It was my day off, I had gotten to tinkering with some bike gear, then while bumping around in the gear closet i came upon my project skis, a pair of old black Gotamas, the ones with the big upturned tail.
I had picked these up for $5, they were pretty beat, so I had taken a file to them, flattened the bases, cleaned up the edges, did some ptex work, and cut off the tails
and then they sat, awaiting the final insult: adding fishscales
I used my Rossignol BC 125 as a reference ski as they have about the same length edge and base contact. The Rossis have ~32" of pattern centered at cord center. I feel like the pattern on the Rossi is a little too far forward for my binding mount, so I centered the scales on the Gots at edge center, which is also where I mounted the binding (BOF on EC). I decided to give the Gots 30" of scales, cuz I like the number thirty
At some point I read on TGR where someone was contemplating the addition of fishscales on some old skis. In the discussion that followed, someone suggested heating a cheese grater and "pressing" the pattern into the skis. Well, I heated a grater until it was red hot, and it barely made a dent in the bases, but the grater was a nice way to mark a pattern... but for the rest of the marks I used a parmanet marker

Round two, the "dremelator": I used a medium sized grinding stone, set all the way into the chuck, then preceded to grind away ...

...a long while later I started rethinking my grinding technique, because it was taking a loooong time!

So I tried a different technique on the second half of the first ski. Now, instead of plunging the stone into the ptex (which causes some ptex melting), I pushed it down and forward, in a sliding motion. This was waaaay faster and and left a much cleaner cut. I completed all of the scales on the second ski in same time that it took to do 25% of the scales on the first ski (~fifteen minutes)
Notice how much cleaner the cuts are on the left vs the right:

Adding the binding, TTS Axl base:

The finished bases:

The whole shebang!
I had picked these up for $5, they were pretty beat, so I had taken a file to them, flattened the bases, cleaned up the edges, did some ptex work, and cut off the tails

I used my Rossignol BC 125 as a reference ski as they have about the same length edge and base contact. The Rossis have ~32" of pattern centered at cord center. I feel like the pattern on the Rossi is a little too far forward for my binding mount, so I centered the scales on the Gots at edge center, which is also where I mounted the binding (BOF on EC). I decided to give the Gots 30" of scales, cuz I like the number thirty

At some point I read on TGR where someone was contemplating the addition of fishscales on some old skis. In the discussion that followed, someone suggested heating a cheese grater and "pressing" the pattern into the skis. Well, I heated a grater until it was red hot, and it barely made a dent in the bases, but the grater was a nice way to mark a pattern... but for the rest of the marks I used a parmanet marker

Round two, the "dremelator": I used a medium sized grinding stone, set all the way into the chuck, then preceded to grind away ...
...a long while later I started rethinking my grinding technique, because it was taking a loooong time!
So I tried a different technique on the second half of the first ski. Now, instead of plunging the stone into the ptex (which causes some ptex melting), I pushed it down and forward, in a sliding motion. This was waaaay faster and and left a much cleaner cut. I completed all of the scales on the second ski in same time that it took to do 25% of the scales on the first ski (~fifteen minutes)

Adding the binding, TTS Axl base:
The finished bases:
The whole shebang!
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