johnwrparcher

hello all
this is the first post here on skiing forum. I hope that the people here can help me out!!!! I use to ski a lot when i was young then i try-ed snowboarding and i did not care for it. so instead of doing ithere i needed to find something to do in the winter. so i found and old bike and some old ski's and made me a snow bike.



just incase the pic dose not work and you want to see what i'm talking about here is the url
none Photo at none in Haileybury, Ontario, Canada - Pinkbike.com
and heres a nothere shot of the bike/snowboard
none Photo at none in Haileybury, Ontario, Canada - Pinkbike.com


as you all can see i need some help. after i cut the ski's/snowboard the backs of them are flat and that just dose not work well when going back wards. I am a avid Biker and am capable of doing many tricks. Most of which are rotation type tricks were i need to land back wards. this is just not possible with the ski's the way they are. I don't have much money so i have been trying to find a way to bend the back of the ski's/snowboard up. so that i don't keep digging into the ground.

I have had no luck yet!!! any one out there have any ideas?

mlchael4

First of all..let me say that's bad-ass! I see you even tried it out on a scooter frame. That's some great engineering.

OK, well I know the camber of the ski comes from several layers of varying lengths of wood (usually maple) laid one on top of the other. Then the wood layers are sandwiched between layers of Ptex (polyethylene), a top sheet & a bottom sheet. That being said, I don't know of any way to shape (or create a tip by bending) a ski after the fact.

Although, you may be able to make you own ski/snowboard, as you seem fairly technical and familiar with tools. From my own skateboard ramp building experiences...you could soak thin pieces of wood in water to make them pliable...then form the tips. You could then try to coat them with a fiber glass resin (extremely messy) and seal them off with some polyurethane or something. There is a lot of engineering that goes into skis…and these in no way would compare, but they could work fine for your application.

Keep in mind this these are just ideas.
I don’t know how practical they would be, or how well they would perform…but it could be worth a shot.
You’ll have to keep me posted on this one…I’m curious as hell to find out what you do.

P.S. there are some vid’s on you tube about homemade skis, but not a lot of information.

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Mike

johnwrparcher

thanks for the help man. i found a thing that said to boil the ski's for a time and then try bending them in a vice. dont know if it will work out but i will try and let you know. Thanks again Mike for the help. Keep your eye open for me for any other ideas. thanks again

i was also thinking about cutting the front off of 2 ski's on opposit 45 degree angles then then trying make them one ski..... think that would give me the desired effect?

johnwrparcher

Mike i got a way of doing it......lol

I dont know how long or how will it will work in the long run.... but i cut 6 relife cuts about 6 inch back of the end of the ski. Then steamed the back of the ski so that the wood thats left would bend and take the new shape. we did that for 5 min then put it in too a home made jigg bent the ski and used epoxiy resion to fill the relefie cuts and then one cout over the hole thing to rebuild the top layer. littbit of sanding and they look almost like new.

and we got snow tooday enuff for me to get out and try them. they all work just as good as i expected.

I got one more question for all you reading this do you think that your local ski hill would alowe me on the hill with the ski bike? if you awnser no please explane why. I am hopeing to take them to my local ski hill and need to make sure i know what to argue and what not to.

mlchael4

Nice work.
I like the approach, relief cuts, shaping & resin...that's what I'm talkin about!

I would venture to say if you can get the bike on the lift with no troubles you should be good to go.

Are you wearing small skis on your feet or what?

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Mike

johnwrparcher

no.... no ski's on my feet. i got pegs to stand on. it a lot of fun.....

mlchael4

I hooked you up with some +rep for creativity!

You'll have to post up some updated pics...and let us know if you have any probs getting on the mountain with the bike.

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Mike

johnwrparcher

Well i though i would do one better then pics. I have a shot vido one Pink Bike of me and my snow scooter. here is the link. John Snow Bike Video - Pinkbike.com

Its not on the local ski hill. Its not open here yet.
Tell me what you think...... lol

jforrest

Thats a pretty sweet idea! Are you going to try to sell it or is it just something your tinkering around with? I could see BMX bikers wanting to take something like that out on the terrain parks. Either way it looks and sounds like you have fun working on it.

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mlchael4

Man, I just saw you had posted a video of the scooter...that's pretty sweet!
Looks like it's a little tricky to ride, but I bet it's tons of fun.

Nice work!

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Mike