Do ski's wear out?

A snowHead

Well there's the question above. I've picked up that boots can and do wear out due to UK and stress on the plastic. How about ski's? Lots of you seem like buying new ones - is it because the old ones wear out or becasue you out ski them or get fed up with them, or just fancy this years models etc.

From what I've seen lots of you lovingly wax and titivate them, or get pro's to do this for you. So can doing this preserve them for many years or do the laminated layers eventually fail? Someone mentioned that some of the layers can be wood and some can be synthetics - I'm wondering if all the layers run the full length of the ski, or do some fall short like a leaf spring system. I don't really understand their construction full stop either, so if someone would like to enlighten me with this as well that would be good too. Might as well learn all I can.

A snowHead

Sometimes the edges can wear out. Or rather the hubby says they do................ rolling eyes

, funny how mine last twice as long.
rolling eyes

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Megamum,
Skis do wear out whether you use them or not.
Plastics degrade due to plasticiser migration, which is the PVC that holds the fillers in plastics together, evaporating. You can see it on the inside of your car windsreen as a white film on the glass, that's why old car dashboards crack and old plastic becomes brittle.
The metals within the ski, loose their elasticity and become work hardened, like bending a piece of metal back & forth untill in snaps.
The skis start to feel 'dead' under foot and loose their springyness.

As for types of construction and components, within the ski, there are eleventy zillion, with pretty much each ski having a different construction in terms of materials used within the Ski. Some of the Brochures will show you cross sections of the skis, showing the various sandwich layers. These can include: Carbon fibre, Plastics, Foam, Wood, Aluminium, Steel, Rubber, Titanium, Glassfibre, the list goes on.

Hope this helps.

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Shop servicing of sks appears to involve running the base across a wide grinding wheel, it removes a small amount of edge and base material to leave a flat base and sharp edges. The more often a ski is serviced the quicker the material is removed. Holes in the base can be filled before grinding but dents in the edge cannot. Perhaps Helen skis better and lighter than her hubby and so damages her ski less and has them serviced less.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Adrian, possibly. But far more likely that husband (being, I assume, a man) likes to have the latest gear in order to keep up with the rest of the boys. Laughing

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I might have 3 pairs of skis but Deb has 134 pairs of shoes, & none of them look worn out to me rolling eyes

spyderjon, where do you keep 134 pairs of shoes? Shocked

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if you ski hard and agressively the springiness can start to degrade after 16 weeks of skiing according to some professionals i have talked to. they recon they dont get a full season out of a pair of skis and can feel them lose energy

i think for mere mortals it is more a case of getting bored with them and upgrading for newer technology and/or cooler colours...

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Ski history

dont know if below counts a waring out or bad luck.

first ski grow out of (lenth) after5 years mediam GT
second ski omesoft snapped tip of left ski after 6 years
third skis Course SL riped edge out of right ski after 9 years
four skis cant remember lasted 4 year but lost edge
fifth skis still running on them after approx 6 years salamon viper S9 (in think that what they are, at present locked in friends chalet hope to meet up with them in 11 days).

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ntfarmer, Same boots for HOW many years wink

'Bout time you bought some carving ski's it's the new thing you know Laughing

12 days

11 Days to get yourself to CEM in Bicester wink

Think i do one more year in boots and see CEM when get back becouse of knee.

You know it makes sense.

I've never personally owned a pair of skis that have worn out.
I hear it happens but have not experienced it yet.

By the Way, anyone interested in buying the K2 Burnin Luvs I bought at the beginning of the season?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I bought my first skis way back when - they were long and thin. Also got a pair of boots then too. Used the skis a lot and would have kept them but after a short break from skiing because of having young children when I returned to skiing the shape of the skis had changed. Also some mice had made a home in my boots and eaten the insides so it was time for new boots and new skis!
I think replacing skis for me will be about a change of graphics and maybe just giving a different pair a go, but I'll probably use the "skis worn out" excuse as a justification.

A snowHead

I didn't take up skiing until I was 35 years old. Since then, about 2,000 ski days. For the last 20 years, I've been retired and ski 80-90 days a year. I have worn out two pairs of skis. It takes years to wear out a ski. Most everybody updates their skis before they wear out, but the key to telling if a ski is worn out is camber collapse. Put a pair of skis together with the bases tip to tip, tail to tail, and the brake out of the way. Camber is the gap between the skis under the bindings. New skis should have a gap or 1" or more. Worn out skis have no gap-- no camber.

Camber is essential to turning a ski with the least effort. I have skied skis with no camber, and it is exhausting, bordering on impossible. So, the lesson is, as long as there is camber, the ski is not worn out.

