Monte Carlo skis

[jnan66]

What happened to MC skis? Hompege is not updated since 2016. Where are they made now? Are they still in business?

[lpskier]

MC Skis are alive and well. Contact Boris Laval at the MC Skis Training Center. https://www.mcskistrainingcenter.com

[mbabiash]

Goode made them for a while. Not sure if they still do.

[richfoster]

Hopefully not

[jnan66]

@richfoster why is that?

[skialex]

I’ve seen a couple of skis of the new model… they are again full carbon finish like the first gen, like the Elite and the Warp and some other great looking skis. Excellent craftsmanship on the carbon, all visible, no car putty and spray paint finish like the previous model.Can’t say if they ski better than the previous models but they definitely have the looks.

[richfoster]

@jnan66 what skialex said

[BraceMaker]

@jnan66 Goode uses a different process than the other brands. The receive a product which is a preinpregnated carbon fabric that has been carefully infused with a wet resin. That resin starts to cure when it warms up so Goode recieves it cold and transfers it to a cooler. Then as they build skis that cold infused fabric is taken out, cut and placed into the mold where it is then put under pressure and then they ramp up and down the pressure and temperature over time to cure.. The problem is that type of product has a relatively dry lay up which can result in a poor surface finish with out essentially bondo and paint it looks relatively crappy.

Most of the other brands do a lay up where the materials are dry fabric and then you lay it out brush or pour or dip the cloth in a resin that has been mixed with a hardener sort of like how a 2 part epoxy so everything is soaking dripping wet and when you squeeze it together you exude the excess and have a fully wetted out lay up.

The goode is stronger but it is a bear to get a good looking finish that way. Now if you could get rid of the foam core you could ramp the heat way up and the pressure way up and get a really nice finish - see say a carbon fiber hood on a Porsche.

[skialex]

@BraceMaker I’m not judging Goode skis, I’m not very fond of their finish but they have produced some really good skis overtime. I ski on a Goode, but I would love to have a ski that is as perfect as a Porsche carbon hood. MC looks like that, but at the end of the day I would choose performance over looks, happier when I get both though and Durability, You buy a d3 for example and you will never have to do any repairs apart from just tightening the screws.

[Horton]

@BraceMaker I am not sure about your description of PrePreg vs wet layup.

I think if Dave was still with us and was willing talk about it - he would say he always went the extra step to make his skis light and high performance but did not worry as much about how they looked. A prepreg part could be very pretty and glossy if that is what the designer wants. The only MC I have ever ridden was very pretty and was PrePreg.

[BraceMaker]

@Horton so process description I feel as is accurate there are folks here who can discuss different processes we didn't hit things like RTM but cord and Caldwell I'm sure can hit the highlights as could Parsons.

I agree Dave kept structures very light. He was making skis in the 90s with a process that is crazy advanced basically what at the time was being used by F1 and some larger aerospace and such. But the core adds complexity for instance if you had a 2 part ski you could use aluminum molds and make a top and bottom at extremely high temps and pressures and then bond them. I think that is what warp and Fischer were doing leaves a hollow core. But you cannot bring the PU PVC cores to that sort of temp and pressure in an autoclave. So Dave could have added another layer of material or ordered his material "wetter" which would have avoided the voids but instead he finishes the skis to seal those cosmetic blemishes of a relatively dry lay up but I suspect he specified a dryer fabric very close to minimum resin and then chose to seal the laminate with his SEM bottom coat.

[rico]

Unfortunately, I am too heavy to try the ski but I can confirm the ski is very good looking. You could hang it on your wall as a piece of art.Having said that, I can see someone rip on it daily this week, in Florida, so there is no doubt the ski works.I understand it is made in the USA.

[ForrestGump]

PrePreg parts can be pretty. It depends on whether a 1 piece uniform presentation layer is added or not. We see this in bike frames. Some manufacturers choose to have a UD or 3k weave layer at the face of the mold, then build their structural layers inside it. Other mfrs choose to just show through the layers of structural prepreg and let it's somewhat blotchy, layered look show through. Obviously this is lighter. When most people think of carbon fiber, it's the nice even 3k look. You can tell bikes and skis which have that as their top layer. UD would be this kind of a matte look, even if it was a glossy finish.

[BraceMaker]

@ForrestGump bikes are an interesting thing to discuss in this format because of course a bike frame is not one carbon fiber part like a ski is typically done. Your typical bike frame either is tubes bonded into aluminum parts a "lugged" frame where each tube is formed on a mandrel and then often water jet cut to fit the aluminum lug at both ends much like how cro-moly steel bikes were made where you have an engineered tube brazed into a lugged part.

Or multiple tubes are created then bonded into a carbon mold for the headtube/seattube/crank etc. so you have say 10 different premade carbon bits all then cured into one structure.

But again your options with prepreg are far greater if you don't have to bake a ski with a core in it. If you can have an internal aluminum mandrel and an external aluminum mold then bond the two together again ala fischer and the last mapple ski from obrien that's a whole thing of its own. But the bulk of skis are a wet lay up, or the other option is a cold layup with a room temp cure or slightly above room temp cure like goode and I believe SP skis.

As you note the surface finish may be entirely a fake cosmetic finish, it could be water dipped. But that is all non-structural and Goode's program for years was just to bondo and pain the skis base leaving only the top deck as a cosmetic "fake" layer.

[Jordan]

Interesting comments about the complications of temperature being too high for foam cores. If my memory serves, didn't Cord and Andy develop a hollow ski at one point?

[MattP]

@Jordan you're right the only 2 hollow skis produced were the Warp and the even more elusive AM 33.

[BraceMaker]

@AdamCord how much heat and pressure can you put on a core for prepreg?

[Martin]

The ski is in the mold so you are pressing top and bottom together. Comes down to wamhat the aluminum can take. The core is soft. You can crumble it by standing on it.

Every pre preg has its temperature for the resin to soften and cure. Takes heat and time for the ski to form.

[AdamCord]

@BraceMaker you're right about the issues with prepregs and cores. I've always thought "Prepreg" was something of a misnomer because the carbon is not really "impregnated" within the epoxy, it is just sprayed onto the surface of the epoxy, and it doesn't soak into the fibers at all before being cured. Prepregs were developed originally to be cured in an autoclave, with high pressures being used to ensure the the epoxy then gets pushed into the fibers and that any air is either removed via vacuum or it's crushed down to nearly nothing by the high pressure of the autoclave.

When you use the same material in a part with a core you run into a couple problems. Like you said the core cannot handle that kind of pressure without getting crushed. Also for a long time prepregs were made specifically and only for autoclave curing, so you couldn't get it with higher resin content. Quite a bit of resin is needed to ensure any ski gets a strong bond with the core, because the core is somewhat porous and non-uniform on the surface. So if you cure prepreg on a core, you never get a really good bond. I think today you can get higher resin content prepregs and even bonding prepreg layers (I have no idea if Goode uses these), but those would help with bonding to a core as well as improving surface finish.

When I was building the AM33 with prepreg I had to be super careful about what materials were used to cure the laminates to avoid starving the fibers of resin and ending up with a porous or pitted surface. We were using a vacuum bag in a cure oven, so didn't have the added pressure of an autoclave to help with fiber consolidation and air removal.

I've now been deeply involved with RTM, Prepreg, Compression Molding, and I've even built a few Vacuum Infusion skis. I can say that hands down a properly built* Compression Molded ski has the best balance of strength, performance, and consistency.

*Not all compression molded skis on the market are properly built IMO B)