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Explain camber please...


maxlean

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Ok, having sold a few of my boards and having everyone ask about the board's "camber." I realized a) I never thought about camber and b) don't really know what camber does for a carving board.

Also, I'm curious about what causes a board to lose camber. My 2003 Donek FC 1 is my most heavily used board and has 1/4 " of camber. My newer, 2005 Donek FC 182 (Jaybird) not only has no camber, but actually turns up a bit in the nose. What gives?

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camber is the curve in the board - when you rest it flat on the base with nothing on top, it is how far the base is from the ground at the waist.

this is built into the board either by milling the core in a cambered shape, or bending the core into shape. The camber will break down over the years, at different rates depending on core material and use.

So, when people ask you about it, they are trying to determine how used/abused the board is...

What camber does for a carving board...as you initiate the turn, it helps set the nose into the snow. It also acts like pre-load in a shock absorber - the board is already stressed when flat, which eliminates chatter.

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Good answer tex. Camber, in concert with board stiffness (resistance to deflection) plays a vital role in distributing your weight evenly (or unevenly by design) along the effective edge of a board. A board that has lost all it's camber will ride "dead" and tend to not hold an edge as well, compared to when it was new.

later,

Dave R.

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Good answer tex. Camber, in concert with board stiffness (resistance to deflection) plays a vital role in distributing your weight evenly (or unevenly by design) along the effective edge of a board. A board that has lost all it's camber will ride "dead" and tend to not hold an edge as well, compared to when it was new.

later,

Dave R.

What he said.....

I will add, the two primary variables relating pressure distribution and camber are the core profile and the torsional stiffness. There are others, but those are the main ones.

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Also, I'm curious about what causes a board to lose camber. My 2003 Donek FC 1 is my most heavily used board and has 1/4 " of camber. My newer, 2005 Donek FC 182 (Jaybird) not only has no camber, but actually turns up a bit in the nose. What gives?

It sounds like your JBird's core is broken or delaminated.

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Rocker works well in watersports. It's needed. Surfing, waterskis, wakeboards, kiteboards, but I don't see the benefit on the snow.

How often do you ride the old Performer Elite? Do you consider it state of the art technology? My old Simms Blade had a convex base also, doesn't mean it's a good thing today. Ground through the base trying to flatten it. Not trying to slam you Buddy, but we're talking about CURRENT technology. I don't understand how taking the pressure off the tip and tail is a good thing?

Barrel staves sounds cool though, glue a couple together, mount some bindings, and we could have our own rockered snowboards.

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I'm sure this will sound like heresy to plenty of people, but so be it: I think it's one of the least significant variables in snowboard design.

I've ridden a few boards to the point where they had no camber left. (I suspect that moguls are really effective at killing camber.) Each time, I was surprised when I noticed they had no camber, because they still rode well.

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IMHO

Kids have been using barrel staves to ski around on for a hundred years.

Surfboards have rocker or reverse camber?

Lib techs banana works great with rocker or reverse camber.

The fact is you can snowboard real good with rocker or reverse camber

My old performer elite 150 in the shed has rocker or reverse camber not

just front to back but also from side to side.:biggthump

OK, we all get the point that you're not on board (ha-ha) with the camber bandwagon. But some of the posts that you've made in the past just make me laugh out loud because you just aren't on the same page.

Yes, any skin tube peckerhead wannabe carvergod trench melting adonis canyon digging hatchet wielding lumberjack valleyhollower can ride a f**king snowboard without a monkeys' balls worth of camber, but it's not going to ride nearly as good as it would be with an a**load of camber. In your case I guess ignorance truly is bliss, because you're here on your soap box trying to preach to us that camber just doesn't matter. So I guess that the five of us posting and the twenty or so of us watching (silently) are wrong? You need some rectal optometry to get your head out of your anus. If you're the only one promulgating your position on the issue, how could you possibly be right? So all of us (who actually ride hardboots) are wrong and you know better? During your next bowl smoking session see if you can reach your keyboard and post something that comes off as reasonably relevant and not from left, left, left field. Don't bother quoting and posting, I'm unsubscribed from this horrendously irretrievably tainted ******************* thread. (somebody please quote my ranting bullsh*t in your sig and make me proud.)

Do you guys think I should get drunk to celebrate my 300th? Oh never mind, I'm unsubscribed from this one......................bitcheeeeeeessssssssssss.

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