DIY Fischer easy-skin attachment (pictures)

[wabene]

Denialson that looks fantastic and you beat me to the punch! I'm planning to do the same with my USGI skis, but was going to find a work around for the plastic mount. Instead, how about you share that file! Would be greatly appreciated.

[Denialson]

@fisheater sure, I use grip wax on my XC skis. But for these skis I just wanted to try something else. If I choose not to mill scales in these, the skins will hopefully give me nice traction on the uphills and fast skis on the downs without them. As you mentioned these are very soft/single cambered, so whatever solution I choose for grip probably won't allow for proper classic XC technique, or "kick n glide" as I see you guys call it!

wabene, of course, just pm me your email and I'll send it your way.

[riel]

Having cut away that much of the ski's core and shell of laminate would concern me, possibly creating a weak spot. Also, finding an adhesive to assemble the plastic insert that remains perfectly water tight through flexing while very cold would concern me. So I'd stay within a bearable walk of the car until the skis have proven durable.

I am thinking of modifying some skis to add skins as well, but am leaning towards the Asnes X-skin system instead, because two much, much smaller holes should do the trick for that.

[joeatomictoad]

I am not the handiest of men, but...
Did a 14-mm diameter round drill bit make a rectangular hole? Or my eyes deceiving me?

[MatthewWintersteen]

I don't know the specifics, but it appears to be a milling machine. It may or may not be computer controlled. The rectangle can be cut because it can move up/down and side to side. It's really cool that he has the tooling to make such professional diy gear!

I am not the handiest of men, but...
Did a 14-mm diameter round drill bit make a rectangular hole? Or my eyes deceiving me?

[joeatomictoad]

The rectangle can be cut because it can move up/down and side to side.

Thanks for the rundown. Brain fart for me. (duh)

[Shenanagains]

Sorry I'm slow responding, busy week for me.

The scales were an attempt to roughly copy those on my Voile skis, which are known to work well. Each scallop on the Voile's bases measures about .012 inch deep, and the pattern looks to use scallops sized to be an even fraction of the width of the base.

For my attempt, I settled on a cutter .740 inch in diameter, with its tip ground 1˚ from flat. This is close to the angle on a typical factory new cutter, so I probably needn't have changed it. There was another reason though: to remove the helix angle from the tip of the cutter so it would not self feed into the soft plastic.

The scales, to be .012 inch deep at their deepest, required the machine head to be canted 3˚ per trigonometry, so that is the angle I used.

I cut the fish scales on my Asnes skis on a knee mill, similar to a Bridgeport. The X and Y axes on this machine can be operated by hand or controlled by servos, while the quill is strictly manually operated.

I mounted a ski in two vises, carefully... VERY little pressure from the vices will damage skis! I then tipped the head on the machine to the angle I'd calculated (3˚) and plunged the cutter with the quill in a pattern I programmed with the control. Depth was controlled with a hard stop, which I changed a few thousandths of an inch at a time as the camber of the skis dictated.

Of course other types of milling machines could be used, even a drill press with some method of locating each scallop. Like most projects, the best method to use depends on what equipment you have access to.

I actually cut the scale pattern just to the back of the bindings' heel pad, then tried them out on snow. Unhappy with the grip, a few more rows of scallops were later added.

Hope this inspires and helps!

[Denialson]

riel, yeah the Asnes X skin looks much less prone to ski failure (esp. if DIY), I just don't fancy the plastic clip they use, seems to create more drag than fischers design that just sneaks off into the ski, but having tried neither yet the åsnes might work wonders as well, making them more suitable for DIY, esp if you're doing it to an expensive ski or are a heavier skier maybe.

Yes the "drill" is an end mill on a hand cranked milling machine as Matthew says!

@Shenanagains this helps a lot, thank you so much! I'll need to adjust a few parameters of my pattern (was prob a bit too aggressive).


I'm heading off to the mountains today so I'm hoping to post some reviews of the skis in the coming days!

[riel]

riel, yeah the Asnes X skin looks much less prone to ski failure (esp. if DIY), I just don't fancy the plastic clip they use, seems to create more drag than fischers design that just sneaks off into the ski, but having tried neither yet the åsnes might work wonders as well, making them more suitable for DIY, esp if you're doing it to an expensive ski or are a heavier skier maybe.

I have noticed drag from the skin itself, but not from the little plastic cover of the clip that holds the skins in place.

I suppose it depends on the camber of the ski you're using, with a double cambered ski like the Ingstad or the Gamme it should be fine, but a ski like the Nansen might see more drag.

[marco]

@Denialson this looks great!
Hope you don’t mind if I send you a PM with my email address to get a copy of the 3D model.