jim_s

Sweet - Order placed!

You guys have me really wanting to try out a Virus now! (And a Skwal, too!!)

I make no claims of exemplary technique - I'm a self-taught hack - but even given my very modest set of skills and in this case a very shallow trail, the 18cm waist MK provides more turns and smiles per run than anything I've ever ridden. Even skinny little cat tracks are fun!

@SunSurfer and @Kneel I hear you guys, and no doubt, a hard case like that would be the best possible protection, but the other consideration is how much volume I take up in limited spaces - I don't want to be a d*ck and take up 1/2 the space we've got available for skis and boards when we take cars/wagons (in the van, it's not quite as big a deal). (Plus, the hard cases are 2-3x the price I am willing to pay!)

I've had an old Burton snowboard bag that I've used for ages, but the zipper has finally given out. I'd just replace the zipper, but the bag itself is in kinda rough condition with various minor tears in it. I don't travel w/ my board, other than to throw it in the back of the van with other boards and skis to go up to the local hill. ('local' being a 3hr drive on bumpy, curvy roads, so a sleeve would likely be a bit too minimalistic...) I don't need lots of padding (such as for airport baggage gorillas), nor rollers/wheels, etc - just a basic, reliable bag that I can zip my baby in to protect it from others' edges, as well as contain melt-off at the end of the day so as not to make a mess in my or others' vehicles. (Some type of carrying handle would be nice, and ideally it'd have maybe one or two zipper pockets in which I could keep an extra leash, a screwdriver, an edge sharpener, a few spare bolts, etc in.) Under/around $100US would be nice, too. (This is for my MK, so it'd need to accommodate a 161cm length w/ square tail - not much volume needed for the folded-down F2 bindings.

I'd be sure to talk with @SunSurfer too!

Awesome to hear it holds up for 'real man' sized people. I'd love to one day get out and ride with some others on an MK, just to see how the different approaches, techniques, etc play out. (Maybe I can make MCC next year...) Love the comment about it going to 11 - I wholeheartedly agree! Life is too short to spend time relaxing on a snowboard!

OMG, I know - that's one of my favorite things - the ability to just keep pumping out endless short-radius carves on flatter terrain that you'd otherwise be trying to get all tucked down for to just try to manage not to grind to a halt on! Interesting about the vibrations you guys have mentioned - I guess as this is the only board that I ride, I have nothing to really compare it to. Doesn't bother me at all, but I perhaps it's just what I am accustomed to. Whatever it is, I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Yeah, I suspect the MK would be noticeably different ride for someone over the 150-160lb range, and way different for those over 200lbs. I would personally classify my weight as being pretty close to the sweet spot for the MK - it takes a fair bit of work to ride it and bend it, but it's flex, dynamic response, and ability to vary the carve radius at my weight is what I love about it. If I were heavier, or it were softer, I could see it being too floppy for me in some situations. I wonder if the comparatively flexy nose (WRT the mid-section and tail) is a trait of the original Madd, and thus replicated by Donek, or if it's some sort of secret sauce that Donek added? My Donek SL board actually had a very flexy nose - even at my low weight, I could over-flex the SL board's nose if I really got forward. There were a number of times where I'd get too far over the front of the SL, and it'd just about fold up, then unleash and fling me over the bars, LoL. Man, I loved that board! (But I love the MK even more!! I could see a tamer, calmer board in my longer-term future (I'm 57 now, so if I can make it another decade or so on boards that demand a lot of attention, I'll be pretty satisfied (I sometimes wonder if skiing might be more sensible over 70, but I just can't mentally/emotionally go there yet...)

I dunno, @Odd Job - I rode an SL board for about 10 years before getting the MK, and I find the MK an overall better ride in pretty much every respect. (It does need be ridden differently than the SL, though, for sure.) I LOVED that SL board, and I honestly expected I'd probably switch back and forth between it and the MK from time to time, but I literally never rode the SL board again after getting the MK. I could see the MK being a different experience for someone who weighed more than my skinny self, though. While Sean said I was on the lower end of the weight range for the MK, I wouldn't really want it to be any softer than it is. I could see it being able to be overpowered by a heavier, stronger rider.

