Self-made skis - certainly a boy's dream for many freeriders. David Jäger has not only fulfilled this dream, but has also taken the next step and set up his own ski company. He now produces eco-friendly skis by hand in his small basement factory. We took a look over his shoulder.
With a cheerful grin, David opens the cellar door and I am immediately hit by the smell of epoxy resin and fresh wood. He's already put on his rubber gloves and you can tell that he's really looking forward to firing up the press and creating another pair of plywood skis. There's not much time for small talk, David's all about the work. You can tell that the full-time student is living his passion to the full here. The materials are neatly laid out in the right order. Several layers of glass fiber fabric and carbon of different weaves and densities are stacked under and over the wooden core. Although the latter is bought in, the cores are trimmed to David's specifications and are hand-picked. The base is already cut to size using a wooden template and fixed together with the edges on the press base. The shape gives it away: it will be a Terasaka. The freeride flagship from the Plywood range. While David weighs and mixes the resin, he tells me that this will be one of the last pairs to be made with conventional epoxy. He plans to switch to a resin made from wood and biofuel production waste in the near future. Even if a ski can never be a truly environmentally friendly product, this is a further step towards keeping the ecological fingerprint as small as possible. Alongside the core, sidewalls and topsheet made of wood - the latter also sealed exclusively with beeswax - this is probably the maximum ecological material used in ski production.
David passionately discusses all of this with me as he nimbly and skillfully places the ski structure layer by layer on the base and carefully soaks it with just enough resin. You can tell that he has put a lot of time into optimizing the work processes. We have barely started talking about the pitfalls of ski production before the freshly layered sandwich disappears into the self-built press by means of roller inserts, in which pressure and time are supposed to turn it into a ski.
The material mix is now pressed for twenty-four hours using pressure hoses, after which a new ski sees the light of day. Rough and frayed, but the sanding will fix that. David does this finishing work in a local carpenter's workshop before the ski can leave the house equipped with a binding system of his choice or matching skins from a nearby production facility to make a new fan of fine craftsmanship and disciple of pow-pow happy.
But for today our work is done and time for a nice chat over homemade syrup and cookies on the roof terrace with a view over Lake Zurich.
Read more about David and his passion for ski building in our interview..
