Sanding rails and cores

Sanded the rails for the core profiler tonight. Also started working on sanding the first core. I started by using a handheld belt sander, but ran into a few problems and the sander broke. I ended up using a palm held random sander, not nearly as fast. Once one side of the core is nice and flat, it's time to flip it over and profile the core.
Here's a shot of the core after a first pass of sanding: http://picasaweb.google.com/skiingfreak/SkiBuilding/photo#5134784448527162690

Laminating our cores

For the last couple of weeks we've been working on coming up with the best method for laminating our cores. We started by gluing one of them up, but ended up with it warping pretty badly. The clamping method that we used for that core can be seen in this photo: http://picasaweb.google.com/skiingfreak/SkiBuilding/photo#5129552177868870930
We more or less ran into 2 problems with the method we used...
1. The clamps pulled up on both sides of the core causing it to have a little bit of a concaved shape (kind of looks like a very soft "U" shape as you look down the length of the wood in either direction. This likely could have been prevented with this clamping method by also clamping the core down instead of just clamping it together...
2. When we glued up the core and clamped it, a lot of glue ran down between the strips and pooled up at the bottom of the core. I think the effect this had was to allow the top of the core to dry faster then the base. This caused the top to contract while the bottom stayed at a full width.
And oh, just so everyone knows, I think clamping the skis directly on top of a tarp is probably a pretty bad idea. While the glue didn't stick to the tarp (that was the intention) it also didn't dry until i took it off the tarp.
We came up with a couple of different methods to try on the next couple of cores. One using bar clamps and another using the same method we did before, but using painters plastic so it can lay nice and flat, as well as clamping down the strips. Last night I decided I was just going to give it a run with the bar clamps. I think it's probably the easiest method and it was late, so I just rolled with it. Here is a shot of that method: http://picasaweb.google.com/skiingfreak/SkiBuilding/photo#5129573940468159826
Well, the core turned out great. It will take a little bit of clean up to get it nice and flat, but that will probably be the case no matter how we do it.
To get a nice flat surface to work from, our plan is to make a couple of straight rails for our core profiler table. This way we can use the table to mimic what you'd do with a planer to get a smooth surface. Our second core is in the clamps right now drying as I type this. We're likely going to glue up the other two cores this week and hopefully be profiling our cores within the next couple of weeks. Here is a shot of the first core, fresh out of the clamps: http://picasaweb.google.com/skiingfreak/SkiBuilding/photo#5131784561736797410

Building Our Core Profiler

Base of the core profiler is complete. The base (bottom base) with the pegs is for mounting rails to and the second board on the top (top base) is to set the cores on to be profiled. Later we'll mount rails that are pre-formed to run the router over to give the cores their shape.

Below is a picture of the completed base. More pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/skiingfreak/SkiBuilding

Here we go

We're slowly building up our supplies. So far we have a vacuum pump, vinyl for our vacuum bag and tonight we bought the supplies for our core profiler. We'll be working on getting the profiler put together over the next week or two, then it's on to the cores.