TBH, I've never noticed anything like this. The board does make a low growling noise when carving on solid snow - it's really kind of strange, and I've heard others mention it, as well. So, that's obviously the result of some type of vibration, but I've never felt it transmitting up into my feet or legs or such. The MK can definitely vibrate a bit in the nose on hard or chopped up (but still hard) snow if you don't manage your fore/aft weight transition through the progression of the carve, but I've never found that to be particularly bad, either - it's usually a sign that I'm being lazy and static in my weight distribution, and getting back on top of my weight transfer largely makes it go away. (Frozen-solid corduroy and cat-chopped boilerplate tend to lead to nose chatter no matter what you do, it seems.) It could also be that I benefit from being pretty lightweight, as well as the fact that I have a near-obsessive biking habit, so my legs and lungs are used to long hours of abuse. (I will say that when seriously pushing tight carves on a long run, riding the MK becomes a genuinely aerobic exercise.)

@barryj - I got the MK back in the 2017/2018 season, and have been riding it as my sole (soul?? :-) board since then. I ride it all day, every day, in all conditions. (Granted, I really never ride more than 3 days in a row - I suspect by the 4th or 5th consecutive day, I'd probably need a day off... I also never see more than a few inches of fresh snow at a time - the MK would be an anchor in truly deep snow, though I suspect that could be said for any skinny, flat-tailed, alpine board.) It's a stock MK. I'm a lightweight (likely 145 by the time I'm all layered up, wearing my UPZs, helmet, etc), and I was concerned about my ability to flex the stock board. Sean said I was sorta right on the line of it being a usable flex for me, and I'm really glad I stuck w/ the stock board - it's a significant workout riding it all day, but it's a crazy dynamic board - lots of pop between tight-radius turns, but will also run huge, sweeping carves if I let it. It's a whole lot more work slowing it down than letting it run wide, but living in the mid-Atlantic, and riding at smaller places, the tight radius carves are the key to getting in lots of turns, but not taking people out nor being taken out by others. The other thing that cracks me up about it is it's ability to pump - I routinely blow by people on cat tracks, bottoms of trails, etc, as they're trying to keep moving or skating (on skis) - meanwhile, I'm continuing to carve up a storm as I whiz past them - the board just has all kinds of energy output in response to energy input. I've never ridden a board w/ a plate, but from what I know of them, I suspect it'd be a Soul-damning level of Sin to run a plate on a stock MK. It is a wound up, exuberant, full-feedback little beast. I think that to truly experience it, you probably need to be willing to naked-mud-wrestle with it on every run. Cool to hear the Angrry is working well - I'd love to try one of those one day - it sounds a whole lot like the MK!

Sorry, I think I might've mentioned this once or twice before... but at the start of every season, I'm re-amazed by this board. It is absolutely freaking awesome. It brings a huge smile to my face on every run - the lifties must think I'm some kinda nutcase, as I'm usually grinning like a fool and giggling to myself as I plop down on the chair. Whew, I feel better having gotten that off my chest...

Just got back from 3 days at Snowshoe Mountain in WV. Only about 60% open, and far from prime conditions, but every trail was carvable, and lots and lots of curvy lines were left in the snow. (Had a ridiculous amount of interest in the board this week - there are always a few curious questions in the lift line, but I literally had people following me on the slopes, expressing admiration and amazement at the MK's carving ability, and just being overall excited to see what an alpine board does!) Winter in the mid-Atlantic is always fickle, but if you're in that region, it's worth keeping an eye on Snowshoe, and making a (mid-week) trip when the temps are right and the rain is not too recent.

Ok, next question - which firmness of the Booster strap? I'm used to the non-flexing 'Shoxxter' straps (non-flexing until they started slipping this season, LoL), so I guess the firmer the better? (Bearing in mind that I use the upper strap to add stiffness to a relatively loose upper cuff, so I'm not sure I need much stretch/give in the strap. But, I'd welcome input from others who use the Boosters.)

