Homemade BC

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martin2007
Posts: 105
Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2016 5:23 pm
Location: Ontario/Colorado

Homemade BC

Post by martin2007 » Tue Feb 06, 2018 8:13 pm

I enjoy reading about people's homemade ski projects. Some good posts here recently involving mods to old skis and skin/scale adaptations. They give me ideas. I went out today in slightly rolling suburban forest in skis I brought down from the rafters. The original early 90's alpine skis w/ cheapo brassy 3-pins and mediocre Karhu Traverse "tele" BC boots, the outfit that my son and I made our Mont Tremblant tele début on a few years ago. They'd been gathering dust since. 160 cm., teensy bit of camber. Time to rub some green wax underfoot and try some x-country in the deciduous forest adjacent to a golf course a km from where I grew up. What worked: 1) There was passable kick. 2) Glide, though, was comparable to my scaled S-Bounds, i.e. slowish. 2) Their short length made them easy to turn on descents in the woods. Their burly width, very little shape (80-90 mm. at the widest point) made them float well in the 8'' powder on the grass and in the trees. Comfortable on iffy terrain with rock and wood exposure. Got me thinking of fooling with the bases to accommodate short, permanent kicker skins. As k&g skis, they were slow and on the slippery side on uphills, but quicker and more efficient and way more fun in today's conditions than snowshoes would have been. I'm thinking "Hoks", but narrower, not nearly as pretty, but salvaged from old gear. I'm eyeing a pair of 140 cm shaped kids' skis (alpine) also roosting in the rafters, and am thinking of conducting a "Hok-ish" experiment. "Hok-ish designs" could be the key to getting my wife to be more comfortable on skis, especially on the dreaded descents. Any advice?

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t-$
Posts: 272
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2017 7:29 am

Re: Homemade BC

Post by t-$ » Tue Feb 06, 2018 8:42 pm

howdy!

well i personally don't have any advice for you, sorry man. but i do have an enthusiastic "good on ya!", and, care to post some pictures?!

winter really is the best season :D have fun out there...



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anemic
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:39 pm

Re: Homemade BC

Post by anemic » Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:50 am

Yes try it! And make sure to demo those things before you turn them over to the Mrs, to make sure they aren't an instrument of destruction haha

so, dremel out some of the base to make a cavity for the skins to insert?

Are you familiar with the newer generation of skin tec skis used for classic racing? They have changeable skin inserts in a cavity, so the skin is lifted off the snow for the glide phase, but you kick the skin into the snow for the kick phase.
Call it Nordic Freeride



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martin2007
Posts: 105
Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2016 5:23 pm
Location: Ontario/Colorado

Re: Homemade BC

Post by martin2007 » Thu Nov 08, 2018 4:41 pm

Snow Blades??? Anybody do any BC mods on anything marketed as snow blades? Some used ones for sale cheap and I started wondering about the short ski-shoe concept with or without permanent skins and a Voile Mountaineer mounted on top. I'll start a thread...



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