Bruce Varsava

Jack, I assume you are done for the season? May be building Angrry # 2 later this week. Have another loyal 158 fan who owns 2 of them and can do back to back testing for another 5 or 6 weeks yet. BV

Yes dear it is missing all the goodies as they are yet to be installed.

It started out as this innocent little template on the left and grew into something of a monstrosity, happenend overnight:eek: [/img]

If you're curious, its certainly not a mountain. Its part of the Niagara escarpment so if you've seen Niagara Falls, You've seen Blue Mountain. More water at the falls though:)

Nope, all demo boards except for the Monster 182. Some of these still need a bit of testing as that can often take an entire season to get through all the different weight riders and snow types. Have a good idea of the use range of most of them though. CK, your board is to be assembled, along with 5 other prize boards , within 2 weeks so we need to discuss details. The 168 VSR FC in a bit narrower like 19 or 20 would be a good call if you like a board on the turny side. Of course there are also AMs Stubbies Monsters Classics NSR and as previously mentioned, the VSR FCs to choose from Happy Easter, BV

Preliminary test results are all real good! The 160 Angrry definitely has some of the spirit of the original Madd 158 ( I spent very little time on an orig but quickly felt the likes and dislikes) Real quick turning, ability to run longer if wanted , very good grip, launches nicely off tail but in a metal controlled manner One error was I set the inserts too far forward for the few design mods I did so while riding it in the morning I was having to lean back to hit the sweet spot and that had me chattering a few times where I didn't know if it was the board or the weird weighting I was applying. Later in the day when I put it back on, took one run got pissed off and moved bindings back about 1.5 cm. Much better balanced ride as expected but could no longer test grip on hard snow as it softened up. I expect the hard snow grip to be more balanced now as in the morning I was experiencing the same feel while testing Shreds X4 as it tended to not bite hard between the feet. Will get real cold tonight so it will be tested again on Sun . One difference was by modifying the design, massive nose pressuring was not at all needed to ride this board. Even in the mashed potatoes late in the session I could carve a line all the way trough by just sitting back a bit. Second last run of the day was taken right under the lift so I could see the lines I was putting down and was surprised at how well it plowed through stuff clumped into reasonably deep soft piles. I found with the original, the nose pressuring was nasty as when you hit something soft leaning forwards it was just too much of a risk. Used full carbon in this one and that will be the factor to see if it works well with a board required to flex that much due to the tighter sidecut. Did this to get he pop but need to test on hard to make sure not too much energy to hold well on ice. I was the only one to test it as others were testing the longer boards and by the time I got finished, so were the legs of other riders so a real tight turning board did not sound like a good idea especially in soft snow. Also rode a new VSR FC 168 x 21 x 12m average sidecut. These new VSR FCs have 3 sidecuts but I will just give the single number which is somewhat around the normal use range for the specific model. This is a similar design to the board Pokkis has for his wife and that is also the one my wife tested and really liked. On this model I slightly softened the mid, extended the nose and really squared it off. Carving was no problem and I really enjoyed this board. Csquared tried this one too and likened it to a teenage girlfriend as it really had spirit and required a bit of energy to ride, hmmm, lazy bastard is used to riding NSR type boards with much less turns per run:sleep: The longer nose I put on to see how far it can be used as an AM board. Has a ton of taper, softer mid section and a big nose. Whaddya know, sounds like an AM model but still carves a seriously stable arc. These boards will be in Tahoe later this week so if it snows, we'll hopefully find out. Next tested a 177 x 20 x 15m VSR FC. Mega stable as this was a direct descendant of the NSRs but with a bit less carbon and a bit more turn radius. The real proto for this model was a hardboot BX board made up last season , Csquared has it so we did head to head testing and found slight differences but all the happy traits were kept so it was a nice ride. This one could easily double for freecarve and recreational race duties. Also took a few runs on a a board I consider probably one of the best as an all around big mountain AM model. 182 x 21.5 x 14/15m Monster F1, the F1 means the nose was flipped up one extra cm for a bit more front lift. Even in the late aft mashed stuff, this board was smooth and carved a nice predictable line to make those conditions fun. While at OES we kinda figured this would be the ideal size for all around use and seemed to work very well on our test day. This is a customers board tested before finishing. Will get some pics after boards are finished this weekend as they all have to go out on Mon. The 3 demo boards will all be going to Tahoe and I look forward to others findings and input as usual. Actually, here are the pics of the bottoms as tops are yet unfinished and have a few details best kept secret. L to R 182 x 21.5 Monster 177 x 20 x 15m VSR FC 168 x 21 x 12m VSR FC Angrry 160 x 19 x 9.5m [/img]

Supposed to be real cold on Sat night so looks like I need to get out again on Sun. Anyone else going out? Still have a few test models lying around. BV