LoL, that's a valid question! I find that just keeping the buckles loose'ish allows too much flex, but snugging the strap down a bit allows me to still put some pressure on the cuff w/o making them too stiff. (Probably doesn't make sense to hear me describe it, but this is the arrangement I've come to after using the RC10's for a few years.) For whatever reason, making the top 2 buckles each even one more notch tighter just stiffens things up too much, and I tend to then be a lot 'stiffer' feeling on the board, and end up with my weight a bit too far back often times. (I've tried twisting those top 2 bails in and out to fine-tune the tightness on the next notch, but ultimately, still settled on loose'ish on the buckles, and snug'ish on the strap.) I use the stock black tongues - with the aforementioned buckle/strap arrangement, I find the black tongues to be just about right. I ride with both boots in 'ride' mode, and with a fair bit of forward lean in them. (I don't ever take them out of 'ride' mode, so I couldn't even tell you any more which position they're in, LoL, as I haven't changed the lean position in years. I like the RC10's a lot - they're far from the most comfortable boots I've ever used (Intuition liners help on that front a fair bit, but I still tend to flip up the lower 3 buckles for the lift ride most of the time, just to keep the blood flowing), but they're definitely the most performance-oriented boots I've ever used. It's a tradeoff between comfort and responsiveness - I find the responsiveness to be worth the discomfort. (In truth, they're most uncomfortable for the first few runs of the day. I think the blood volume in my foot reduces after a few runs of being squeezed tight, and they tend not to be as overly-tight feeling after that, though I still tend to flip those lower buckles up between runs, so that I can wear the boots all day w/o problems.)Good luck with your testing of them - give them some time, and definitely play around with the innumerable adjustment options on them - they're worth the trouble, IMHO. (And if you haven't already, I can highly recommend Intuition liners. The stock UPZ liners are an embarrassment to the UPZ brand, IMHO - they feel like they're made of fabric-wrapped corrugated cardboard, and have the corresponding comfort, foot support, and insulation properties of some fabric glued over a single layer of cardboard. The boots were initially just about unusable for me with the stock liners. The Intuition liners made them usable-bordering-on-comfortable. @SunSurfer - do you have a link to the straps you referred to?

The top straps on my RC10's have started slipping - at the end of the last few days, they've both been really loose. (I keep the top 2 buckles a bit on the loose side, so that my little 137lb body can flex the boots, and this flex seems to be working the straps loose over the course of a few hours.) This is new behavior - I've not had a problem with them slipping appreciably in the past. Not sure if it's the strap just getting smoothed out from use, or the springs in the buckles getting worn out or what. I considered maybe sewing some velcro onto the straps, so they'd hopefully resist slipping. Anyone else have this develop, and if so, any suggestions? (I guess buying new straps/buckles might be a sensible option, too.)

"God Damn, what was THAT?" (After blowing by a group of teens who thought they were really cruising, while ripping super-tight slalom-style turns on my MK.

I'm pretty sure there was a 'required field' asterisk by the 'Billing Address' fields, but I can't say with 100% certainty - maybe someone else who fills in that same form will weigh in, but I'm reasonably sure the billing address was required to complete the form. The form did say, "Expires: 05/27/18" - given that today is the 17th, it looks like they send out the email 10 days in advance of the due date - seems perfectly reasonable. Don't let this stress you out - its a minor inconvenience, for sure, but not something that's going to have me holding back on my $3/mo. ? I'm sure things will smooth out over time - a few hiccups should be expected, and are worth the end result!

This is not a huge deal, but I just got an invoice for my monthly subscription cost - had to fill out name/address, log into PayPal and select a payment method, etc - is there a way that I can alter my subscription so that I've just got an automatic recurring charge against my PayPal account? (I do this with Patreon, for instance - it it just hits up PayPal behind the scenes each month, and I never have to do anything until/unless I decide I want to stop.)

I'm totally good w/ the monthly auto-renewal - Thanks for doing this!

