Bluehouse (not just another) Ski Design Contest

[Altaholic]

Awesome!

Except you added 10mm to the tail width.

I'm surprised there aren't way more submissions. Maybe this is the busy season for dentists.

I like it, I just want it in a low to mid 190cm length.

[fat yeti]

Bump for a cool contest

[Bluehouse]

Bump......

[jono]

I'm coming out of long-time lurk mode lately, and I had to offer up the ski I've been wanting for a while. It's an all-mountain touring powder ski. I think it's perfect for this kind of contest--a real ski, not an anatomical stand-in. Real skiers want our length, width and stiffness to make impressions in the deep, not the lift line. A real ski has to float, carve, and dice through trees, gapers and occasional bumps, and climb, too. Skiing switch and breach must be possible, not compulsory. It has to be agile and fast and let us hold the same balanced position from hard pack to blower. I think we can have it all in one ski. I call it the Reality Tour. To get there I've been looking at all the other skis I've been on, love em or hate em, followed by a couple of weeks of nightly staring, drooling, eye-rubbing and clicking in front of my CAD station, so I'll apologize in advance coz the following gets entirely too dry and technical, but you didn't ask for a spiffy top sheet design here, did ya? I'm hoping fellow mags can get past the wonky details and appreciate the design and send this ski on a Reality Tour of its own, but here's the details.

For basics: the Reality Tour starts with widths of 142-109-130.5 mm. Plenty of surface area to float well without giving up all the face shots or lugging too much up the skin track. Its 20 m radius at 186 cm length gives great agility without giving up too much stability for charging in 3D. The Reality Tour will reward expert skiers for staying on both skis in a turn, and cut hard when asked.

The Reality Tour has a longish, low rise tip and tail with camber in the middle. 4 mm of camber, 75 mm rise at the tip and a 28 mm rise at the tail, with contact points 375 mm from the tip and 230 mm from the tail. The rocker shape combines with medium-stiff flex through the middle and a light tip and tail outside the taper points for light swing weight and good control in both 2D and 3D snow. In geek-speak: on an SFI-style scale of 1-10, starting at the tail, the flex should measure about 4-5-6-6-5, but the tip and tail stay stiffer until about 193 mm from the tip and 160 mm from the tail (which are the widest points), softening progressively but quicker close to the ends. (Unloaded the tip and tail are slightly elliptical in profile, straighter at the ends, so the loaded rocker shape goes round in deep snow...but this is all subtle, not some radical/abrupt change.) As a result, the tip can be driven hard, giving strong response on medium to firm snow, while deep soft snow flexes the leading edge to lift more and avoid tip dive. The tip is slightly blunted to leave more length for the taper and main radius while keeping the tips from suddenly glancing sideways off death cookies. Similar to the tip, the tail is stiffer most of the way back to be supportive in firm snow. Almost flat, it can be stabbed into the snow tail-first, and it's soft in the very back to provide a little bit more effective rocker shape when floating, while keeping the tail light and the skin on the track on the way up. The tail shape tapers to a blunt, 103 mm-wide end with a skin notch. The moderate early taper stays up off of firm snow and then goes to work in the soft stuff.

For better firm snow performance, the Reality Tour's 20 m sidecut radius covers 143 cm of its length, about 10% above running length. Long enough to keep the whole edge carving when the ski is loaded up in a hard turn and avoid washing a tip when things get choppy.
The Reality Tour should have a light core with a layer of uni-directional carbon on top and bottom and another layer of carbon weave high in the layup with the fibers laid at 45 degrees to the ski's axis for torsional stiffness. Less wood, glass and resin. And of course, for Maggots, it really should come with a pre-installed set of inserts to mount a removable Tech toe-piece between our favorite downhill binders, but I'll stick to reality...if you could bring the light weight I'm sure we'd be happy to order up inserts, plates or Si&I's as needed once you hit production. Seriously, though, thanks Bluehouse, this is a great contest!

Oh, yeah, according to my software, which I assume you can improve on, the Reality Tour looks something like this (at least under the badass topsheet):

[Bluehouse]

Thanks for the entries so far. All entries must be in by Friday. So send them our way thanks.

[fat yeti]

Bump......

[adrenalated]

Working on a submission, but have one question about the contest. What happens to the designs, especially the winning model? In other words, is Bluehouse claiming the rights to any of the designs and will you use it to produce a production ski?

[TheDon]

This is a cool idea. I want a light weight spatula with a little under foot grab-na-traction.

[Bluehouse]

Adrenalated there is no guarantee if this ski will go in to full production but if we do we will ask for permission from the person.

