Lots of progress

Latest progress:

Completed the top and bottom beams.
I bolted together the 2x4's and 2x6's with some fairly beefy hardware.  5.5" x 1/4" lag bolts (right-most in photo) and 4" Ledger Lock bolts (2nd from right).  For the lag bolts I drilled once with a ~1" Flat bottom forstner bit (middle) to make room for the head of the bolt, then a 1/4" bit (2nd from left) an inch in, and finally a small bit (left) in 3" or so.  For the Ledger Lock bolts I just used the forstner.  Here's my quiver of bits and bolts.

Here's one beam completed.  I used 4 lag bolts and 3 of the Ledger Locks per side per beam.  They're pretty stout to say the least.

I also added a base the the bottom beam.  It's made of a 2' 2x6 perpendicular to the beam, with 2x4" legs on either end running parallel to the beam.  It's made so that I can slip the bags over the beams without interference.  It turned out fairly stable.

I completed my cat-track.  I ripped 8" pieces of 2x4' into 1" strips with 15 degree bevel.  I got 5 strips per 2x4. The two end strips were only beveled on one side, but that's not an issue.  I flipped it over after each cut so that I could get the strips in the middle beveled on each side (like / \).  Having bevel like this allowed it to curve to the radius of the tip/tail without gaps.

I then drilled 2 holes in each strip and ran rope through them all.  The end result is a cheap (free), easy, and strong cat-track that I hope will do the job for me.  Rope isn't ideal for the task since it doesn't allow the pieces to slide around as easily as some wire might have, but it will work.

Finally I made an adjustable top mold.  I used a bunch of 2' 2x4 pieces.  The shape is quite rough.  We'll see if it's necessary to make it match closer to the bottom mold, I'm thinking it might not be necessary.  As it is it's completely flat until the tip pieces.  No adjustments were made for the camber.  We'll see how it looks when the hose comes in.

I ordered 10' of 6" discharge hose from here.  It's on it's way.  That adds $36 to my tab.  I think my shipping was free.

Budget Update

My recent purchases:

Wood glue: $7
3' 3/8" threaded rod: $4
4 3"x3/8" carriage bolts: $3
nuts and washers: $1
16 5-1/2"x1/4" lag bolts: $7
1/8" Masonite 7-12"x8': $3

Total: ~$25

Add that to the money spent on wood earlier and I'm at $92.  I'm hoping that a sheet or two of 1/8" Masonite ($3) might be able to substitute for an aluminum sheet ($40).  Still need to find some firehouse and decide on my epoxy.  I'm planning on maybe using some nice redwood I have in the garage for my core, and getting the rest of my materials from skibuilders.com

Progress

It's been a bit since I updated last.  Since then I've finished the tip pieces.  This involved cutting about 1/2" from the bottom of each,

drilling a hole through all of them to put a bolt through,

gluing them together,

 and finishing with a little belt sanding.

I have also nearly completed the bottom (camber) mold.  Unfortunately this process did not go nearly as smoothly for me as finishing the tip pieces.  I also failed to get many pictures since I was working by myself.
My first step was to drill two holes through the entire width of the mold.  I wrongly assumed that I could do that without the help of my drill press, so I did it with just a handheld power drill.  I clamped all the strips together and drilled as far as my bit would let me, then took off the first couple strips and continued the hole where I left off.  The idea seemed sound at the time, but I ended up with a hole that was not at all square.  That in itself might not have been a huge problem, but I also ended up with the pieces all mixed together, so when I went to put the bolt through the hole nothing lined up at all.
So, I had to go back and do it the right way using my drill press, which produced much better results.

With that finally finished came gluing everything together.  I used Gorilla Glue Wood Glue which, as it turns out, drys very quickly on MDF.  I realized when I was about 2/3 of the way done gluing up the camber mold that it would have been much better had I simply glued 2 or 3 strips, made sure they were aligned, clamped, and let dry for 10 minutes, repeat.  Instead I tried to glue all 10 strips in one go.  The end result isn't horrible, but it's not as nice as I might like either.  Oh well, live and learn.

