Reducing tail rocker?

[smooth operator]

There are a number of (older) threads about bending rocker into ski's, but none about removing rocker. Is there anyone who has experimented with flattening out the tail of ski's? If so how, and what were your experiences?

[CaliBrit]

There are a number of (older) threads about bending rocker into ski's, but none about removing rocker. Is there anyone who has experimented with flattening out the tail of ski's? If so how, and what were your experiences?

Honestly. It’s really not worth trying unless a ski has metal. You’re going to have to compromise the epoxy somehow to achieve it.

You can bend a metal ski. But then it’s bent....

[3PinGrin]

band saw

[sruffian]

OP - have you considered reading the old threads but upside down?

[skizix]

Paging swissiphic...

[smooth operator]

No metal so probably not gonna bother... Maybe I should just learn to ski centered like all the cool kids these days.

OP - have you considered reading the old threads but upside down?

this made me laugh

Paging swissiphic...

Yes I was assuming he'd chime in. Must be out skiing gravel pits.

[gregorys]

So, Swissphic has done this a lot more than I have - and he's done it with skis without metal.
...but...

I'm too lazy to go find the TGR post I did about it, but I did exactly this on the tip of a pair of 180 bonafides. [The long story is, I was spring skiing and while riding out of a cornice drop, I skied into, what I believe was a hole - probably filled with softer groomed snow - and had a massive double-eject. I was mostly uninjured (I did ski the rest of the day but had a really sore hand for a couple of months) but had a massive amount of tip rise that extended all the way back, nearly to the binding toe.

I used a hydraulic jack, and a large square frame that would frame the ski. I'd lock the ski down, and then use the jack to push off the frame and onto the ski. (In this case, pushing the tip down.)

Using just the jack, I made some progress, but then reached a place I couldn't get the ski to retain bend any more.

So, heat was suggested. I used my ski wax iron to heat up both the top and bottom of the ski. Then I'd quickly place the jack and bend. I'd leave the ski bent for 5-10 minutes until the temp had cooled.

This had the desired result. While I wasn't able to get the ski to exactly line up with the same rocker line as the undamaged ski, it was very close.

I skied them a number of days last season, and the rocker lines didn't appear to change at all, and they skied quite nicely.

Suffice it to say, I was rather surprised.

Now, I'd be a bit more tentative about doing this to a ski I liked and was willing to continue skiing. But epoxies do reach a pliable state at higher temperatures. What that temp is, and how pliable the epoxy gets varies from glue to glue. But I, from pretty limited experience, have reason to believe that you could quite feasibly change the rocker lines.

If I ever find a cheap ski and I think it would ski better with different rocker, I'd certainly be willing to try it. [I'd honestly like a little less camber on my Kastles - but I like them in so many other ways - I'm not going to try this on them. And they're the definition of "not cheap." ]

HTH

-Greg

[gregorys]

Went and found it.
Here: https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...-a-ski-You-too

[DGamms]

I have decambered a few skis without metal with good results. Never tried to decrease tail rocker per se, but it seems like it would work.

The easiest (or maybe laziest) method was to use clamps and dowels to create the desired profile, and then leave the skis in a black rocket box out in the summer sun for a week or two. Unclamp the skis after two weeks and voila! New camber/rocker profile.

[Shorty_J]

I have decambered a few skis without metal with good results. Never tried to decrease tail rocker per se, but it seems like it would work.

The easiest (or maybe laziest) method was to use clamps and dowels to create the desired profile, and then leave the skis in a black rocket box out in the summer sun for a week or two. Unclamp the skis after two weeks and voila! New camber/rocker profile.

I like this idea but it sounds tough to dial in? I guess if you overdo it you just build a rig to bend them back a bit?

I have a old spare set of skis I'd love to turn into flat/subtle reverse camber that I might try this on.

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[DGamms]

I like this idea but it sounds tough to dial in? I guess if you overdo it you just build a rig to bend them back a bit?

I have a old spare set of skis I'd love to turn into flat/subtle reverse camber that I might try this on.

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Yeah, it’s an imperfect method no doubt. If you care about exact millimeter by millimeter profiles, it’s probably the wrong call.

But if you are just trying to change a ski to flat camber underfoot, it works pretty well. I did it to old Rossignol Sickbirds and newer Line Tom Wallischs, and they both ended up flat underfoot. I’ve never overshot the amount of camber change either. If anything, you will undershoot the desired change the first time around and have to repeat with bigger dowels or more time with clamps on for the desired result.

[smooth operator]

Thanks for the input guys. I clamped the ski down and put it in a room with the heating on max, will see how it comes out after a few days. May give it a few strokes with a heatgun or hairdryer.

[swissiphic]

I'll be attempting a non ghetto reduction of tip and tail rocker on some Volkl 2's in a little while and will report back.