Several comments mention wearing out edges. I find edges indestructible: I've newer come close to edge failure, and no skier I know has ever experienced worn out edges. I can see how excessive or improper sharpening can destroy edges, but I don't think that if you take proper care of your edges, camber failure will happen long before edge failure.

I sharpen my edges about every 100,000 vertical feet at 1 & 1.5 degrees which works well for all Utah snow conditions, which are the best in the world. Just today I rode up the lift with a skier from New England who sharpened at 4.7 degrees to cope with New England inferior snow conditions. Everywhere in Europe has conditions as bad as or worse than New England, so it may be that if you are sharpening your edges at extreme degrees to survive icy runs, maybe you will destroy the edges before camber failure, but I doubt it.

And again: don't worry abut skis wearing out. You will decide to upgrade long before that happens.

A snowHead

I wonder how many pairs of skis the OP was worn out since the previous post? Shocked

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@kb0000, welcome to Snowheads.

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@kb0000, welcome to snowHead

s.

But I am afraid your are talking crap.

Edges are not indestructible. I have destructed many pairs.

Camber is a more or less (in context) concept given early rise, rocker, etc. and a questionable design feature in the first place.

I could go on...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

... and I've had skis go relatively floppy after 100 days let alone 800! It does depend on construction of course but I've got skis with full woodcore and two layers of titanal that are noticeably less stiff after about 120 days use.

I suspect piste skiing in Utah is probably the most friendly conditions for ski life though. You are going to wear through edges a lot quicker when you need them sharp for ice or ding them on stones.

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@Megamum, The spring/rebound in your ski is provided by the laminated construction within it. Over time it won't fail as much as become much less springy. As this is a gradual process you probably won't notice easily. Servicing the ski will keep the edges sharp and the base in good condition, so will help - but won't stop the decay. All skis die in the end. rolling eyes

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do skis get reincarnated when they die?

I'd hate to think that mine would come back as a snowboard or worst still, blades. Very Happy

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I got a pair of second hand SL skis very cheaply, and there was a bulge and a break in one edge where it had slammed into a pole. Being a heavily used race ski there is little base left, and I have one big chunk just behind this area missing and the remaining base is too thin to repair with a base pistol. But, they still have spring to them and ski just fine, have had 3 seasons out of them and will use them until I blow the edge.

I recently saw a friend skiing amazingly on a pair of SL skis with 20cm of edge actually missing, it had coiled off like a spring and so he had to snap it off. He just swapped so it was his outside edge and skied fine (bloody ex racers seem to be able to ski anything with style).

4.7 degrees sounds a bit extreme for recreational skiing, all my skis are at 3 and 4 is the highest I've known anyone use.

And speaking of skis wearing out, my first skis, the good old Rossi Bandit B2s, become like soft noodles after 3-4 years as the foam core degenerated. Eventually one of them delaminated from behind the binding to near the tail. Always made sure I had good quality wood core skis since then, my Nordica all mountain skis are still going strong after 8 years.

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You know it makes sense.

@jedster, Too true. Although they were a great ski for first week skier.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

A snowHead

@dp,

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Dashed, I did a double-take and had to check who the poster was. Maybe our esteemed troll has been taking lessons from DG (or whichever sock is currently active)? Laughing

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

A lot depends on how hard you ski and how you store the skis between seasons. I have killed more skis than I could shake a stick at - bent tips, delamination, holes in the sole through to the base... I also found that they gradually lose their spring until they get so lifeless they are no longer any fun to ski. My last pair were Atomic SL11s and when they lost their camber they became really hard to ski in powder - they would just nosedive and get stuck. Some skiers don't really notice what they have on their feet, others find it makes the difference between a great holiday and wanting to give up skiing as no longer enough fun to be worth the effort.

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@kb0000, are you saying that a ski which has become lifeless is impossible to bend because it doesn't have a natural camber when it is unweighted?

Up-unweighting and down-unweighting are very old-fashioned terms in skiing, dating from days of yore when skis were long, skinny sticks. We no longer have to pop up (or pull up our feet) to help initiate a turn for every turn we make. And as a side note, since when did up-unweighting and down-unweighting each indicate a different law of motion?

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@kb0000, being from the US you should sign up to http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/8-Tech-Talk - the guys'n'gals would really appreciate your technical input.

Yep, Utah is great & I remember the "Welcome to Utah, the greatest snow on earth" sign in SLC airport. Thought the sign was pretty accurate until I went to Niseko Toofy Grin

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Do ski's wear out?

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