Donek

Should be possible. Give me a call before Monday.

I'll bring along a camera. I find it easiest to photograph on skis, but bringing them will not be possible. Weather permitting, I'm sure I'll take photos for 2 to 4 hours. I'll be there Friday and Saturday.

e-mail: smartin@donek.com phone: 877-53-DONEK

I just made plane reservations. I'll be there thursday afternoon and depart on Sunday. I'll bring a few demos. Any boards in particular people would like to test? Any non-smokers, light partiers (I like sleep) looking for a room mate?

Zoltan, I'm actually typically recommending the 170 to someone on a 160. The ride is similar, but the added length provides a lot more stability and a more forgiving ride in the carve.. It will of course be a bit more to handle in crowds and in a slide. The 170 Razor is probably my favorite soft boot board right now. It's a dream to ride. If you're going to be in Colorado at all this season, I'd be happy to lend you a demo.

What a difference a little light will produce. I spent about 3 hours with the guys from Greece today. More here: http://donek.smugmug.com/gallery/7336937_49TSK#P-2-24

I've posted some other photos here: http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24627

So far the light has been pretty awefull. Overcast every day. Highlands provides the opportunity to hike up from the base , so I shot a few. Today we also took a group shot. This guy was beside the road There are more here: http://donek.smugmug.com/gallery/7336937_49TSK Hopefully we get some blue skies tomorrow.

When you order a custom you are the only person to ride that shape. That's why it is a custom. I almost always provide my input and don't typically build someting that is so far outside my experience that I can't have a reasonable expectation that it will work.

I forgot to add that I can also offer a raw fiberglass surface for painting if your friend prefers that.

I have a roll of white ABS topsheet in stock. I can provide a board with this material. It is designed to take paint like this, but your friend needs to be sure to use the same type of paint he would apply to a plastic car bumper rather than what is typically used on metal auto body panels.

I think the only custom builder doing a clear coat like this is Frank at Virus. He has a spray booth. This technique is difficult to accomplish in the states as there are regulations on the commercial use of such equipment. Not to mention the hazards for the individual doing the spraying. If you wish to duplicate hand drawn/painted artwork on the board, you can send me the hand drawn artwork and I can photograph it and then reprint it on the board. If you don't want to part with it, I believe most Kinkos have drum scanning capabilities.

Looks like it might be. A cnc router inside a surface planers chassy. It's the perfect width for snowboards. I wonder what it's working length is. Fascinating approach that I've never seen before.

Oh, and hey man! I'm Canadian too! Haven't you ever heard me say "Eh!"

I'm assuming the use of the dremel base pictured in Fleamans original post. If you want a square patch 2in X 2in and the base of that dremel tool is 2in in diameter, you make a square hole in a piece of plywood that is 4in X 4in. When you run the 2in diameter demel base around the perimeter of that square hole, the bit will cut a square that is 2in X 2in. The only thing that remains is to adjust for the thickness of the cut when going from the patch to the hole in the base. Above I stated the shims should be the thickness of the bits radius. That was wrong, it should the thickness of the bits diameter. Your patch will have square corners, where your cutout will have rounded ones. It will be necessary to square the corners on your cutout or round those on the patch. If done correctly, you should get a very good fitting patch and cutout.

Actually I heard a couple years ago that Sears had plans to produce a bench top cnc router. I don't know what happened to it. If you look online, there are multiple plans for bench top units that carry a small router or dremel. There are even plans for converting mini mills for cnc control. Most of them are adapted from discarded printer and floppy drive stepper motors. The only metal I cut with my cnc is the titanal laminates that go in our metal boards. Everything else is wood or plastic. You could cut a template large enough to fit the base of a dremel and your shape. It is actually possible to do the entire job this way, including cutting your patch. You would simply cut your template to run your dremel inside of (this could be done with a jig saw). Cut your base material by running the dremel around the outside of the template. To cut the base material off the board, you would need an offset shim inside the template equivalent to the radius of your dremel bit. If your template is square, just place strips of wood along the inside edges of the template that are the thickness of the cutters radius and begin cutting.

I rarely do repairs like this, but have done some. You've done what I do for the most part. I would have set up a router with a template (cut on the cnc) and cut all the way through the p-tex. This involves some tricky adjustments, but with a dial indicator you can usually make incremental depth adjustments of about .005in until you are through the base. I then use our cnc to cut multiple patches each .005in bigger than the next. When I find the one that fits the best, I use it. The patches I've done have been much bigger. As long as 40in. I put the board back in a press rather than clamp. It then gets a base grind. If the metal is directly under the base, it does present a problem. If you lightly sand the aluminum minutes before applying your e-poxy, you should get a good bond. aluminum will oxidize. This is what prevents adhesion to it. By sanding immediately before applying your epoxy, you should get an extremely good bond.

You need to attend SES. Most of the attendees agree that it is the best carving mountain in Aspen. That's why we do it 3 days. A lot of people choose Buttermilk on the day off too.

You may be right. The transitions became harder the steeper the terrain became. Wether that would come with time, I'm not sure. For my style, I felt that any payoff decreased with increased pitch. I think this is truly the big payoff. All the freestyle companies producing these things will ultimately grow the carve market. Perhaps. My experience on ice included a steeper pitch, so I can't comment for sure on this one. I found the board worked best for lower speed cruising and carving on terrain similar to Buttermilk.

I have pbt (the material that snowboard materials sells) in stock. It hasn't been a standard for us until we started doing metals. It will look the same as any of the topsheets Bruce has been using.

I hesitated to say anything, but "sharpshooter" is far from what they deliver. Most amateurs could do better with a cheap point and shoot.

Just as a heads up guys. My cusyom printing equipment is only in use about 1/4 of the time, so quick turn arounds are no problem. I have no problem doing something like this and sending it on to Bruce. There would be no need to deliver a physical CD of the artwork either. I can work with you to get the file down to 2 Megs without any loss of image quality.

If you look closely, you'll notice that the tip and tail begin to rise off the ground much closer to the wait of the board. I've stretched the image vertically to emphasize this.

bottom image illustrates conventional camber. middle image illustrates reverse camber. top image illustrates rocker

This board was reverse cambered in the middle.