In the mean time... My custom enhanced tip rockered K2 Darksides kinda threw me back seat near the end of the season last year. Usual suspect was insufficient tip rise and contact point too far forward of binding mount point center. Careful eyeballing suggested the ski remembered it's stock profile; tips lost some rise and rocker contact point had moved forward...about 3cms past the carefully calculated personal optimum of 53 cms fore of binding mount center.

Took some time this afternoon to bend them back to preferred specs. Road trip ghettowerxing with materials at hand. The usual method of jamming tips/shovels under a door and reefing up wasn't an option. Didn't wanna risk wrecking a door at the house i'm visiting so used a ladder. Skis were heated to ambient house indoor temp. Employing this method, got just over 1/2 inch of extra tip rise and moved the contact point back to the sharpie'd 53cm mark. Testing of skis will commence 2 nite on a headlamp mission in breakable refreeze zipper rain crust over mank.

[Shorty_J]

^^^ what is holding the tail up to hold that bend?

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[swissiphic]

^^^ what is holding the tail up to hold that bend?

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Just reefing up with my arms. Pull tails up till wood core starts making crackling sounds...lower ski, move it back a bit and crank on it a few more times.

[Shorty_J]

Just reefing up with my arms. Pull tails up till wood core starts making crackling sounds...lower ski, move it back a bit and crank on it a few more times.

Oh wow... that's awesome!

Total time invested to make the change?

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[swissiphic]

Oh wow... that's awesome!

Total time invested to make the change?

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Maybe ten minutes including moving ladder from shed to back yard lawn and back to shed again. lol.

[gregorys]

Total time invested to make the change?

LOL. Swissiphic is reveling in the ghettoworx projects! Nice work!
Probably took longer to dig/haul out the ladder than doing the bends, am I right?!


Looks less dangerous than the bottle jack method I used.
[Though, to be fair, that wouldn't have worked on mine.]

[Shorty_J]

I want to remove some camber from the middle of some Salomon czars but I dont think I have the balls to just bend them until they creak...but I commend your pioneering spirit!

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[XXX-er]

It strikes me a ski re-bending jig would be a cool cheap n easy thing to invent, maybe base it on a 5 ft ladder, put ski in the jig, maybe a little heat, fiddle with some clamps and shit ... you got a reprofiled ski

somebody give er

but It was my idea

[thefortrees]

It strikes me a ski re-bending jig would be a cool cheap n easy thing to invent, maybe base it on a 5 ft ladder, put ski in the jig, maybe a little heat, fiddle with some clamps and shit ... you got a reprofiled ski

somebody give er

but It was my idea

“The backcountry ski jig”, US trademark pending. Gotta pay $$$ to have backcountry in the name though

[beaterdit]

I made a bending jig out of some galvanized pipe. Rockered a pair of OG Powder Plus with it, and a heat gun. That ski has two sheets of metal pretty much tip to tail. Also used the "reef on it till you hear the wood crackle method". Worked out real nice.

My XXLs did it on their own, go figure.

[XXX-er]

If you slide me a beer I would be cool like that, even if there was no beer i don't care but I thot of it first man !

I am sure there will be way more work to the idea !!

[SB]

just flip the skis around and remount

that way you can claim you ski everything switch

[swissiphic]

It strikes me a ski re-bending jig would be a cool cheap n easy thing to invent, maybe base it on a 5 ft ladder, put ski in the jig, maybe a little heat, fiddle with some clamps and shit ... you got a reprofiled ski

somebody give er

but It was my idea

Pretty good idea, actually. Figure out a jig and construct a hot box around it. Place skis in the unit, calibrate, add the heat...set it and forget it till it cools into the new form. Keep tweaking as required till skis rocker profile 2.0 achieved max optimization.

Back in the day when I worked as a ski tech for a season at Weigele's heli ski op in '94/95, we had a ski bender mounted up on the wall. In those days we were rebending camber back into the Volant Chubbs and Atomic PPs that came back to shop with unintentionally rockered tips. Like beaterdit said, the PPs had all that metal and they bent back to reg profile really easily...no heat required. I ended up bending more rocker into the pair used for the season and was stoked on the game changing float and pivoty feel for charging steep trees.

FWIR; the ski bender unit was constructed with pieces of heavy guage steel pipe arranged in a triangle orientation.

In other news, the night ski mission was a huge success. That ghetto'd increase in tip rocker and pulled back contact point brought back the love that was lost last season. Zipper rain crust over rain wetted mank were perfect conditions for testing...smooth, easy, large radius slarves with super intuitive turn initiation and forward/center balance point. Also tested out a new boot mod that allows for adjusting forward flex stiffness and ankle range of motion. Adjusting boot flex to the softest setting really allowed skier to get over the front of the skis, stay there without getting bucked into the back seat due to restricted forward range of ankle motion, and have lots of fore/aft ankle flex to react to subtle and gross snow surface irregularities. Almost ready to call it a game changer...but not yet. Limited skiing sample size.