New PM Gear Site Goes Live Monday

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We'll be launching the new PM Gear website Monday, ready or not. One of many significant upgrades we'll be implementing this year, PM Gear is taking charge of it's own destiny, doing more to make sure we control all aspects of our business in-house. We are also manufacturing our own skis, with delivery of skis already ordered scheduled for next month.

It's been a long, hard road to get PM Gear running at the level we envisioned when we started, with many lessons learned about the hazards of outsourcing. Although seemingly convenient, we found that trusting others to deliver crucial products and goods was somewhat of a pipedream, and that the best way to make sure we took the best possible care of our customers was to do as much of it ourselves as possible. Although we still rely on a minimum of outsourcing, we have narrowed it down to only the cores and topsheets for the skis. To minimize the possibility of any catastrophic bullshit occurring, we have two seperate sources to make the cores in the event one fails. The website is all us, as is the design and pressing of the skis.

We're still a totally maggot-owned and -operated ski company and don't see that ever changing. We've expanded our circle of PM Gear maggots this year to get the best possible engineering with the help of slim and pechelman, two engineering geniuses who really love designing skis. They cleaned up the designs on the 188 and 179 Bros, in addition to creating two new skis, a 179 fattie and a 193 big mountain slayer. md9 is currently working on some new topsheet designs for those boards. The first of these new skis are slated to be build and tested at Mt. Hood around the end of this month.

So with the launch of the new website, we'll start a new year and a new future for PM Gear, the maggot ski company. Thanks to everyone who has kept the faith and supported us through two years of hell getting this venture off the ground.

Peace,

the PM Gear crew.

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We knockin the walls out on the 179 by 10mm or so, Nate, keeping that killer sidecut on them for the 179 fattie. I ski the regular 125-99-144 179s like a bat out of hell, so you might wanna try the fatties once we get the flex dialed. We'll be doing only 30 pair of 179 fatties in the first run.

Oh yeah, the price goes up Monday to $639. Anyone who wants to order at $599 can do so off the old site link at the very bottom of the construction page.

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Jim S - that question has been asked a thousand times and there's probably ten different threads that covered those comaprisons. If I had saved them all, I'd post them. But, foolish me, I didn't, and have to ask you to do a Tech Talk search....

Kona - yes, we have three belt sanders for finishing the skis and have cut a deal with Bobos in Reno to do a structure on them before shipping. Tuning to preference will be on owners.

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Ha, does this mean those things actually worked
fkna
(ps. that dick never covered me for paying his rent)

Two of them did, and the Wintersteiger works like a champ. We'll get the third one running soon. Thanks for helping us complete the shop, pickles!

(I hope you cleaned that unit out and recovered some rent, freakin dickwad Vic.)

But... did you get a reach around?

I told you, irul, we won't do that. No matter how many pair you buy.
The maintenance package is for the ladies only.

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Heh. Anticipating the chairlift discussions on these skis in my neck of the woods. "These, oh, yeah, it's a small outfit out in Reno, splat and his crew make 'em in their garage, and then they send 'em out to Bobo to do base prep before they ship 'em to maggots."

You forgot the best part, Dave.

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Good job, 2P.
You came through like a champ.

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Nice work.

So, the pics of the skis makes 'em look like the tail is squared off as opposed to rounded. Are the 2007's going to be squared? Good by me if so, as I'm planning on using mine for backcountry and I imagine the squared off tail will hold a skin clip better. If not, how about making mine squared?

I'm not sure how we ended up with squared-tail graphics, but the skis are semi-twins. I think we need some good shots or a disclaimer there...


As for cutting yours off, it'd be kinda rough, but it can be done. We didn't have the resources (time, engineering, money, and patience) to get the plastic or metal pieces needed into manufacturing to do squared tails. Rob and I had a long talk about the tails today while making some 179s after putting new heaters in the press, pressing some skis, and checkin tip and tail heights. We have 61 mm height in the tip (+5-6 mm over last year) and 31 mm in the tails. We're going to drop the tails down to around 20mm in height and see how they look. We even discussed going flat.

