Steve Dold
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Posts posted by Steve Dold
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Kip: It takes a lot of heat to re-shape these things. I found that out tonight during one of my ill-advised experiments that, 9 times out of ten, costs me a lot of money. This time it was successful though
I had a problem with one of my AF-600s where it was squeezing the outside of my foot, near my little toe, and causing pain after a couple of runs.
Tonight I made a thing out of two small, shaped blocks of wood similar to the parts in the picture above. I drilled holes part way through them and used all-thread and a nut and washer to connect them together so that they could be inserted in the same area as in the picture above, and when the nut is turned the pieces spread apart. Basically it's a makeshift tool to do the same thing as the thing in the pic.
After I put quite a bit of tension on the boot in the area I wanted to "punch out", I heated the hell out of the shell on the outside in that spot with a heat gun. I watched it closely in case something bad happened, but it never did. Eventually the shell deformed a little and I now have a much better-fitting boot.
So it is possible to do this with a heat gun. I don't think a hair drier would be hot enough.
I did this to a boot that had a lot of miles on it. I'm glad I did it, but if I had a newer/nicer pair of boots, I'd definitely take them to a bootfitter.
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I had my first real thermoflex liners molded at a place in Tahoe near Squaw Valley that everyone raved about. "Ask for so and so, he's the best".
After spending about two hours there and something like $40, I came out with boots that fit decently, but were still pretty uncomfortable.
Later I molded them myself using some instructions from (I think) Dave Morgan, and they were 100% better. I don't know what went wrong, probably just the luck of the draw, but I'll never pay someone else to do them again unless I need the shells expanded or new footbeds. I could have taken them back for another fitting, but they felt so good after I did them myself I didn't see the need.
You have to be sure that the liners are heated evenly and completely, to just the right temp.
A six pack? Funny, no one ever tried to pay me for flying lessons with beer
It would have been an improvement over the $11 an hour I was getting. -
It seems plausible that you could think you are accelerating through a turn by downweighting the edge and tightening the turn, because of the the coriolis effect :D
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"how's it goin', eh?"
Actually I already like Speedzilla's the best. heh heh
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True, there are a lot, but if they drove to work, or do anything involving high speeds or machines with moving parts, or make my food, or work on the brakes on my car, they deserve to be slammed.How many people in the world have played to hard at a wedding/birthday/victory/whatever party and still have gone to work the next day with a buzz on?
I think part of the reason it's sort of "acceptable" to do that is because of guys like Bode. It didn't used to be that way.
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Are they going to pay for it?
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TD, I've always wondered what a suggested torque would be, too. I'm kind of a "numbers" guy.
But for what it's worth, I've had dimples in Doneks, F2's, just about every board I've ever had, and I don't tighten the screws all that tight. I'd call it medium. I think there is going to be some amount of crush with any board. It's probably a good idea to check the tightness of the binding screws after this has happened.
When waxing, I either take the bindings off, or if I'm in a hurry or lazy, I leave them on but avoid spending much time with the iron under the inserts, because I think heating the board with tension from the bindings will probably cause some relaxation of the fibers, deepening of the dimples and maybe slight loosening of the screws (loss of preload). Wow, that was a hell of a run-on sentence.
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Some of them are like boats. The two best days of your life are the day you get one, and the day you finally get rid of it.
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Someone else had an alp, I've never ridden one. You'll like that Coil on days with softer snow, even after you've moved on to more "serious" carving boards.
I think it's important to focus on getting good technique down before trying to "get low", because getting low (the right way) is good technique taken to the extreme. My riding has suffered because I haven't worked on the basics as much as I should, so even though I sometimes get lower in my turns than many of my friends, they are mostly better overall riders because they have been working on good technique, not just laying down and whipping around a turn. I love doing that, it's really fun, but it doesn't make me a better rider, and the way I do it looks awkward
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I was afraid that might be the problem. I've managed to carve decent turns on it, but I have to basically ride the tail (put all my weight on the tail - but then I can only do large-radius turns. I think the nose is just too floppy probably? What are you riding now and was it night-and-day when you switched away from the Coil?
I weigh 180. I moved from the Coil to a Donek Freecarve 163, which was a lot stiffer and I didn't like it very much. I have since ridden a 171 freecarve which I liked much better, it seemed easier to ride (stable) and I had much better edge hold with it (more edge available). Now I am on boards in the 175 +/- range and they seem very stable and have great edge hold, and while they are not as easily maneuvered as shorter boards, they are adequate. Going longer made a huge difference in my riding because of the added stability and edge hold.
That is just my experience, it would be best to talk to Sean (if you go with Donek). Did you read the articles on this site? I think there is one about selecting different types of boards.
I would be amazed if I ever saw anyone carving the Coil very hard, it didn't take much to bend mine into a very small radius shape, too small for a realistic turn radius.
I think that when you get a board on its edge approaching 90 degrees, the turn radius is influenced more by board stiffness than sidecut radius, unless you are on very hard snow. Others may disagree.
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I had a 165 Coil and it was a fun board, but it was way too soft to do that unless you are very light, around 110 pounds. You might pass along some info like your weight and boot size, you'll get some good replies.
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Once, a friend of mine left her Burton Ultra Prime in the sun for about an hour on a pretty warm day. The base was facing the sun. When she came out, the base had a big bubble about 5 inches in diameter. It's the only time I've ever seen this, and the board might have been defective before this, but it made me not want to leave boards in the sun on hot days with the bases up.
How hot does a hot box normally get, and how long is the board left in there?
