Well, the mountain opens on Fri. I’ve hiked a couple of days and its been really fun. I’m off to shape a 36″ top deck this morning and mount it to another sub I’ve built with a less spatula shaped nose and better flex. Adam is sending me a 151, 152, and 158 today, should see those next week, get them built up and into the hands of some locals. Trucks will be ready first of next week. All of this leads to hopefully a fully functional Shop page on the site where you can purchase stuff. The grip continues to work great but I must admit it really hasn’t seen a true test, Snoqualmie !###%% snow.  Look for a real update on the sub and grip after riding the mountain Friday.

Mark

Yesterday was a surprise all around. We got 2″ of snow in the valley and ?? at the mountain. So with the sun poking out I loaded up the “spatula” and raced up there. To date, the snowfall has been in tiny increments but Friday night delivered around 6″ to the mountain. This 6″ was a drop in the bucket compared to what they need to open. They do make snow at Schweitzer but only on the beginner hill.  They build up huge piles in front of the machines then spread them out and repeat. I parked by some condos and walked to the run. The snow was pretty light and fairly deep. Rounding the corner and seeing the run my thought was, “dang, should have brought the powderboard.” Well I’m glad I didn’t cause this was a perfect time to test the “spatula”. At first glance it appeared that they had flattened out the mounds and that the fresh snow had fallen on top of the groomed run, sweet!! I hopped on and started down the slope. Being the bunny hill its not exactly steep but it has a consistent fall line that goes for a couple of hundred yards. Snowmaking snow is really gloomy and crusty until they spread it out so if you rode directly under the gun then it was weird but on the sides it was light. My first run was ok but not great, I was able to keep speed but not cut hard. When riding on the groomer’s track (not the blade just the bumpy track) the board turned fast and easy and felt really stable. But off the track it was hard to bury the tail. Could be the core was a bit stiff, something I felt from the start or more likely the inserts were too far back which kept the sub from bending where it should. Well, luckily I do have two rear truck settings although they are only an inch apart and might not make any difference seeing the adjustment is so minor. I pulled the pin and moved the rear truck towards the front hole, then hiked back up for a second try. Wow, what a difference an inch made, night and day and all of a sudden the nose was popping out and the powder wasn’t a struggle. Powder might be too nice of a word for crusty wet man made snow but it was untracked that’s for sure. The board rode really well, super fun on the groom and very lively off piste. Now this isn’t the proof I need to start building these, on the contrary this thing has only proven itself to insure another trip to the mountain, but I’m stoked for sure.

Now for the really BIG NEWS the grip kicked ass!!!!! No snow build up, no icy spots, didn’t deteriorate under my tread, looked the same when I left as it did when I started. Completely blew me away and puts my mind at ease.

It may look like a “spatula” but it was tricky getting this egg on there

Before I get into too much detail on the sub check out the new narrow insert bases. These are mainly for the Ralston 1 1/2 insert spacing although the spatula is sporting a 2″ dim. That’s right I just introduced another option. Actually I think we should all change to 2″, would fit both narrow and wide boards. But I’m sure that’s not going to happen so I guess I’ll be alone in that.

this either looks like a duck bill or some kind of serpent with its mouth open. Any other sugestions?

Ok even I’ll admit that the nose is HUGE and square. Uh….what can I say, I wanted a plunge proof nose. I want that thing to pop up like a toaster. I will concur that the shape could be a bit less sponge bob . The dims on this thing are 46″ long, 6″ at the widest on the nose, 5 3/8″ wide on the tail. Camber with early rise nose. Basically its a 40″ ski in a 46″ body.  I have not ridden it but if we get a few more inches with this next storm I’ll at least hike a bit this weekend and report back to you.

I think most people would consider board width to be a matter of personal preference. There are the obvious cases when the sub is very thin and the top deck is very wide, or vice versa when the sub is very wide but the top deck is narrow, that problems can arise. With the first case of the sub being dwarfed by the top deck you can have problems with the deck dragging on the snow when carving. This takes away leverage from the sub edge plus limits it from digging in any deeper. The other case of a narrow top deck mounted on a wide sub creates a lack of leverage or a diminished amount of force onto the ski. These both are pretty obvious examples of extremes and while they can create problems they wouldn’t necessarily make it impossible to ride, just a bit harder. So far I’ve got two widths in production, a 10. 1/4 POWDER and 9.3/8 ALL MOUNTAIN.

The benefit of a wide board in powder is that you reduce the drag created by your feet when carving. Also it creates more surface area which helps keep the tail from sinking so much on drops. This is especially helpful when running a short tail like on the Florida powderskate 125. The advantage of a narrow deck on a narrow sub is that you can lay it over more on hardpack carves without bouncing the top deck off the snow.

Check out the size difference in the Lib tech 48″ and Ralston 41″. There’s almost 1.3/4” in the tail alone. While that’s not a huge number it does translate into difference in of leverage and float. Running a 10.1/4 wide deck on the Ralston would be an overkill and limiting unless you had a really high truck height. Running a 9.3/8 top deck on the Lib tech would be fine unless you really needed some leverage for carving ice. But if that was the case you probably wouldn’t have your powder skate loaded.

So when choosing a deck width the things to think about are first; personal preference, second what type of terrain will you most likely be riding and third how many subs are you hoping to mount to it. If you want to run both narrow and wide subs then a 9.3/8 top deck is best but if you only want to hit the pow… the bigger is better.

Seems like I’ve done this the last few years, post up a picture of an almost finished batch of boards. This is the first moderate size run of decks that I’ve done using the new press and new shaping jigs. As is always the case little mysteries present themselves while working and plans change. Nothing too drastic and in reality its all part of the process, weeding out the things that don’t work so the things that do can florish. Anyways here’s the shot, hope to have some finished pictures soon. I’m going with a blacked out look for the sidewalls, although you’ll see one finished natural. My thinking is that if the edges get scratched up then you can fix it with a sharpie. Hopefully I’ll have some finished pictures soon.

Here’s last summer’s project. The Jacks apply pressure and the boat jack brings the form up so you can pull out the deck. There’s one in the oven right now. I set this press up to do two decks at a time but right now just pressing singles until I get a bit faster with the epoxy. My old press is still up and running, it uses vacuum for pressure and has an adjustable form. I’ll still be doing the 37″ decks on it. This gives me a bit more flexibility seeing how I won’t have to change forms to do different sizes.