I'm no machinist (I do a fair bit of machining, but I'm a hack... ), but I think just the nuts alone should do a sufficient job of cleaning up the threads, especially if you lightly grind a tiny bit of chamfer on the end before threading the nuts back off, and work the nut back and forth a bit as you're threading it back off the end of the cut bolt. I need to measure the bolt head depth of the ones I'm using. I got the flattest-headed bolts I could find locally, then ran them on the belt sander to take a little more off, and then they fit (with a thin star washer underneath) into the binding top pieces fine (ie, the sliding part was able to slide over them w/o any problems). Those ones that you found look promising, for sure! (YMMV, but I'd recommend some kind of lock washers underneath them, to keep them from backing out - I'll be curious to see if the star washers end up chewing up the plastic over time...)

@erazz - any experience w/ ASA?

I freaking love having you involved in all of this, @erazz!!

@jburk - yes, you've got that correct. The wall_thickness parameter in the OpenSCAD file controls how thick the wall is rendered in the virtual 3D model (the STL file generated from OpenSCAD). The shells value is something you specify in the 'slicer' software that converts the virtual 3D model in the STL file into a series of layers that the 3D printer prints. (So, the slicer and its settings are separate from the OpenSCAD file and its settings - except as noted below.) FDM 3D printers have a nozzle with a fixed diameter (0.4mm is very common) through which the melted filament is fed, so a bead of filament's height and width will generally match the nozzle width (not taking into account any 'squishing' associated with the layer height). The slicer, in addition to slicing the 3D model up into layers (where each layer corresponds to a slice that is the thickness of the chosen layer height), controls things like how thick to make external walls (shell thickness), how much infill to use, etc. (Some slicers have the shell thickness specified in mm, and some specify the shell thickness as the number of shell layers, where each layer is assumed to be the thickness of the nozzle diameter.) There are usually settings for both vertical shells (sides of a print) and horizontal shells (top and bottom surfaces of a print). A typical shell thickness setting is 0.8mm (or 2 shell layers, for a 0.4mm nozzle), which is fine for decorative items. For something structural, thicker shells will be stronger. The area between the shells in a print will be filled with infill. (Infill being a way to fill larger volumes using a matrix of filament, with gaps in the matrix, to save on filament use and time to print.) So, if you have a wall_thickness in the F2 Shim model of 5mm, and you were to specify a shell thickness of 0.8mm (not recommending this, just as an example), that would leave a gap of 3.4mm between the shell walls, which would then be filled with a matrix pattern of infill material, the density of which is indicated by the infill percentage. (This is an area where your slicer shells setting is related to your OpenSCAD model's wall_thickness setting...) If you specified an infill percentage of 100%, then you'd get a solid wall in your print, no matter how thick your wall is specified in OpenSCAD. Alternatively, if you don't want to use 100% infill, but still want the walls to be solid (in these shims, the walls are what are bearing the vast majority of the forces...), then you could instead just set your shells thickness to 2.5mm (each shell - the one on the outside, and the one between the outside and the hollow pocket underneath) will be 1/2 the width of the wall. Or, if specifying shell thickness in layers, 6 layers at 0.4mm each would give you 2.4mm thick shells, which would technically leave a 0.1mm gap in between, but at least with my hot, wet and sloppy printing method, that gap gets filled in. If you're daintier with your print technique, then you'd want to up the shell layer count to 7, to be sure you got a solid wall. The top and bottom shells will be whatever thickness you specify (in the slicer) for the horizontal shells (different slicers call it different things), but as the shims are typically lifted and/or canted, one side or end is going to be thicker than the other side or end, so its more difficult to force a completely solid top and bottom based on the number of horizontal shells - what works for the thin end/side won't work for the thicker end/side. So, you can revert back to using 100% infill (definitely strongest!), or you can accept that there is going to be some infill in the 'roof' of your shims. (I personally don't worry too much about infill in the roof - I think the walls are what are really bearing the forces.) The following article goes further into explaining some common slicer settings - its worth a quick read: https://www.3dhubs.com/knowledge-base/selecting-optimal-shell-and-infill-parameters-fdm-3d-printing