At some point during the production cycle of my article in Skiing magazine about building my own skis, there was a temporary headline slapped on the layout: “DIY Skis? Try WTF Skis?” Though the headline didn’t stick, it sums up the insanity of trying to build skis from scratch in my garage. But having done so, I have to admit that my home-built boards were close, very close to being a rideable pair. It turned out that I had made the wood cores too thick, and this left me with skis that were a bit herky-jerky on the hill. If I had to do it over, I’d go much thinner, less fiberglass, less wood, less epoxy … less of everything. Continue reading
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Skiing | February 2013
The Skis That Mike Built Download PDF
What could be more satisfying to a lifelong skier than handcrafting his own boards? A couple of flesh wounds, a few noxious fumes, and some serious marital strife later, you start to get an answer.
Not long after moving to Colorado, I purchased a pair of all-mountain skis from a local shop. Initially naïve to the meteorological quirks of the region, I soon discovered that it’s no place for a one-ski-quiver. The wild temperature swings and big dumps that bookend long droughts demanded a more versatile portfolio. I’m a firm believer in trying before buying. Doing so with skis, however, only propelled me into a black hole of demo indecision.
Titanium sandwiches, pulse pads, multidirectional composites, sintered bases, triaxial braiding, double monocoques—ski peddlers love to spew technobabble. To grasp how design variables affect a ski’s performance, I needed a hands-on education. As a kid, whenever I got a new toy, I’d have it disassembled into its component parts within an hour. (I wasn’t nearly as deft at reassembling.) It’s impractical to reverse engineer skis like childhood toys, so I decided to take the opposite tack: I was going to build my own boards—from scratch. Continue reading