Because the tails are composed of abs and glass (and base,edge,and topsheet) they can be cut off square and mantain a good degree of adhesive durability if you need a flat spot for a skin clip. They'd be even more durable if a metal cap of some kind could be affixed to the flat cut-out, whether by glue, rivets, itty-bitty screws, or a combination thereof. But due to the way the molds are built, it would have to be a post-pressing retrofit - for many reasons. I posted some pics from the Quebec factory of some blems I swallowtailed with a bandsaw in which the cut went pretty far into the tails. Such an adjustment is not something we can, or would, do blithely with all the skis without announcing it well in advance. Other people have other preferences. Someone might be upset to hear we're dropping the tail height.

We could do some tail cutoffs. Even though that tail is bonded with fiberglass, I'd feel better about letting that clip rest on something a little more durable. So, if you find a sheet metal maggot who can shape that cap, we'll send him a blem with the flat cutoff to design his metal work to. The metal is the way to go for cost-effectiveness, as plastic has to be machined and, if done properly, pretreated with a chemical solution for the best adhesion.

If you want to guinea pig the durability of the tail simply cut off flat so your skins clip on better, we can cut your tails with a flat spot. The design change has potential consequences, though not insurmountable, that need to be considered. It dictates you don't jam them into the snow tail-first a bunch or they'll delam without the edge as protection there.

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Indy - A clean PS doc of the art to scale and about $200 for the topsheet company's set up would probably do it for custom topsheets.

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so, twoplanker, what's the approx. wait time on the bros?

We're cutting glass, cores and bases right now, while pressing a few inbetween. Should be wrapped up on prep and have all the materials done for our main run within ten days, meaning we will be doing nothing but pressing from there on out. At that time we'll have 450 cores, 750 sheets of fiberglass 450 bases and edges and be wailing for shipping in October. I'll be with the CNC guys cutting the cores and bases for the next few days to give them a kick n the ass (or nuts, if that's what it takes).

We have plans on hitting Hood in two weeks and have a bunch of protos to press for our first demo days, so I'm crackin the whip!

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Here's the dealio: Topsheets cost for the initial setup and then the cost is quite high until you get into 100 or more. However, I just got back from a trip to Seattle and sourced some new topsheet material that should be off the fukkin hook. It's an expensive Europlastic that won't chip. It has an almost holographic iridescent blue sheen in a clear plastic. The graphic will be sublimated under it. We can only get it in lengths up to 185, so it'll go on the 179s and 179 fatties. I have a test batch of that and some other less clear we could use on the bigger skis coming next week that we will put on the protos for Hood. The material is more than twice as expensive as what we've been using, but is so totally intriguing we have to try it. If it looks good and wears as well as I think it will, we'll use it on all the 179s. We do what we can to upgrade and improve.

As for personalized graphics - two honest words: pain in the ass. At $200 a pop, I fear we'll get graphics that are not up to snuff enough for the graphics guys and end going back and forth between them and whoever sends them in and burn a shitload of time on them when we should be making skis, only to have to tell someone they need to hire md9 to square them away. The graphics have to be done to the die lines of the skis, appropriately layered, and with spec pantone colors and at spec dpi. If there are like ten people or more who might want an alternative version and can pool their bucks to hire ski graphique artiste extraordinaire md9 to make the changes, then the price could maybe come down and there would be less confusion. It’s not that we don’t want to do it, we just don’t want to get spun out in a communications cluster that eats ski-building time. Just being realistic while trying to sate the desires of the faithful, without eating a bagful of dick …

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If it pans out, it will go on all 179s. IF it does what it needs to do....

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Yeah, our MSRP is $1,800, but we just cut through the bullshit around here.

Soulskier - I know you asked me this a while ago and I have failed to get you an answer, so shoot me your digits and we'll talk.

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We would be really stoked to see a profit margin on Bros this season.
Hasn't happened yet, but we got a lot of faith and endless soul on our side.

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If you read back in the threads, you'll see I've discussed dropping the tail tip height, Dark Side.