DIY woodgrain topsheet skis

[cooltsi]

Saw a pair of of woodgrain skis on the tram at Jackson last week. Thought cool...Iggy's....till I saw the bases at the tips (K2) and the yellow topsheet showing through. Whatever he applied had texture to the woodgrain and was fairly thick. Still looked plastic though.

Anyone here on the tram last Tuesday?

[El Chupacabra]

Bump for my project finally getting completed, on a completely different set of skis than the neon Explosivs.

180cm Atomic Powder Plus, with Home Depot woodgrain shelf contact paper, a little clearcoat spray paint, and Salomon 997s:
They look good in the photos, but up close... I have my doubts about how long the contact paper will hold up. Haven't skied them yet; just mounted the bindings last night.

Skis alone:




Skis with bindings:

[marshalolson]

SICK FFF's!

[El Chupacabra]

SICK FFF's!

Yeah!!! Anyone wanna buy my fully-custom flex FFFs? (But you have to promise not to look at the bases. Ever.)

[mntlion]

nice, love to hear about durability.

bet it was faster and cheaper then my real wood topsheet ones

[Hutch]

those look sick, chup.

[bio-smear]

Nice work. You should rage those on Ponderosa this weekend.

[squirrelmurphy]

Yeah!!! Anyone wanna buy my fully-custom flex FFFs? (But you have to promise not to look at the bases. Ever.)

dude, i want to buy your fully custom FFFs.

nice work. cant speak to close-up, but from the pics those are the damn purdy-est pow+s i've ever seen. now just gotta rocker them suckas!

[marshalolson]

Yeah!!! Anyone wanna buy my fully-custom flex FFFs? (But you have to promise not to look at the bases. Ever.)

THIS is why god invented the sharpie

[Flexon Phil]

Too bad... Neon is on its way back. You could have been ahead of the curve.

[adampecush]

hot damn! those are...well...hot!

keep us updated on the durability

[El Chupacabra]

Nice work. You should rage those on Ponderosa this weekend.

Ponderosa = gnarnia.

[El Chupacabra]

Update: 5 runs later, and 1 topsheet is peeling off. Durability = nil.

So I think I'll strip the woodgrain off and paint them. Pics to come, eventually.

[bio-smear]

Flat matte black, stencil the Atomic logo on there in white.

[El Chupacabra]

Flat matte black, stencil the Atomic logo on there in white.

I'm thinking stencil, but not necessarily Atomic.

Possibilities, off the top of my head:

1) Biohazard symbols on the tips?

2) "FOR DISPLAY USE ONLY -- DO NOT USE AS SNOW SKI"

Suggestions?

[The Dad]

One word:

Neon.

[StinkyD]

You can paint a woodgrain on pretty easily with a cheap woodgraining tool (HD, Lowes etc). Scroll to the bottom: http://paintinthetown.bizland.com/st..._Graining.html

[Pow4Brains]

Check this stuff out. We used it on a couple of projects and it goes on like wall paper. You can't tell it isn't real. They use this shit in all the casino's in Vegas and it's water proof. I don't know if you can apply a finish to it, but it is flexible.
http://www.surfacequest.com/belbien_patterns.htm

So I got some of this stuff and did one ski. I'll post a "how to" if it holds up. It appears that it tends to "dent" with the sub straight (ski) rather than flake off (I tested it with a couple of hard blows from a piece of metal).
You sand the edge with 220 grit sandpaper so there is no "edge" of the material to catch, which I think would start the peeling process.
They sure look purdy right now, but time will tell.........

Edit 4: They said you can coat it with polyurethane (sp) to add durability but I want to see how it holds up without.

[El Chupacabra]

My Atomics are now Krylon Fusion spraycan black. Haven't skied them since spraycanning them, so we'll see how they hold up.

[Pow4Brains]

Before pix. Hopefully I'll get to test them out on Thurs





The liquid you see is old wax. I did not use any other adhesive other than what comes on it.

[pechelman]

dude, those look incredible
thats a film adhesive?

what skis btw?
and nice quiver as well.

[Pow4Brains]

Dunno what they use for an adhesive, but they told me it is "pressure cured". So you use a "scraper" with a lot of pressure to get it to stick. Skis are RD Heli Dogs. Full quiver pic coming once BROs are mounted

[ShawnB]

Wow, Pow, those are tits. Niiiice work.

I'll be interested to hear if the self-adhesive thang is up to snuff once they get really flexing & truly huck/impact-tested. Everything looks super clean; very very impressive.

FWIW, most others who have tried the contact paper way, and have had it shred off, have just not been trying hard enough. I will post a full TR about this after a few more on-snow days to confirm, but so far so good and I think I've cracked the case on the sleazebag low-rent woodgrain shelf paper DIY, but made to laaast:


Stuck some decals I made (my business logo; yay) under the resin topcoat:

Temps were too cold when I topcoated so first attempt was subject to ever so unsightly pitting. Lesson learned; sanded down and recoated.


Crucial Point #1: You must coat the shelf paper, and your sticks, with exterior contact cement. Obviously the original barely-tacky backing is not gonna cut it (the shit is made to be removable, yo). I got greedy and skiied these w/ only the contact-cemented shelf paper, w/ NO topcoat. Lots of dings, but not a peep of peel-up, even tho they were in soaking sleet all day long

Crucial Point #2: You must coat the finished product in something other than spray-on clearcoat if you want them to hold up. I used a polyester resin made for coating surfboards. I've skiied on 'em (and also hit 'em w/ a hammer), and it's all good so far, but I wanna put in a few more days and see what happens w/ tree-strikes, etc, before I get cocky and truly believe it's the rizzle shizzle, and whatnot.

Full How-To on the resin process, the necessary gymnastics w/ contact cement, etc., to follow soon... Must. Get. Back. To. Work. AARRgh.

[bio-smear]

Way to get to the bottom of this one Shawn, those Karmas are gonna be the talk of the lift chair. Tits.

btw, what "wood" grain is that paper supposed to be? Fir?

I need to find a good candidate for a woodgrain topsheet project.

[Pow4Brains]

Thanks Shawn. Looks like I know what I'll be using if they don't hold up. I'll post results by the end of the weekend. I hope it does work cuz it'd be really cool to try out some of the other patterns they have (thinkin' some type of stone or metal).