Wood Core Designs

     New this season is a wood core design I'm working on that takes advantage of an extremely hard and dense wood called Ipe. Ipe is known by many other names such as Ipe Brazil, Amapa, Cortex, Guayacan, Flor Amrillo, Greenheart, Madera negra, Tahuari, Lapacho negro.

     Sticking with the concept of avoiding as much plastic as possible, I'll be using Ipe for the sidewall. It's 2.5 - 3 times harder than ash and maple. The wood core will consist of 5 stringers of your choice of wood depending on the firmness and flex you desire. Current wood offerings are poplar, douglas fir, maple and ash. You can also mix the stringers. However the Ipe should provide quite a bit of rigidity to the ski.
    
     So, I have 3 basic wood core designs. First is my tried and true blend of ash, maple and douglas fir. Second is an all wood core consisting of vertical and horizontal lamentations and now a new stringer design with Ipe sidewalls.


     I have a ski I'm building now with a 5 stringers of poplar for lightness and Ipe sidewall for durabilty. The ski will be an all mountain 178cm, ski dimensions are 125-82-108, wood core is 3-11-3. The ski should be a bit on the firm side. I'll be using 20 oz triaxial FG.

     I'll provide a full report on how it handles.

Theme for the season!

     Hate to say it but I haven't been in the ski building mode in the last 2-3 months. I've been busy winding down some other small projects. But now with the colder weather approaching I got some new ideas for topsheets.
   
     I received a lot of compliments on the "Day of the Dead" skis. So I'm adding 2 more topsheets to that theme.  Along with the 2 new designs I'm going to experiment by adding Swarovski  crystals to the eyes of the skulls in the tip and tail area. They should really add to the overall look of the ski. I'll do some testing over the next week to make sure they stay attached and to see how the epoxy coating effects the overall look.

Stay tuned!

 
BTW - Don't think this means I'm not offering wood veneer top sheets. I absolutely am!


I added some bling to my Dia De Los Muertos skis. I epoxied on some clear and red crystals to the eye sockets of the skulls. Also added some glitter to the top sheet for added effect on sunny days. Check it out: