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Skis of the Future - Park Edge Durability
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So thinking long term, what new introductions of applied matterials and mechanical design elements have been conceived, experimented with or conceived with that have any hopes to increase ski durability? Just so you know this would be for a dedicated park ski.
Increasing the overall structural integrity, by bracing the underside of the wood core (without compensating the flex) through super strong alloys underfoot could all interested me. these new supercores underfoot, could have this structure between the bases and wood core: which could be routered out with zero effect on the skis performance and long term durability as well as maintaining a good flexibility.
Or more interestingly, I'm currently rendering some design ideas; but the one I really have in mind would be larger, metal "strap like" braces which leave the maximum size of undisturbed core possible. Doing so, this supports the under foot edge because of the mounting around the sidewalls and exterior. These alloy braces would then be able to center the edge from the core to the topsheet, incorporating a higher grade metal underfoot, with a reinforced edge and sidewall (creating in a sense a shock casing) with beefy edges.
Feel free to add your thoughts, I'll add renderings soon. Is there any research done on this kind of topic? Feel free to add your thoughts or roast me, or research with me.
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Just make the whole base a piece of steel. For the true urban warriors who dont give no fucks
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great thoughts, reinforcements always help the longevity of a product, with the side effects of weight, cost and on-snow performance. The amount of time and weird tests we've spend [line] on this is exhausting but the journey continues on! bigger edges and base and good design / expoxy bonds only go so far and hopefully soon we can find the right balance of performance, price and construction to make park skis last a bit longer from the insane abuse they go thru. Urethane sidewalls (they bounce, feel weird), grind plates (too fast, too heavy), no edges (too fast, too bendy) the list goes on. Not to mention on longer rails the steel on steel actually heats up the edge in little micro areas which hardens and cracks (a serious issue when Wallisch was doing the world record). So many variables all boiling down to the simple fact of "little steel slamming and sliding into bigger steel and concrete thousands of times over time (seriously think about how maybe impacts you have) the big steel always wins. stoked to see what your concepts are. -jm
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If I am not mistaken, Dynastar tried using titanium edges back around 2005/2006 for a concept trouble maker ski for their pro team. I assume they thought that metal has some properties that would make the edge last longer than the standard steel edges. I got good deals on Dynastar around this time so I skied them for years but it wouldn't take more than one day of park riding or even just a prolonged hiking session on a rail to get multiple edge cracks. If I could have afforded to, I literally would have destroyed multiple pairs of those skis each year. I had to start setting aside a separate pair of skis for hitting jumps or riding pipe because I needed edges that weren't blown out.
In contrast, I skied a pair of Liberty LTEs for 7 years (just retired them) and used them as my 'rail ski' for several of those years. They had a few edge cracks but none that actually ripped out. I would say that in general, ski companies are doing a good job of making durable skis and hopefully some of the concepts prove to be even better.
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Your never gonna make edges that don't crack, steel hitting steel either your edges break or the rail does (not ideal).
The real future is keeping the cracked edges in longer and developing a simpler method of replacing them than the current technique with the tiny screws and epoxy that is so easy to fuck up without precision tools.
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