal landing in pow, which we also tried to design for. For next year were going to round them up a bit more, but probably still not up as high as a traditional ski.

Bringing the skis from the backcountry to the park did bring to light some durability issues, which we learned from and adapted to for this summers press run. Its a lot easier to keep skis properly put together when theyre mostly seeing soft snow. Our nylon topsheets got beat up pretty quickly, so its going to be a material change again for next year to a different type of sublimated nylon we also thought screen printing UHMW topsheets, but are sticking with nylon because its denser and more elastic. We also had some issues with delamming which we found out had to do with the press not being set to just the right pressure. We had some issues with edge breaks, but as we were using top notch edges are chalking that up to more of the beating skis take in the park. Sometimes theres not a lot you can do. Overall though, were stoked about the Vaporizers and think this summers changes will do a lot for next years durability.

At the Boyne Test Fest in March we unveiled our new model line for 12/13, which is going to keep the Crop Duster and Vaporizer, get rid of the other traditional cambered skis in the line, and add a new design called the Ripper, which is turning out to be a ton of fun for big mountain. Its cambered underfoot for turns, early rise for float, tapered tip, and 139/104/130 with a 17m turn radius (185). It likes to go fast. Were keeping two versions of the Stash board, one for park and one for all/mountain, with both rocker/flat and rocker/camber setups. All in all were really pumped about our line, and hoping that next winter doesnt suck as badly as this last one did. Sales across the entire industry were way down but we still sold some pairs and are looking forward to next year. Setting up the shop over the next few weeks should be an interesting time and well make sure to post some pics.

Here's a sneak peak at our 12/13 ski lineup graphics:

2012 - 2013 Epic Planks Ski Line by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Cheers.

God I love your guy's graphics. Top notch work.

You said you chalked your delamination issues up to not quite the right pressure. I'm curious, was the problem too much, or too little pressure? (you don't need to go into numbers if you want to keep that to yourselves, I'm just curious)

Thanks! We had uneven pressure, with too much pressure at the tips/tails of the Vaporizers.

Also, we have started to try to capture more and more video of what we have been up to. Below is a link to our first season of doing webisodes (image is a link). Our series is called Germination...check it out and let us know what you think. This year, we plan to work hard on documenting and sharing our ski/snowboard building activities via video and also taking Germination to the next level.

Click to Watch Epic Planks Germination Web Series

Great videos! You guys seem to be doing everything right.

.... which squeezed out too much resin. The glass had been properly wetted but ended up too dry because of the issue. D'oh.

Thanks!

Totally respect what you guys are achieving, but was wondering why so many people were being thrown backwards upon landing? Have noticed that you tips look fairly redundant, even in the deeper stuff.

I'm left wondering whether there a fore/aft balance issue within the flex pattern of the core - too much steering being transferred to the heels IMHO.

I really think you guys are doing a great job, so I hope I'm alone in this opinion!

Hey Richuk, I'm Joe, one of the designers for Epic. Our skis aside, these are the conditions that cause a rider to end up backseat (aside from technique): generally it's a result of too much tip, either due to a ski that is too soft in the tails, bindings that are mounted too far aft on the skis, or skis that are simply too short. I'm not sure what video you may be alluding to or what skis in specific you had issues with, but if you give us specifics we could probably help you tweak the setup or we could certainly learn from the feedback.

Regarding the tips- we really like a truly functional tip. We see a bunch of kind of gimmicky tips popping up. I don't mind them if I can understand the function, but a flat tip meeting a hidden stump might mean a knee injury, whereas a properly rounded tip would deflect off the stump. We feel our gently rounded tips give a nice balance of weight, flotation, and deflection from straightline tip strikes. We'll definitely be playing around with them though.

Interesting thoughts. Flex design within a core is a enourmous field to study at times. We are realizing that if you really want to make innovatively designed skis you must have a CNC planer on site or you'll never really get the flex pattern you are looking for. As most people know on here, you could design a core for a ski with a certain thickness an infinite number of ways. It's definitely something we're going to be prototyping on an almost daily basis once we get the factory up and running in the next couple of months. It's been hard up until now, because making any modification to a core involved retooling which takes a ton of time and money. But I hear what you are saying. It's such a hard tradeoff- we've got some phenomenal athletes riding our stuff, and when you (broadly speaking) soften the tail you end up with a ski that is more forgiving, easier to play around and butter on, but perhaps less stable on big landings and at high speed. When you stiffen it up, you get the reverse effects- but our riders want a ski you can butter off a cat track lip and then straightline down some gnar on, so it's definitely on us to find that secret formula. Good news is we aren't going to be so secret and we'll definitely be pretty open sharing our experiments with everyone on the board.

Thanks, we hope we hear lots of opinions and want to hear as many as we can!

Hi Joe,

It was the view formed from watching the video listed above. The bias you guys have towards the rear of the ski is best observed when the guys surprise themselves and come to a halt - around 7 mins. Would deeper and steeper terrain show these skis off better?

Hey Richuk,

Hard to get too deep into ski design by watching a couple of turns from one vantage point on a video- especially when so many of those shots are on so many different skis. We find the best way to show the skis off and not coincidentally the best way to refine ski design is simply to ski them in every condition and get other people on our skis as often as possible. Obviously we hope to keep making awesome videos as well!

Hey guys, we are helping to support an event that the Reddy Yeti guys are throwing and wanted to share the info. It will be a great chance to support the American Ski/Snowboard building scene. Here is more info:

What is The All American Snow Show and why is it on Indiegogo?

Nice, if Stowe wasn't so freakin expensive I'd come check you out.

Good looking stuff. Hope the All American Snow Show works out, we're looking forward to it. I don't think we'll be able to bring the front porch all that way though...

Yeah, hope to see you guys there too! Definitely would be a long haul for the front porch, but I'm sure it would be a hit

Well, we have started the move to our new location. Will post a lot more once we get organized.

Getting organized by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Breaking in the new ski factory by brewing a brown ale by Epic Planks, on Flickr

Thanks for the shout out to the All American Snow Show.

Updated Event locations are Stratton and Killington VT. Stowe changed their event policies after the Indiegogo was launched.

Drew Pfundstein

Co-Founder Reddyyeti.com