It did get built, late as usual and with the unusual cool weather I will be testing tomorrow. Project name is ANGRRY 160! It is still curing so it really was last minute. Will give feedback tomorrow as I have 3 or 4 new boards to test. Poor Mr Gruumer, he does get a bit miffed if I spend too much time working and not replying to his 679th design change:lol: BV

Sorry but destination now looks like Osler for Friday. Hope to see many there. BV

The radius is tighter in tip and tail and straighter in mid section. To tell you the truth I still do not really understand all the variables but if you get a board to bend and turn from the nose it is a much more aggressive way then getting it to bend in the mid section. The flex has to work in unison with the sidecut . On radial sidecuts, boards that have more mid flex tend to be more relaxed at turn initiation. Soften up the nose and they are much more aggressive at the start of a turn. The multi sidecuts can affect this as you could imagine. Tighter sidecut in nose = more aggressive bending and initiation. When you look at a picture of someone in a hard carve, most of the time the mid of the board is radically bent. Hard carving you can also feel the mid of the board overbending and creating a wider line in the snow to scrub speed. As a designer I can adjust the amount this happens through the flex and sidecut. Some boards you want this to happen to slow things down and other boards for racing you do not. Freecarve boards have more of this and raceboards have the least. Modern raceboards are very stiff and have straighter underfoot for this reason to keep the flex to a minimum and keep your body weight from bending too far into the snow and slowing you down. Obviously there are so many variables it is tough to just put it into math so from my perspective its best just to look at the trends of whats going on and adjust stuff from there.BV

Its a trial and error thing. I have experienced top bonding all the way from peeling off on their own to requiring a body grinder to get them off. Different manufacturers have different backings and then different processes to install so its pretty much full of variables. Best way to get them off is to try slicing the top lengthwise into approx 1" strips with a razor knife and press hard enough just to get through the top . Then take a chisel and try to get the strips to peel off by lifting and prying up with the chisel at the same time. If this does not work and the top starts breaking etc, have fun:biggthump

I usually start at the top and end up at the bottom:biggthump

Sat looks best as it is to be the coolest day. I will be there on Fri early and probably Sat too. Have 3 or 4 boards to test

Even with my limited experience I would agree with Fleaman that if done properly it should last for good. The Rhomboid deal sounds good but in reality with the thin material and usually crude tools used its tough to get it all to fit properly. Of course that also does not address how you shape the sides of the patch. I would assume at 90 degrees but then when you slide your board its not ideal in theory . Rounded off patches work best as there is no corners for peeling to start. Ptex has awesome bond strength if prepped properly so I can see no reason the board cannot be put back into good condition. Worst case you could take it right to the metal, acid etch, chromic acid stabilize and then bond to that. BV

Definitely needed patch and I thought they would have done that in the first place. The article by Fleaman is the way I would tackle it. Once you start hitting aluminum you then have to worry about re prepping it with acid etch etc and the bond is never as good as the original to the anodized aluminum. If the repair seems to be stuck down which it does, best to do a small patch over the gash and make the bond new ptex to flame treated ptex. If they ground a bunch off it gets more and more iffy. Original ptex depth is 1.2mm and looks like you could measure to see what you have left. BV

Sucked into what? BV

I had the pleasure of testing the 168 on rock hard corduroy. Never experienced my gloves heating up from the corduroy before so it must have been hard! That is the "poppiest " metal board I have produced. It is full carbon and the bit tighter sidecut in the tail put me in the air a couple times but in a somewhat friendly manner . The flex would surely make it not the ideal ride for mashed potatoes as the board is pretty short and nose is pretty supple for hard snow initiation. Unfortunately I had no other close boards to head to head and the conditions were so strange from what I normally ride it was tough to judge it but I had plenty of fun. The only other board tested that day was Shreds new 188 x 23 Monster so it was one extreme to the next. The name for that type of board will eventually be VSR FC, (variable sidecut radius freecarves). Trying various nose shapes but IMO it won't make much noticeable performance difference. What testing has shown on a few models so far is they have great stability and trust in the edgehold. You definitely can feel the different arcs you can ride through applying varied weighting and aggressiveness. Not for the timid riders as they do require good skills to maximize the potential and the higher grip is not desired for riders who still include a bit of sliding in their turns. Building a few more this week for ongoing testing till it all melts away. BV

racing= fun seeing Bordy= fun post race cocktails=fun sounds like winning for all involved. need I say more

A reason to put the dacam on is also to make them more slide friendly. Once you get over 180 ish and have full camber with a decent stiffness they are beasts to slide. The amount done in the tail helps with that function of breaking the tail loose when needed. Back in the glass board day we just used lighter biax fabrics for more twist to allow for sliding. With metal ,the thickness and therefore the torsion is predetermined. You have to control power through shaping in this case. BV