Tip and Tail Pt. 2

This is shows the bottom beam, which is made out of 2 2x4s and 3 2x6s.  On top of that, is the bottom mold (which provides camber) made of MDF strips, on top of that will go the tip and tail pieces, and in the gap between tip and tail pieces will go a sheet of 1/4" MDF.

I cut out the tip and tail pieces using the jigsaw, then routed them using my Masonite template.

There are 10 pieces that make up a tip/tail mold.  8 of them sit nearly flush on top of the MDF bottom mold, and two of them are taller and sit down into the gap between the ribs of the bottom mold.

All of the pieces will be cut down in height so that they can abut flushly to a sheet of 1/4" Masonite.

Tip and Tail Pt. 1

Today I started work on the tip and tail pieces for the bottom mold.  I made a template on 1/4" Masonite (hardboard) by tracing the tip from my dad's skiboards, then freehanding with the jigsaw.  I planned to finish it using some sort of jig and the router table, but I couldn't work out the jig satisfactorily, and my freehand cut turned out surprisingly well, so I just finished a little with the belt sander and called it good.  Then traced it 16 times on my MDF.  4 of the pieces are extra tall, and it just occured to me that I actually need to cut 20 pieces.  Tomorrow I'll hopefully have time to cut them out with the jigsaw and start finishing using my template and the router table.

Bottom Mold.

My first step in making my press was to rip the MDF into 7 3" strips and 1 3.5" strip. I used a skill saw for that, and did a pretty poor job due to the way I set it up. These strips will form the bottom mold and give the ski it's camber.

The next step was to make the 3.5" strip into the template for all the other strips. To draw the curve I wanted I clamped a strip of MDF along the length of my template strip. I clamped it at 1.75" at the ends and 2.75" in the middle. Then I traced it to make the line.

I'm not sure yet if that's going to be too much or too little camber. 1" is about 25mm, which is quite a bit of camber, but my average ski will not be 8' long, so will (hopefully) have more like 20mm, and I expect the actual ski will relax some after it comes out of the press.

After tracing the line I wanted I made a rough cut using a jigsaw.

Then I mounted my beltsander on its side on a table, and used that to finish the template.

Next I traced the correct shape onto the remaining 3" strips using my template and rough cut them with a jigsaw.

Finally, I set up my router with a flush-cut bearing bit. I taped a rough cut strip to the template using double-sided fiberglass carpet tape and then used the router to bring the rough strips down to exactly the shape of the template. Taking it slow and easy was definitely the right way to go for this step.

In the end I was left with 8 identically rounded strips of 3/4" MDF.

Next step is to create the tip and tail pieces using basically the same method.

SNOW!

This morning I woke up to a beautiful sight.

Purchasing Materials

I went into this project with the knowledge that I could buy a new pair of skis for about the same amount of money I would be spending. And the skis would be of higher quality than those I could produce. However, I decided to pursue the project anyways. My estimated cost for the press was about $200 (though I fully expect I'll go over due to unexpected costs), and the estimated cost for a pair of skis was $120.

Friday I went to the local hardware stores to buy

the lumber I'd need for the project. I purchased:

4 8' 2x4 @ $2.05/ea

6 8' 2x6 @ $3.15 /ea

6sq ft 1/4" masonite (8"x6') @ $0.59 /sq ft

1 4'x8'x3/4" MDF @ $32.95 /ea

All together with taxes it set me back $67.39.

This should be all the wood I need to buy for the press.

Still to be purchased is aluminum (~$29), angle iron (~$16), fire hose (~$50), and Cordura bags (~$40).

The press begins.

My goal is to create skis. But there is more to it than that. For the price of the press and the materials I could buy a pair of skis. I think the entire process from designing the press to making it, to finally pressing a pair of skis will be more valuable than a simple pair of skis. This blog will record my progress.