decambering a ski

[AltaPowderDaze]

aside from skiing the hell out of a ski, what's the best way to decamber one? i've been storing them base to base with 2 straps keeping them flat. should i be laying them on the floor and placing weights on them? heat/moisture? any ideas?

[Core Shot]

how about storing base to base with a block of wood at tips, block of wood at tails, and clamping them together in the middle (forcing into a reverse camber)?

[yooper]

As a guy that just bent a GS ski back to straight...... It takes ALOT to change the shape permanently. The idea about the blocks at the tips and tail might work, but you would need big blocks. Seriously like 10 inches thick. Stapping them together base to base will do nothing. Ever. If you leave them like that for 5 years and take the stap off, they still be like new.

[The Suit]

I play with composite (carbon & fiberglass) toy airplanes, and when a wing or a fuselage gets a twist, we fix it by the following procedure:

- wet a towel and heat in the microwave until you can barely handle it
- quickly wrap the hot towel around the offending part
- twist the part back into shape or a little past
- allow to cool while holding in position

I believe that the heat allows the epoxy resin in the composite to creep, and it then re-sets when it cools.

I'm guessing that ski construction is similar enough that a similar procedure could work for you. Ski construction is definitely heavier and more robust, so you may not be able to dump enough heat into the ski with a hot, wet towel. A heat gun or a waxing iron might do the job. You probably ought to err on the side of too little heat rather than too much while you're figuring it out.

[Dr.Evil]

I was removed the camber (accidently) to a pair of GS skis by waxing them with a very hot iron.

[upallnight]

I was removed the camber (accidently) to a pair of GS skis by waxing them with a very hot iron.

Man...How hot was it?

[AltaPowderDaze]

thanks for the ideas. i think i'll start with the reverse camber clamp and see how that goes. maybe i'll put a radiant hearter underneith to speed it up. i'll take measurements and report back the change relative to time clamped for those interested.

[Art Vandelay]

huge camber bros?

[flatNshallow]

go out east - find resort with those nasty little tight ass bumps, get out of shape, land in canyon between two bumps - VIOLA! Decamber.

Then junk your carvers cause they are now useless.

thanks for the trip down expensive memory lane.

[mntlion]

try heat and alot of bending

heat with heat gun 6" away and heat untill the heat comes thru the other side

[phUnk]

Sell em and get some skis you like?

[KANUTTEN]

Sell em and get some skis you like?

Sounds just right!

[lph]

along phUnk's line of suggestion...

What ski on the market has too much camber? most skis seem to have NO camber nowadays.

how are they in pow?

[mtbakerskier]

De-cambering a ski is a bad idea. As you will decrease the skis strength dramatically.

Heat can be used to soften the ski, however skis are made with epoxy wich is a thermoset meaning that it can not be simply re-heated and remolded. All that heat does is increase the chance for creep in the composite wich will seriously weaken the ski, and it will not cause it to permantly take on a new shape, but just make it more flexible. Secondly you are very likely to damage the base material in the process.

[flip]

Normal wood-core, fiberglass ski breaks in from it's original camber a fair amount and then "settles" to a point where it will remain for a long time. Anyone designing a ski they want to last a long time will take that into account and make a ski that's overcambered when new. Anyone that wants a ski to feel great from day 1 will design it with the right amount of camber, but it will feel dead after it settles. I personally wouldn't do the heat and bending, because that effectively resets the starting point (at best, and risks damaging the ski at worst), rather than settling the ski faster. On the other hand if you break them in from repeated flexing (uh, de-cambering...) they'll settle with a decent amount of camber and stay there for a long long time.

Burton actually purposefully builds their boards with too much camber, then cycles them a few thousand times to settle them to the proper amount of camber, where they stay. If you start at the optimum, you end up with a dead board after a season or so.

Just decambering them and holding them there also won't do anything... they need to be cycled. You can either rig up some kind of robot-machinery thing like Burton, or you could just get out and ski a lot of bumps and powder.

