shortened 190cm fischer porohete to 180cms...will fiberglass hold on new tail?

[swissiphic]

Have a pair of well used up beat up fischer porohete 190's. Found that they skied just a bit too long so figured i'd turn them into a test ski. Chopped 15cms off the tail, added a 5cm section of fiberglass turned up tail with taper, bent tip into new rockered shape for better float and a bit easier turn initiation, forgiveness in crusts and punchy snow. 190cm traditional camber ski now a 181 cm 'charger rocker' tip and turned up tail. Used the cut off tail as a template for the new tail piece. Rubbed a bunch of wax on it so the 'glass wouldn't stick, used duct tape to create a tub and shape for the 'glass and it worked awesome, hardened 'glas popped right off. Used a lot of material so i could shape it just right.

Will be a total test ski, will use plastic cutting board mounting plates for bindings so i can go way forward and back for finding the sweet spot, if any exists with the new dimensions...

Any clue if the fiberglass will hold for skiing? Added about 5cms of material fore of the cut tail on the ski topsheet to provide a good bracing foundation for the additional 'glass of the new tail.

[mntlion]

should be fine. Worst case JB weld the tail delam back.

[PlayItLeo]

Thumbs up for DIY ski modification. Report back on whether they survive or explode.

[ctsmith]

My experience has been that most epoxies with fiberglass or carbon fiber lay ups can be a bit on the brittle side for uses like this, if flex is needed. G/Flex epoxy is the best I've found for situations where flexibility is needed post cure.

[DropCliffsNotBombs]

Regardless of the longevity of the mod, the "new" ski is going to have some noticable tail-sink. Watch out for hauling wheelies!

[swissiphic]

Regardless of the longevity of the mod, the "new" ski is going to have some noticable tail-sink. Watch out for hauling wheelies!

Yeah, can't wait to see how the 'on paper' hypothesis translates to in pow performance. I kinda have hunch tail sink won't be an issue...where I chopped the tail it's only 1mm narrower. I'm actually thinking with the recurved tip into rocker combined with the prit near infinitely adjustable fore aft binding placement, wheelying out won't be an issue; if it is, I can just go forward with the binding and bend more rocker into the tip or add a custom few cms tip extender to compensate if tip dive rears it's ugly head. The whole concept is infinite ghetto customization. Probably gonna spoon the tip too; we'll see how stock performance goes first though. I'm kinda more concerned of lack of sweet spot in general after messing with a bunch of variables, time will tell though. Anyone who's skied this ski will recognize that it's basically a tank and liked to lock the skier into it's own shape of turn in a a lot of snow conditions, i.m.e. anyway. Just trying to tweak it to be a lil more friendly and lighter for touring. Can the leopard change its spots?

[swissiphic]

Project update. After fiberglass cured and tail was filed and shaped with rounded off side 'edges', slightly spooned, it was time to debate binding mount point. Initially I had planned to use plastic mounting plates but couldn't find any cutting boards on sale at walmart, so decided to swiss cheese the ski as another simu test of affect on ski structural integrity and affect on flex.

First mount point was about 76cms from tail...ski length is now 179cms. Epic fail. First day out skiing was tragic...even with strongly detuned rocker section/contact point, skis overturned dramatically from the tip and felt totally unbalanced for both breaking trail and downhilling.

For ski day number 2, thought maybe spooning the rocker to past the contact point might help matters for downhilling...nope, a bit more foregiving in turn initiation but still obvious that mount point was not balanced with the sidecut.

Day number three: moved binding forward to 80.5cms from tail and voila! gettin there! Skis broke trail with much more balanced float for uphilling and downhill skiing on steep terrain in rain wetted pinwheeling snow slop proved to be 'almost right' feeling. The overturning sensation from tips was prit near eliminated and a strong mid turn feathered into a solid but easy to release feeling tail for the finish. Skied some pretty deep unconsolidated slop and the float from the freshly rockered forebody seemed adequate. No real deep pow though, hard to tell just how effective it will be.

Skis still felt just a hair off in lower angle terrain for balance point so next day I'm skiing them with mount point 83cms from tail, putting it somewhere around minus 4.5 from true center. If that doesn't dramatically improve things for versatility, I'm sure the 80.5 boot center will work for most skiing conditions/terrain...

All the ski days featured a smorgassboard of horrendous skiing conditions with little sections of good stuff; so, absolutely perfect for ski testing. Wind crust, wind slab, wind buff, hard pan, moist variable density snow, wet pinwheeling mank, reconstituted wet avy debris, some matured wet snow transitioning to corn, some snowpack with a base, some with a base of rocks...

fiberglass tails proving to be fairly robust and resistant to damage... scraped 'em off a few sharks on the ski down and smashed them vertically onto rocks on the hike out; some chips and scratches but no cracks or catastrophic failure.

kinda pissed...early season skiing window is now closed; the zone got hit with rain, warm temps and a thermonuclear meltdown has occurred. No substantial refills in forecast for the next few weeks at least....further product testing is now on hold.