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A Look Inside A Telemark Ski Factory

by Mitch Weber

March, 2002-- Recently we were lucky enough to get a look inside the Karhu/Line ski factory in Cowansville, Quebec, Canada. Nils Larson, John Siebert and I were given the full tour by chief ski designer François Sylvain. It was an eye opening experience to see how much art goes into the process! The result of our tour is a nearly nine minute long web video unlike any other video we have produced in the past. This movie will give you a very good look at how skis are made. We followed a single ski, one of Karhu's new fat skis, the Jak, all the way through the factory. From the core and base fabrication areas to the shrink wrap machine, you'll see it all.

Many skiers have wondered why new skis cost so much. After viewing this video most are left wondering why they are not even more expensive than they are. Laid up skis are virtually made by hand. Skilled technicians, trained in the art, build each ski with an astonishing amount of craftsmanship.

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Editor's note, November, 2006: At the time that we filmed this video, Karhu's facility in Cowansville was the last ski factory in North America producing skis for a major manufacturer. Sadly, this factory was closed in the spring of 2005 and all of the equipment was shipped to a new factory located in China. A year later, Seattle-based K2 acquired Trak Sports, the parent company of Karhu and Line skis. K2 continues to manufacture all of its family of snow skis in China.

This is where the story begins, in the lab of the R&D department. Here François Sylvain and his crew work on developing and refining their ski designs. They use some very high tech equipment.
And sometimes a lower tech approach too. Here François is demonstrating a highly effective test he came up with to see how strong a special new tip design might be. When 9 out of ten times the tip snapped off before the modification and 0 out of ten after incorporating his new design, François knew he was on the right track!
In one of the few truly automated steps along the way, a special machine is programmed to cut out p-tex bases,
In this photo you can see the tech getting set to lay the wood core into the mold. Below are the base material, a layer of a special 4 direction woven fiberglass cloth and a strip of titanal. A second metal layer is added above the core. François explained to us that it is important to balance the bottom titanal layer with one on top to preserve the skis camber regardless of changes in temperature.
The laid up ski, inside its mold, is then placed in a ski press where both heat and pressure are applied. This step takes around 30 minutes.
After the ski comes out of the mold it is taken to an area where the excess material is trimmed off...
..and several different machines are used to grind, shape and finish the ski.
One of those machines is this stone grinder used to prep the base. Techs use other machines to bevel the edges and apply hot wax.
 Here François is running this electronic gauge up and down the ski to see how consistent the edges and the bevel are. They were dead-on all along the length of this half-pair of Jaks.
A center mark and the serial number are stamped on at a station before the ski makes it to this shrink wrapping machine. At last, this ski is done.
The only chairs we saw in the Karhu factory were like this one, empty. It takes a lot of hard working, highly skilled technicians, managers and development people all pulling together to produce a pair of skis. The amount of handwork and the general level of craftsmanship involved was the biggest surprise to us. Take a look at the nearly nine minute long video and you'll no doubt agree. It's an amazing process.

Telemarktips.com would like to thank Doug Barber, Ted McGuiness, François Sylvain, and the people at Karhu's Cowansville factory for helping make this video possible.

 

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