@Shep wrote:

…I’d still go with the same material the manufacturers are using….

Yeah, that is the logic i was limited to because i have never been trained in all the crazy characteristics plastics have across a range of temperatures (where’s Fin?). ABS is what the Voile uses for those rotating pucks. It’s probably what I will do now that i know it works smooth. But i have seen lots of soft bindings/poles/helmets/etc use what appears to be HDPE for all or some parts.

I should add that mine are solid and the body isn’t 2 (thin) pieces as the rotating pucks are. All dimensions of the profile are equal to or beefier than the Voiles.

@jack wrote:

why don’t you just get some skis?

try:
this[/url] and
How about these:



Snowboarding is like music, the large corporations do not market the good stuff. No skis will let someone lay down curves like the above videos. NOT EVEN CLOSE. You feel way more G’s on a snowboard IF you turn without skidding. Skidding turns is sloppy. good for landing tricks but that is it. Hard boots and forward angles are how you do it. You should try it.
The large snowboard corporations market fat boards, floppy boots/bindings, and fashionable attitude. I put function over fashion and since i don’t like tricks i use the fore mentioned system.

I do wish skiing called me as much as boarding because assembling a splitty in the wind and cold is a pain. assembly makes me envious of randonee and telli folks. But no ski can carve like a board.

Is that a subaru stuck in the mud on your avitar or a corolla? In college i knew people who would jack up subarus with hockey pucks (2-4″ safely, 6″ unsafely, for $20 of bolts and pucks) . Sadly the outback’s switched to struts and it is not possible anymore. thats a goal of mine this summer.

@Will wrote:

http://www.matweb.com

@Jack wrote:

http://www.mcmaster.com

Wow those are great sites. and not just for this project, some of that crazy ‘mechanical property’ data is going to fill some holes in random tinkering/matlab/cad projects i was playing with last year. Big Thanks.

@Jon Dahl wrote:

What angles are you intending on running?

My carving board is 70 – 60 per the little degree marks on the trench diggers. I will admit that the 35 on the voile makes it easy to land but i am never in the air and it really compromises the nice happy zen curves.

So what the compromise will be, i don’t know. maybe average the 2.

Summery:

Plastic Pucks:
I used a table saw to cut out the profile in the HDPE, it was really easy. countersunk the holes only a little. well >1/4″ of material was left. They ripped out on the first run. I wasn’t sad, it was the prototype and i was at a resort. If you do this buy long pieces and take long rips it is safer using bigger pieces and both HDPE and UHDPE don’t cut well. also a zero clearance plate thinger on the table saw would have been helpful.
(Note added several years later: I found when working with plastic plastic blades or wood blades turned backwards work better than a wood blade running forward)

UHDPE could be better than the HDPE.

Need Aluminum:
I swore 7 years ago after almost ripping my leg off when a soft boot binding broke loose at a fast speed, “i would never again let plastic hold my boots to the board” and i was really sick of the frequent brakage of all the extra parts on strap bindings. I switched to Bomber TD plate bindings & Bomber SPLITBOARD plate bindings , and have never regretted it especially when i get off a lift and see 20 boarders sitting on the ground or when i put on crampons. So after being reminded of the pledge the hole way down (note split boards don’t telli very well) i started tinkering with aluminum. It was pretty easy to build little aluminum plates out of 1/4″x3″ stock (flat bar), cut them to the width of the voile plate and place them on a UHDPE spacer.

Tall Plate Compromised Stiffness:
First version of this I gave 5 degree cant to by using 1/2 or 3/4″ blocks of plastic for the spacer and shaping them down with a belt sander and hand plane. It WILL melt if you use the sander for more than a second or two. Since my stance angle is so far forward that put the high end of the spacer a good 1/2″ above the board. It ended up compromising the rigidity of the board. If your stance angle is close to 0deg a cant won’t cause a problem, but i was at 60deg. The voile system is far more rigid with the plate almost flush to the top of the deck so the cant idea was abandoned as i like a stiff board.
(edit many years later: it also added weight. I am still looking for the perfect way to add 3deg cant. any ideas?)

Aluminum Plate 1:
the first aluminum plate had 2 channels in it to allow space for the t-nuts that hold the binding on the voile plate. This was the best design, however my make shift dremmel router didn’t have the balls to cut a good grove so i used an angle grinder and you can amagin how level and straight the grove was (~~~ not —-). This would likely have iced up due to the un smooth nature of the grinding. I abandoned this as it was the one attached to the cant style plates. If you do this be sure to drill and counter sink your screw holes before cutting the grove.

Aluminum Plate 2:
The final, less time intensive method was just 2 aluminum plates above a 1/8″ spacer of UHDPE. Grind a little off the bottom edges of each plate untill the voile binding plate slides over nicely. The top of the aluminum was left smooth. ABS plastic strips where glued to the aluminum plate to reduce the stress on the t-nuts. ❓ Liquid nails doesn’t work very well so if you have a better adhesive for aluminum to ABS let me know. ❓
(edit that was added several years later: this system has held up for MANY years. It is safer than the plastic pucks that voile sells and WAY safer than a home made one out of ABS or HDPE. It did add weight. for clarification, the spacer makes the l if the T profile. the aluminum makes the top (-) of the T profile. This puts all the force on the aluminum.)

Carver Stance Angles Much Better:
The stance angle is much improved. Using the factory pucks, even with my race boots (race boots have the UNI groves more under the foot thus preventing toe or heel drag on the snow), I was unable to lay out turns because the toe and heel would drag on the snow. No offense to those that skid turns but to me having to slide a turn is no fun. Now with the more forward angle it is more ergonomic and even my 29.5 scarpa spirits do not hang over the edge of the board.

slightly more weight, especially since i will be carrying the voile pucks incase something breaks.
(note added later: i no longer carry pucks. my system is way safer)

I hope it holds together because if i invest any more time into this project i will fail out of grad school. Until Bomber builds something better out of light aluminum (hint hint Fin) these will have to do.

I’ll post pictures later, but don’t laugh at my sloppy grinding jobs.

P.S. Drilling / Lining up holes in the puck:
Getting the holes in the puck to line up with the 1″ spaced tred taps on the board is a pain. I tried paper cut to the size of a block, placed where i wanted it and holes poked through the paper, then transfered to the puck. This was sloppy.
Then i took clear sticky acetate, for non-heat laminating, placed it sticky side up on the board, drew any holes or board graphics (to ensure it is lined up) on the sticky side of the acitate, placed the pucks in the desired location, double checked that the graphics lined up with my pen marks, then removed the acetate with pucks attached, used a fine punch to mark the hole, it was perfect.

good call on the rivets… summer job.
i only wrote that all out in case someone is searching the forums planning to do something similar. no need to read it.