Wood water ski plan

[Mike]

I am looking for some plans on building a salom wood waterski. Can someone point in the direction of where I might find such plans. Thanks, Mike

[not me]

May I ask why? Building a slalom ski is high tech business. Getting the flex, rocker, etc. is mostly done with computers these days. Molds are made, carbon fiber and graphite fill the molds. The bottom needs to be concave. My current ski costs $1,200 with bindings..

If you were to build one. You would have to find some pretty hard stiff wood (hard maple?). Cut it into thin veneers. Make a template. Glue the veneers together and vacuum press to template. I have no idea what the finish should be. It obviously needs to be waterproof, but it cannot be too slick.

Fins can be found at

or

You could probably find an old wooden ski on eBay cheap. Use it for making a template.

dave

[Mark Wells]

I've never built a salom ski, but when I was a kid, I built a pair of waterskis. I used 3 plys of 1/4" plywood that I glued together over a form. They worked, but they weren't that great. Now that I know what I'm doing, I would do them differently.

A couple of decades ago there were wooden waterskis made in Central Texas called Li'l Texans. They were relatively wide and had a square back, like a jump ski. (They might have been used for jump skis -- I'm not sure.) The ski body as well as the rudder were made of ash. I can't remember exactly, but I think the ski body was about 1/2" thick and probably 5 or 6 inches wide. I don't remember the length, but they were relatively short. The curve in the tip of the ski was made by resawing a slot in the front of the ski and then putting a piece of veneer in the tip. The entire assembly was then glued together over a mould. In some of the later models they just left out the veneer altogether, but it seems like you really want the veneer to keep the water out. The rudder was probably nearly a foot long and about 3/4" thick. The cross section of the rudder was a trapezoid.

This kind of ski design is appealing because the skis are wider and thus more stable and easier to learn on. Because they are wood instead of fiberglass, they aren't as bouyant and thus easier to control while you are sitting in the water. They are also good for jumping the wake.

You might want to try building a simple pair like that and then modify it to make a salom ski.

Mark