Donek

I've never had an reason to weigh the metal boards. As we don't produce Identical shapes in the two constructions, I can't say for certain. I have not noticed a marked difference in shipping weight between the metals and the glass boards, so I would have to say they are very close to the same. I've built boards that wide in glass before. There would be no problem with a 22.5cm width on a 177. By next season, we'll be able to go a couple centemeters wider than that. EC boards are much more than additional width. EC boards have longer sidecut radii and softer flexes, allowing them to carve similar turn sizes to a FC while putting the board at a greater angle to the snow.

That is the tail. Decambering both tip and tail is important. If you decamber the shovel without decambering the tail, the board will tend to grip more in the tail than the shovel when in a slide, causing the board to turn up hill. Without dimensions, it does look rather large. The decamber begins 5in (13cm) before the tail would begin to turn up on a traditional shape.

I don't have a photo for you, but I've included an engineering drawing of the two tail bends back to back. The metal AX is about .2in (5mm) taller than the fiberglass version.

The metal AX has decambering and more taper. It also uses the variable sidecut radius.

I've built a few metal AX boards this season. There is a 172 in the Bomber Demo Fleet and It made it to SES and ECES. I have thinner metal on order, but it is only necessary on lengths shorter than 167. I can go wider on a 172 or longer with what I have in stock.

A phone conversation is usually the best way to narrow down board selection. The wood graphic looks like a big log. It is printed on our standard pbt and is a gloss finish. If it's a veneer top you're interested in, we might have something like that available next season. I'm playing with it for now. Here's a close up of the top of a board: Higher resolution here: http://www.seanmartinphoto.com/Other/snowboard-graphics/monoski-photos-2009/DSC6594/752637737_odxJ4-X3.jpg

I don't think anyone has actually ordered a corrosion graphic yet. We've done a couple Wood and a few Wolf. I can probably easily get you a photo of the wood on a 200, but I don't see a wolf in my current orders. Are you interested in print quality? Finish?

There has to be give somewhere in the system. If the interface is too stiff, you wind up generating give in the board that was not designed to be there and simply break the board. Boards are not indestructible. Poor choice of a boot and interface will make that abundantly clear.

It doesn't look like the most important issue has been addressed here. Ski boots are more likely to break your board than snowboard boots. Ski boots are designed to transfer pressure to a skis edge. They do not have nearly the lateral flex that a snowboard boot has. If you're going to attempt the use of ski boots, it should be done in the Side Winder or something similar. You'll find that most of the racers using ski boots are using this binding (or something else that flexes a lot) and a plate system. Without these additions, the metal boards they are riding wouldn't last more than a couple runs. Don't use ski boots if you like your board.... On second thought, use them as much as you like. I'd love to sell you that many boards.

:D You'd be surprised at how much time is actually spent on this sort of subject among manufacturers. I think it was Matt Nipper from Aggression who actually counted photos in magazines to determine the better probability of the logo being legible. That was back in the 80's/early 90's. I wouldn't be surprised if multiple marketing studies have been conducted around this very issue.

I am Goofy Bruce is Regular I'd have to dig from last season for a photo of Chris. I don't think the logo orientation has anything to do with that though as I've typically relied on a graphic artist to lay out the artwork. I found the logo orientation a bit disconcerting when developing the web site this season. I produce every board with the shovel to the left. That is our manufacturing convention, so I oriented the boards with the shovel to the left and to my dismay, the logo is upside down on all of them. The convention won out and I left the the logo upside down.

Did you shoot raw of jpg? They look either underexposed or like they have too much contrast. I pretty much always shoot snow in raw. I typically overexpose 1 to 1.7 stops. They should look blown when you take them and have some blinking highlights. In raw they can always be backed down if it's too much, but you've captured the detail in the riders face this way. I reset white balance based on the snow in the foreground usually and set a white and black point. I had to selectively boost contrast in the snow on some of them as well.

I shot a bit during the contests, so there aren't a lot of images, but I got a few nice ones. For those who weren't there, the snow cover was incredible. and here's a few from the 360 contest. There are more here: http://www.seanmartinphoto.com/Sports/Snowboard-and-Ski/ECES-2010/

A typical insert is the bottom left component. Other variants surround it.

In 22 years of making snowboards, I have never seen an insert like that. It would appear that they are simply soldering a nut to a plate. It's quite brilliant, but obviously has some issues. I can't tell who made the board, but would consider it a warranty issue as the solder joint has plainly failed. t-bolting from the bottom will be difficult as you'll have to drill through the original base of the insert. It would be far easier to fill that hole with epoxy and use the surrounding inserts. The board has a 2X4 hole pattern. You shouldn't have to alter your stance all that much to use some other holes.

Mr. Morrison does seem to have the radii backwards. He indicates a 21m radius near the shovel and 15m radius near the tail. I'm pretty certain that is backwards. Such a geometry results in a board with about 2.5cm of reverse taper. It would be possible to pinch the tail to alter this, but I think the board would ride very differently than expected. The Kessler boards I've seen definitely have a tighter radius in the tip and larger in the tail.

Zoe had extra money to spend through Great Brittains team. There were a few extra boards built to test a variety of ideas. We also provided her with the latest saber series designs. In the end Zoe chose to continue riding the same saber construction and shape she rode last season as she did not want to make changes 2 months before the olympics. The board she is riding was designed by her and her coach, but was originally based off the incline series. It is a predecessor to the current Saber series. It was built last summer. We are exceptionally proud of Zoe. This morning I was met with a chorus of "did you see Zoe last night?" when I got out to the shop. It is my hope that our continued work with Zoe and the Steamboat team will help us develop BX boards that will bring US athletes back to a US made product and perhaps entice athletes (like Zoe) from other countries. We are already seeing interest from other olympians and world cup racers. Saber prototyping has progressed throughout this season and will continue.

We use queequeg's solution on every board we make. As we grind the board and always fail to squeegy off all the moisture rusting edges is common. The easiest solution is a stick of parafin wax in the finish area. Every edge gets a rub when grinding is finished and we don't see the rust.

The sun shone all day. I spent about 45 min this morning shooting. These were all taken with the D700 and 200-400 f4. I shot a few familiar faces to start. a lot easier on the eyes and some riding shots trappy When I walked back down the hill the tend was going strong. There are of course more here: http://www.donek.smugmug.com/Sports/Snowboard-and-Ski/SES-2010/11164935_y5NHM

Today was a bit overcast with flat light, so I never shot any riding. I did pull out the gear and shoot some photos at the Bumps party. There were a lot of old faces and many new ones. More here: http://www.donek.smugmug.com/Sports/Snowboard-and-Ski/SES-2010/11164935_y5NHM

Ken Tower and I have rented a house near Carbondale for the duration of the session. We have actually stayed in this particular house before, so we can attest to the luxury. At this point in time, it will just be the two of us staying there and there is ample room for more. The drive to Aspen is an easy 20 mile drive, usually taking about 30 minutes each day. If you are attending and still looking for reasonable lodging, let me know.

Just give me a call. The Specs on the web site are just a starting point. If you want to change the waist, sidecut, length, flex, it doesn't cost any extra and the build time is still 2 weeks. It's only $680 for the exact shape and application you want.

The entire week.

I am filling out the demo fleet for SES and ECES this year. Please let me know what you would like to see there. I have the following, so there is no need to request them. 185 metal WC GS 185 metal rec GS 185 metal FC 175 metal FC 171 metal FC 172 metal AX

Shouldn't be a problem to make something like the Twombly in metal. The waist widths are the current trend, but I have plenty of people ordering narrower. There's no extra charge to do that, so just let me know what you want, and we'll get it done.