Gluing Delaminating Tips on Thrift Rossi' Waxless Skis

[TallGrass]

No prep other than thoroughly dry. Worked it down in, clamped, and smeared along edges to deter future water or snow ingress. One sheet says SEVEN DAYS to cure, another 18 hours to handle. One packet was juuuuuust enough to do tips and tails of each.

Tick... tock... tick... tock... tick...

[TallGrass]

Intial set up is done, so pulled clamps. Epoxy has a slight tack and is like very hard wax. Takes a week to fully cure.

Cleaned up tops and bottoms the did tail sides and a little tip edge with a razor, sliding not a shoving cut. Went pretty easy, just patience and a steady hand. I'm leaving the edge glop on the tips for added... oomph.

When I get back to these, I'll hotwax the non-scaled base sections. Guess I'll try Swix F4 liquid wax on the scales. Then they'll be ready for a run. The lack a metal edge, so I figure track/trail ski and or BC with soft snow, basically conditions where I won't need a hard edge to bite.

I would have liked to have epoxy along the whole edge on the tips, yet there's a balance between under coverage and gloop everywhere, there's some that squeezes out the sides when clamped yet the clamps obfuscate speading it out evenly, and the one packet was jussssst barely enough.

One tip had split back much farther than the other. Hopefully the OEM bond doesn't give behind the epoxy.

I'll decide what else they need, if anything, based on how they hold up. If nothing else, I think I've extended the life of these skis.

[TallGrass]

So the first use of these was after the epoxy repair and uphilling at a resort where the lifts were closed for the season. The dust storm effects are apparent.

First, I didn't think nor test the duckbills on my 3-pin Merrils in these. It was TIGHT, both thumbs and a lot a pressure to get them to *click". Unlike the Rottefella Supers which have three lock notches, these have just one.

Regardless, going uphill was MUCH easier and the traction was noticeable compared to my Karhus (waxed, double camber). Nice easy slope, and without any risers, I simply zigzagged to keep the grade down if needed going up.

Going down in the soft snow helped with tracking on these edgeless skis. I think of a "telemark turn" as being "staggered parallel" whereas what I'm doing is more of a "staggered snowplow" which for simplicity's sake I'm calling it a "Lambda" because, well, just look:

So here are some of my first, gentle, and photographed "tele' turns" albeit Lambda ones.

I was starting to get the feel, but daylight was burning and I wasn't sure I could downhill on these, so I went back and swapped them for the partial-edge Karhus, rubbed some kick wax on them and went up the same "hill." The kick was was no where near as good as scales (V50???), and I had to resort to zigzagging, then finally at the top of the bunny which is also the uphill track, I popped them off and A-framed them on my pack. The mistake was this led to the kick wax rubbing off on my pack.

I booted up to the highpoint overlooking Aspen Highlands and then skied down 2,000' to the base without issues, mostly Alpine style in leather 3pin boots.



Some video and a few more pics of the uphill including MOOSES/MEESE are here:
https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5922

Anyhow, any thoughts on what to do about these "thin" duckbill bindings? Just continue to force them closed on the Merrils? I'm not going to alter the boots as they work great with the Rottefella Supers. Nor do I want to toss a lot of coin on <$20 thrift skis, so maybe I'll just keep an eye out for some thrift 3pin bindings to replace them with.

Here are some close ups of the bindings.