Bola: Always a pleasure to interact with you! I am actually toying with the idea of getting a CNC router to speed things up a bit. The one off core shaping does get a bit tedious. May research that acquisition this summer. As mentioned I do make a ton of educated decisions in the good old hair topped computer and not too sure how much is luck and how much is skill when the results come out favorable. New VSR FC coming out of the press today and I may get to test it tomorrow Variable Sidecut Radius Freecarve. Will be working on these over the next season. Thats 6th in the series of board models AHA, I finally figured out which is the 7th part of the lineup;) You get the first one of course! Well thats not true as the first test model is already out there. BV

Now I get it, thanks Jack, as always very informative If you don't think that Jack can rip You don't know jack:biggthump

HAHA, I even have you fooled:lol: Never once have I used a equation to develop anything on my boards. The piece of metal wire and a pencil is the honest truth in how I get my sidecut templates. You just keep blending them together to get the desired results. Thickness is simply done off hand drawn graphs. I regret to inform you I am still in the dark ages but I find eliminating all the time it would take to utilize the technology can slow you down a bit when you are especially doing one offs all the time. Of course there is massive tech in the materials I get but I just assemble them using judgment and previous data. My biggest foe is wood as it always varies so there is definitely a " touch" involved that I get a better feel for by doing most things manually. If I could have totally consistent trees, then I would be laughing! As to having boards from one manufacturer, I see no problem with it especially when mine are involved;) All the boards Mike T has are very very different . Of course different manufacturers boards definitely offer up different experiences but I will go out on a limb here and state I have some of the most consistently well performing boards available. You do not hear too many bad things about my end product and on rare occasion when something does not work out, I of course try to handle it to all parties satisfaction.The reason is simple. I developed a unique and very time consuming system for controlling the parameters especially stiffness that to my knowledge is not used by any other builders. Simply because it takes so much time to do it properly. This was developed while working with racers to be able to duplicate results on a very small budget. The spin off benefit is it really works for doing one offs and getting them super close to desired results which can be pretty tricky with all the involved variables. To do the amount of models I do( currently 5 pretty much finalized metal board lines and working on #6) in the small numbers I do and get it pretty close almost all the time does require special attention and I know of no other way to get the results that consistent. So as much as I love you Bola:1luvu:, I do not utilize any other techniques than above stated. As you know there are so many variables in building and riding it seems tough to get it all into equations at the financial level that Alpine boarding will most likely stay at. Yes there is a ton of marvelous tech in the making of the materials I use but I am just the yoyo with a knack for putting them together. Just calling it as it is.If you are ever in my area, you need to see how low tech I actually am:biggthump Its not really about how you get the materials to do what you want them to, its just the fact that you get them there. Cheers and a box coming to you on Tues! BV

Better you than me:lol::lol::lol:

Not with you on this one? If you are asking about pricing, about 1/2 price I would think when all is factored in

Because real racers need boards in real time, it was too stressful for them and me to continue at the higher levels as I never really plan on increasing capacity that much so could never keep up with demand if it ever happened my way. My NSRs are built to perform at provincial level or state level races and never any more. I had one tested by a WC athlete and they stated " too turny" and of course I thought PERFECT! One point I do get from this is almost everyone in Alpine seems to do it and lose money. Well I don't have that luxury anymore after quitting my day job 3 years ago. I never went to business school but common sense told me to do something differently and while it is a lot of labour on my end, it does pay the bills and leaves a bit of beer money at the end of the day, Also nice to be dealing in a fun business and with cool people ( mostly) . Used or outdated race gear( 2 weeks old) surely can be bought cheap and that is another reason I don't put all my efforts that way. One has to consider why athletes are selling those of course. If it is a real good board, its probably beat,( racers usually do not leave good boards on the shelf) if it isn't a good board or its outdated, that may be why its for sale. Naturally there are some good buuys out there but it also takes knowledge and sometimes a leap of faith to get them Building boards for the side of the market which are not top level athletes has challenges of its own and also many personal rewards for the riders and myself. Testing is a load of fun as the boards are quite versatile and each has its own personality. With most of the designs you do not have to be " full on" to make them work well. The most satisfaction I get is when a feedback report comes in from a rider and they say they have upped their game and are now doing stuff they could not do before. I like to think that sometimes my efforts have let them challenge themselves and have some new experiences maybe otherwise unavailable or too costly So for now I'll keep muddling along doing what I do and of course I realize the waiting time is a pain but it takes a lot of effort to build the boards the way I do it . However, it usually gets very positive results. If I knew of a better way I would be doing it. I'm more interested in the end product rather than the process and will never eliminate a step to save time if it affects the outcome. Cheers