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Mark, the Swoard is one of the older ones. I think they were made by Duret maybe? Not one of the new Virus ones. The waxing iron I use has a small footprint, so it's not too hard to do. It's harder to scrape though, I use a metal scraper and I can't easily take all of the excess wax off the center area with the board the way it is.
The corrosion is light grey or white, looks like salts from some kind of galvanic thing going on. I forget how that works.
I rode the board today, it's still my favorite board.
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The screws aren't too long, they are about 1-turn short of bottoming out. I'm pretty careful about that (there's another story). I don't know about freezing, I guess it's possible. A flat chunk of metal and hammer, huh? Cool! I could try a belt sander, but I'd have to do the whole topsheet to make it all even. For the base I could set a couple of concrete bags on top and drag it down the street behind my truck. That's even it out. About one block should do it.
I'll go buy some cool shelf paper and put that on the topsheet, so at least I'll have SOME sort of graphic for the wall. Maybe some flowers or ducks.
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I've never heard of a hot box, that might be the answer. DFJ, as far as I know there is no internal damage and the base-highness seems pretty uniform down the whole length of the board, so I might be in good shape.
It's funny, I just built an oven for powdercoating that this board would fit into, but I'd better leave this to the experts
My record in dealing with boards isn't good right now. Randy, I really appreciate the offer. I need to go up to Truckee for work pretty soon, so I might be able to pick it up, but I may take you up on that if it doesn't work out. Thanks guys.
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Sure, you can ride it Jim. Hey, where's that place you and Hugh have your boards tuned? Maybe I'll dump it off there tomorrow.
This is sort of off-topic, but someone (I think it was you Jim) asked me to post a pic of the tuning stand I made out of lumber and pipe insulation that clamps into a Workmate, so here they are. It works pretty well, I can scrape no problem and not have to hold the board, or clamp it. The thing took about ten minutes to make.
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I wish it was binding suck. The bumps are poking outward, both top and bottom (just saw your message below, Kirk. Thanks for the sympathy
). I'm not sure how that happened, and how it relates to the corrosion, unless it's because the inserts are corroded in areas that are expanding their thickness. Also, I just noticed my Swoard is edge-high, almost the whole length of the board
With a true bar I get about 1/16" clearance down the center. I'm not sure if there's enough base and edge material to let me have it ground flat again. What a fine piece of workmanship. That's my incentive to stay on the edge, I guess. I hate snowboards!
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Tomorrow is my first day of the season, so tonight I took my 178 Renntiger out of the bag to wax, and I noticed convex bumps in the base where the inserts are. So I took the bindings off and found corrosion in the inserts! There are bumps and corrosion on the tops of the inserts too, even the ones that didn't have screws in them. The screws are still shiny.
Needless to say I'm not 100% pleased with this situation.
Apparently, after riding it last season, I just tossed it in the bag, wet, where it stayed all summer (and then some, thanks to the slow start we're having). I can't believe I did such a jackass thing. I must have been drunk or tired.
But I guess if my misfortune can serve as a warning to others, maybe it won't be for nothing.
This thing won't even make a good wall ornament because it's just a long, black dull-looking board
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That's what the stuff he ordered adds up to (actually 731 if he got two suspension kits).
It would be a lot easier if it was shipped to someone here in the states, and we shipped it to you as a used item. That tax is ridiculous.
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Criminy, a guy who is just now learning how to re-size a picture is the last person I'd recommend Photoshop to! I use it frequently, but for simple re-sizing I just use MS Photo Editor.
Not that there is anything wrong with Photoshop, it's the best software ever in my opinion, well worth the money. In fact, it's a bargain. And I'm not just saying that because one of the authors is a regular on this forum
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wait...canted toward the nose? both?
probably a bad idea...
read the articles here!
I thought I said that, maybe I wasn't clear.
Jim, they're TD1's.
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Wow, Santa was good to you this year. I think you should tilt the disks toward each other (rear disk tilted forward, front disk tilter rearward).
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Touching the snow seems to make my turns easier, for some reason. It gives me a false sense of balance and security, like a drunk gets walking along an alley, using the wall as a guide. I never thought it was good technique. It's like dragging your foot around a turn on a motorcycle.
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Got it, Bob, thanks. I haven't looked at skis that closely. When you said "Skis have sidewalls" it sounded like you were saying all skis were sandwich construction.but true race stock skis are ususally notNate, I thought they had a wider board in there, around 22-23, I'll take another look. I have a hard time understanding how taper effects the ride, I guess I just gotta try one out.
I think it is very cool to see suspensions, new shapes etc. tried. Even bad ideas need to be tried, just to be sure.
It would have been an improvement over the $11 an hour I was getting.
My record in dealing with boards isn't good right now. Randy, I really appreciate the offer. I need to go up to Truckee for work pretty soon, so I might be able to pick it up, but I may take you up on that if it doesn't work out. 
With a true bar I get about 1/16" clearance down the center. I'm not sure if there's enough base and edge material to let me have it ground flat again. What a fine piece of workmanship. That's my incentive to stay on the edge, I guess.
Video editing/conversion software?
in Carving Central
Posted
I've been taking some videos with my Canon SD-450 that are stored in .AVI (Quicktime) format. A ten-second video that's 30 fps, 640X480 is something like 20 megabytes.
I noticed that the "Lifted" video on the Swoard/Extremecarving site is only about 15 MB and is a much longer video, but the quality still looks good. I think it's an MPEG file, but I'm not familiar with the MPEG (or any other) formats. I assume it's smaller because it's compressed.
Do you guys recommend any software I could use to make these AVI files smaller? It would also be great if they didn't rely on Quicktime to run. I assume I want MPEG-something?
Thanks! - Steve