[AltaPowderDaze]

thanks flip,

i'm actually only expecting a season out of any ski that i own. i ski a lot of different conditions and expect my skis to react predictably to the unpredictable. if my skis have a speed limit in pow, that's not good. i can't afford to take a digger, in pow of all things, above a cliff band or on a slide path. the decambering is just a way to give the ski a head start on being a good all around ski for the rest of this season.

[splat]

Thanks, flip. Nice to hear from someone who knows of this.

APD - you just posted. I'm assuming you're talking about the Bros. I'm making a batch of 188s with less camber this go around and taller tips. Once you get up around 200 degrees, the resin will degrade. Weights on them between tip and tail will expedite the settling best.

[BakerBoy]

Thanks, flip. Nice to hear from someone who knows of this.

APD - you just posted. I'm assuming you're talking about the Bros. I'm making a batch of 188s with less camber this go around and taller tips. Once you get up around 200 degrees, the resin will degrade. Weights on them between tip and tail will expedite the settling best.

flip knows what he's talking about assuming that camber on a powder ski is a good idea to begin with. Seriously, it's the future. I asked the 8-ball.

[lph]

Interesting, I skied with two maggots at canyons and they were both on this years bros, which did seem to have alot of camber, however, both said they kill it in the powder and didn't notice any problems skiing fast through the powder. Not to mention i couldn't keep up with either on the groomers, they were carving, while with the rossi axioms i struggled to get up on edge.

[iceman]

I understand reverse camber, but deliberately taking camber out of a cambered ski has got to be a bad idea. Camber is designed into the ski for a reason ansd turning the boards into flat noodles can't be what you're after.

[BakerBoy]

Interesting, I skied with two maggots at canyons and they were both on this years bros, which did seem to have alot of camber, however, both said they kill it in the powder and didn't notice any problems skiing fast through the powder. Not to mention i couldn't keep up with either on the groomers, they were carving, while with the rossi axioms i struggled to get up on edge.

Fast skiers are fast skiers. Some things just work better... The whole point of a fat ski is to float -- camber inherently causes the tips to dive. When you arc a turn in pow, the tips and tails will flex upwards anyways. With flat camber, you don't have to fight thru the postitive camber. And camber is good on groomers, but if you want to slay the groomers, get some race skis.

[lph]

Fast skiers are fast skiers. Some things just work better... The whole point of a fat ski is to float -- camber inherently causes the tips to dive. When you arc a turn in pow, the tips and tails will flex upwards anyways. With flat camber, you don't have to fight thru the postitive camber. And camber is good on groomers, but if you want to slay the groomers, get some race skis.

so even stiff skis with alot of camber will decamber in soft pow? seems like there shouldn't be enough resistance there. I don't know, i am just asking.

but what you are saying about the flat camber is probably why i don't fatigue skiing all day on the spats in powder.

[BakerBoy]

so even stiff skis with alot of camber will decamber in soft pow? seems like there shouldn't be enough resistance there. I don't know, i am just asking.

but what you are saying about the flat camber is probably why i don't fatigue skiing all day on the spats in powder.

To a point, yes. Everytime you load up a ski in a turn/carve, you are flexing the ski, which is decambering it. But if you aren't strong/heavy enough to properly flex a ski, then that ski will pretty much sink to the bottom. Which is why a super-stiff Bro skis considerably different than a soft Bro. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter how much you weighed, nor how aggressively you skied.

Reverse camber skis are the ultimate crud skis because your tips won't dive into the crap so much, and lets you power over the top of it. They are also the ultimate cliff hucking skis since they auto resurface (another problem with excessive positive camber), and I'm claiming that the Pontoon will probably be the BEST ever as of now.

Flat is just as different as postive or negative camber. The Spatula is reverse camber all the way thru - the Pontoon is flat for 2/3rd's of the ski, the reverse towards the shovel. More versatile.

[flip]

flip knows what he's talking about assuming that camber on a powder ski is a good idea to begin with. Seriously, it's the future. I asked the 8-ball.

Oh, I'm not making a judgement about what the right amount of camber is... I'm just saying don't start cooking your skis.

[iceman]

Somebody quote this post, I'll be deleting it shortly.

Go right ahead.