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I've finally found a minute to compile all the photos and footy taken from my builds, there were actually a total of three boards that were split but one of them was a tester/beater technine deck so we're not gonna count it. We started out with a brand new 2010-11 Neversummer Lotus for my friend, and a "ridden twice" 2010-11 Lib-Tech Travis Rice C2 BTX I picked up at a pro-sale for $200 (and the 2006 or something like that Technine Spraypaint). Tape was laid down and a center-lines were carefully measured, marked, remeasured, though about, and remeasured again just to be extra safe. Then a couple of days later we took them down to Streamworks of Salt Lake and had them split on the waterjet. This turned out to be the best decision of entire process, the cuts all turned out perfect, and took less than an hour all together costing less than $90 ($30 per board!!), and losing less than 1/32 of material from each deck. If you are splitting a board in Salt Lake I would highly recommend doing your cut at Streamworks, even with access to a full shop with saws and thin kerf blades this turned out so nice for so little cost/worry I would for sure spend the $$$ again. For those interested in the process here is a vid of the waterjet at work.



And here are the boards after the cut.


The technine, T-Rice, and Lotus. Lined up and ready to be drilled.

As many people have stated before, the instructions included in the Voile split kit are lacking at best if you happen to be building things inclined, and at worst are vauge in ways that could lead to poor construction of the board, or at worst disaster. Most of these gaps are filled in very well by the John Horn vids that came out just after we finished hahaha. But really, I now consider those vids a must watch for anyone looking to undertake a DIY split.


Here are all the decks lined up with edges drying, we used spar urethane heat-gunned into the wood, but in retrospect should have used the same G-Flex epoxy that we used for gluing the t-nuts and other hardware in.
This is for sure an update that Voile should make to their instructions.

We drilled the nut holes using a 3/4" forstner bit instead of a paddle bit to give the holes a nice flat bottom, and cleaner edges, then laid in a some G-Flex, followed by a piece of fiberglass, more G-Flex, then pounded in the T-Nuts which were sandblasted to ensure the best adhesion of the epoxy. Overkill, maybe, but we did not want to mess around working with what were essentially brand new decks and this ensured that they would not splin, or pull out, and hopefully returned some strength to the wood core where material was removed. After all the T-Nuts were placed and had cured for 36 hours I used a dremmel with a small grinding stone to grind the surface of the T-Nuts flat and remove any excess epoxy, then with all of the screws in place threaded almost to the bottom of the T-Nut I laid in more G-Flex and put the P-Tex patches that Voile now includes in their kits in all of the holes. After curing and a good base grind from a shop homie the bases of all the decks turned out good as new, or better than new if you count the awesome structure that a Winterseiger puts on a base!!



We also had to deal with the funky balance points of the the decks which both had C2 or R.C. (middle v-rocker with camber at the tip and tail). So the touring brackets had to be mounted in a way you would not be see-sawing on the point of the rocker while skiing, and thus ended up farther back on the decks than I would have preferred, something to think about before splitting any board with Banana type rocker. Things just barely work on my deck, but I have to flip up the lower climbing bar on the dual height setup to get my binding on the slider track, thank god for fat stances I guess.


That was close.

I haven't skinned on very many other boards, but from riding the technine beater which has full camber, I can for sure that banana rocker does not skin nearly as well as a board with camber. That's what crampons are for I suppose, and the rocker is so much better in the pow it is worth the slightly more difficult skinning on icy tracks. On the Upside though, with the touring bracket placed where it is the noses of both boards pop up out of the pow nicely while breaking trail!


Shit tons of rocker!!

The build also included CNC machined slider pucks that screw into the factory inserts and have one T-Nut each towards the edge of the board to make sure they are bomber. I had my friend over at Plastic Banana in Salt Lake CNC them out of some acetal, also known as Delrin, which has excellent strength and low temp properties, even though it is a bit heavier than the Voile pucks. They are so much stiffer in ride mode, and there is no more threat of breaking the deck at the bindings which is very comforting when dropping cliffs and the like.


Sorry for the bad pic, I'll try and take some better ones some time when it stops snowing.

For bindings I had some 2009 Ride Omega UL's that I got from a ride rep while working at salty peets, a quick re-drill and mounted them to the Voile slider plates for a binding that sits almost as low as Blazes but for free!!





After a few days of skinning and having my skin tails peel up on the third or fourth lap I put some tail clips from G3 on the tails using the Black Diamond STS adjustable tail straps, they aren't quite perfect, but they do the job quite well.





All in all I'm pretty happy with how the build went, especially for a first time deal. Although my friend and I both agree that the boards are now a bit too soft to be perfect. So next time it's gonna be a factory split for sure, but the experience was great! I'll post more pics of the finished Lotus as soon as I get them from my friend as well.

Hell yeah, Ian. You did a great job on these!

Nicely done. It really helps with you have good tools to start with.

I currently seal the inside edges with G-Flex epoxy. I use a jig to cut the boards on a table saw. Cut comes out pretty clean though I think the water jet would be the best. With the jig and table saw, the fit and edge is very good. However, the down side to the epoxy is that it then needs to be sanded to match up the two halves. Every time I sand boards down to match I keep wondering if the epoxy edge is worth it. Seems like it is very tricky to get it match up as good as it did when freshly cut. Maybe the urethane is a good way to go although I hear that you need to keep an eye on it as you might need to reapply every year or so.

Great work!

-Kef

Impressive effort and outcome!

I'm hoping maybe you can give me some pointers on the placement of the bindings? I have the same board in splitversion (164,5 Voila) and are just about to start drilling a lot of holes to make all the inserts and mounts. (thread here)

Interestingly, I have both the T.Rice 161,5 (not HP) and the Voilà, so it will be interesting to see how differently they will be to handle in pow.
(blessed to work at the Norwegian distributor of Lib)

Thanks in advance on your feedback on this!

this guy has a brain ..... overlaped custom Pucks - yousing orginal hole patern .... min. insert s


This is the right way for DIY Board s


Burton - Wildschnee

Nice job, looks clean. I really like the G3/BD tail clip combo, I think I'll do that on my board. I've noticed with the banana that I always loose the tail when breaking trail. Didn't have that problem with my k2 podium.

How tightly do the voile p-tex discs fit against the base, is there any gap between the factory base and the t-nut that has to be filled with epoxy? I used the snoli t-nuts on my board which had an absolutely perfect fit to the base. What I don't like about them though is that you do remove some more core material vs. a std t-nut with the tapered base. To keep more strength I ended up glopping g-flex into the board and letting soak well into the board while it cured, then went back and chipped out excess with the snoli bit and roughed it all up with sandpaper to give a good surface for the t-nuts to bond to with a light coat of g-flex. Time will tell how it holds up, only had one day on this board so far.

Yo snowdrift, PM sent to ya

Nice work on those boards!!!!

I would love to see a closer pic of the custom machined pucks

The custom pucks are hot... I've been dreaming up a set of custom pucks that would allow me to loan my DIY split to other (regular footed, I'm goofy) people, I want a loaner. Anyone have any experience making a front puck that will go both ways? I want to use as many stock holes as possible but have a 15 degree front foot that can go both regular and goofy.

I think the only way to get a few of my buddies splitting is to loan them a set up.