Thanks for the entries so far,If you have a entry please get them in tomorrow by midnight Two of these ski will be made and tested. The winner gets a new pair of their ski.
The runner up gets one of the demos pairs of there ski (the one that's in the best shape). Please let me know if you have any questions. And thanks again for the entries we look forward to testing two of these skis.

TGR Name Ski Name Ski Length Dimensions
Soylent Green Omega Man 190 142-122-134
arild Dopamine 194 134-115-124
Buster Highmen The Functor 198 135-115-117
Hortence(and)Brianah House Music 190 120-108-116
phatty Sabotage 188 135-109-124
Pruitt Hard Attack 184 130-100-121
flotsam Gargoyle 185 128-108-122
mjp Quiver Killer 185 140-110-128
I've Seen Black Diamonds! Carnitas 186 134-112-123
ecfreerider7 unruly 190 139-111-132
skiballs mag-a-zen 101 187 127-101-121
sicktird Springsteen|the Boss|Born to Run 191 137-105-124
jono Reality Tour 186 142-109-130.5
Tele222 Bitchin' Camaro 186 132-118-130

[TheDon]

The grab-na-traction is underfoot with dimensions of 120/125/115mm.

So it would be under 8 lbs with a little mini side cut underfoot, matte topsheet and medium stiff.

[soylent green]

I suggest that you rent Omega Man for some inspiration. Its a truly important piece of American cinema. This should help with your decision. Don't be fooled by cheap Will Smith imitations.

[fat yeti]

Bump for a cool contest

[camplemur]

Liking this contest. Hope it becomes an annual tradition. Without CAD software know-how, this exercise feels like a shot in the dark. But fun trying.

[jono]

Liking this contest. Hope it becomes an annual tradition. Without CAD software know-how, this exercise feels like a shot in the dark. But fun trying.

I was hoping CAD would make this simple and quick, but FWIW I think it was just the opposite; probably more fun without it!

As soon as I got mine started I noticed that having a parametric sketch meant I could compare with other skis' dimensions, so that ate up a few hours. Then I started looking for ways to lengthen the edge so it would still meet the snow when the ski is loaded up turning in firm stuff, and that ate up a few more. I'll admit I couldn't have gotten that part without CAD since the blend between arcs has as much to do with that as the raw dimensions (although that might explain why mine has relatively high sidecut depth despite an average 20 m turn radius). But aside from that, to one extent or another we're all just taking our best shot.

A note to Bluehouse, if the Reality Tour should make it through the voting you'd be welcome to my drawing for reference, if you want it. And please don't interpret my use of mm's as needing tighter tolerances, I just had those numbers so I figured I'd share them.

[yellowstoner]

I'm excited to see the entire process through the production of the skis. Hopefully we'll see some diverse designs.

[ACH]

Liking the Functor...
I C wat u did der buster

[Buster Highmen]

Make my Func the p-Func, I wants to git Funced Up.

[Bluehouse]

Sorry for the delay, we have our five finalists for this contest. We will have a thread up in tech talk on Monday, with the ski descriptions and you will have a chance to vote on the skis. The top two skis will be built and passed around for testing and feedback. Thanks for you participation.

Here are the 5 skis.

Soylent Green ski Omega Man
Sicktird ski Springsteen/the boss/born to run
Busterhighman ski The Functor
Flotsam ski Gargoyle
Camplemur ski Sugar Tits

[Altaholic]

Attachment 142505

First 2 submissions sketched up for your feedback.

I like the Dopamine. It is like a rebirth of the Rossi RC 112/Salomon El Dictator.

[camplemur]

thank you. very pleased!

[Shorty_J]

I'm not putting this out there to win, because the contest is over...

But what I would LOVE to see is a <100mm Maestro clone... zero camber, with a little bit longer effective edge (as a percentage of the total ski length), and a little less taper.

This ski would be $$$ as a daily driver for firmer days. I've decided camber is for racers, and I don't race. Someone make me this ski!!

[bobbuilds]

attaboy jimmy!!

stoked for you bud! when your prototypes come in lets go rip the pass.

[soylent green]

attaboy jimmy!!

stoked for you bud! when your prototypes come in lets go rip the pass.

I think you have to win to get the prototypes. FWIW, I really need skis now. I destroyed my bases the other day!

[DoWork]

Ah shit. Wish I had seen this before now!

[bobbuilds]

I think you have to win to get the prototypes. FWIW, I really need skis now. I destroyed my bases the other day!

Im sure you're gonna win, you are such a better skier than anyone else here :FM:

I got some 196 stunts laying around, or some xxx's if you need, dont worry, ur gona win!


sent from the future using my brain, and i know some people.

ps look for dave frank this year, he is the rep and demo guy.