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what he said.

they look like they have cap construction - no sidewall?

so intriguing!

Wow, thanks you guys! I didn't expect such a sweet response

Let's see, to answer some questions...
I'm not making boards to sell. As much as I love being covered in epoxy, it's too hard to make them in my apartment and I don't have the money to start a splitboard making company. But I definitely appreciate hearing that people would be interested in them! I would LOVE to make graphics for boards and have asked Voile if I could. But they have internal people. Glissade said that they don't pay their artists (sad) so I didn't want to go there. Although they did print mine for me at cost and it's not what they normally do, so they are still cool in my book!

These boards were done as my thesis project for my industrial design master's program. My question was could a lighter splitboard be designed to without losing structural and performance integrity. And the answer is HELL YES! Because I was working completely from scratch, I didn't have access to all the lightest production techniques and materials, but even still my boards were lighter and quite strong. I did gain even more respect for Voile boards through testing during this project. They are just damn good boards. And they make almost everything locally.

I didn't have a press, I made a vacuum mold. The cores were laminated by hand and tapered with this fairly janky, but surprisingly functional little router table thing I made using an idea from grafsnowboards.com. The boards I made are 153s because I'm pretty small and I needed to test them. They have cap construction over basswood and this hasn't been done on any commercially available splitboard. The outer cap makes for buttery turns. They have UHMWPE sidewalls in the split side, making them virtually indestructible on the outer edge when you are skinning.

End grain balsa is used in lots of boards in the industry. I just made mine with longitudinal grain balsa because I was laminating the balsa and the amount of glue I would have needed to laminate end grain would have been ridiculously wasteful in weight savings and would have weakened the board. But anyway, I've tested two boards I made with balsa cores and I haven't been able to break them yet. End grain balsa would be superior though to offer good crush resistance. The main purpose of the core is to separate the skins (fiberglass or carbon). The strongest board I made is thicker and with less skin layers. My balsa cores have basswood at the edges and some have spruce stringers as well. This helps with crush resistance and also provides more longitudinal rigidity.

I did talk to people at Voile while I was making these boards and they thought it was cool. I wish they'd buy my graphics though, did I mention that already?! Each board has a different sweet backcountry locale. One has Mount Tallac, one has Rock Creek Canyon and one has the Wallowa mountains (if you haven't been there, you must!!!). The graphics work well for goofy or regular riders because forward, you're looking toward the mountain and if you look back you see an urban scene. Any bc place could sit there right at the nose of your board. I like that. And I think Voile riders could benefit from some really sweet graphics [/rant]

And if you reallly want all the answers and photos, you can download the whole 11.3Mb of my Creative Work book. It's here, but I'm warning you, it's a big download:
http://www.concept.org/dai/creative_work/float_files/uphill_float_lo_res.pdf

Thanks again for all your thoughts on my boards! I really appreciate it.

Now that's DIY splts!!!

Yeah I noticed that Wallowa board. That definitely looks like the big burn. Is that around wing ridge? Very cool. Do you still get out there?

sweet work melmo!

Did anyone check this out??

Melmo, thanks for posting that, and doing all that research and work! Great read. It's nice to see someone doing some serious splitboard R&D work, outside of Voile. This is just what we need! I hope that all your work gets put to good use, either by companies that can see the benefit of furthering this work, or by you starting your own company.

Next assignment: New interface design that combines the good parts of the Voile and Burton systems, and maybe integrates a binding directly, and includes avy safety release!

Extra credit: Splitboard-specific PMB.

And of course all the components should match the boards graphics-wise!

You know what, this is what is so cool about splitboarding, I mean the whole splitboarding culture has always been DIY, from boots and bindings to boards, it's just great to see people going for it.

melmo, I hope you have a great winter on your splits.

Melmo, WOW ... this is A LOT OF WORK .... very well presented... there's a lot of time in there .... I took a long time before posting, as I wanted to take a good evening to go through your document and all the good information you've put in ... I have to say that I'm very impressed how someone could have push the limit like this without all the ressources a real shop/cie has .... KUDDO .... that's really good .... that document is definitly a keeper for me ... I learned a lot of stuff too. I've passed this along to my friends snowborders and skiers, and all of them were pretty impress with your work too .... (BTW, I'm not a splitboarder yet). It always amazed me what people can do when they have a set objective combined with passion!!!!..... A job well done!

Yeah, Melmo! They're rad. Come to TPR so we can check them out in person!

Wow, just found this and I had to say, killer job. LOVE the topsheet and base graphics, especially with the BART thrown in there.

I'm light, I'd love to take a test ride on one of those things!

Did you go to CCA? Did you take NPD with UC Berkeley? I have given some lectures for that NPD class in rapid prototyping in the last few years.

Hope to see more this sweet work in the future.

Thanks!

I didn't go to CCA, but their program is great! I went to SF State for Industrial Design.

I'm getting into the backcountry on one of them in two weeks. Heading out near Mount Rose. I can't wait! I only got to ride them a few days last season. And my pair of Scarpa F1s are on their way from sierratradingpost (cheapest deal on them ever - great if they have your size).

http://www.sierratradingpost.com/p/,83126_bScarpaandb-F1-Ski-Boots-Alpine-Touring-For-Men-and-Women.html