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Airglas lw2500 plastic replacement

wefly4u

SPONSOR
Spearfish, SD
Need to replace hdpe plastic bottoms on my Landes wheel skis, anyone have any experience or suggestions. Due to freight costs, I would really prefer not to send them back to Anchorage.

Ray
 
If yu can live with slapping more plastic on top of the bonded on plastic, do it. Those skis are not all that heavy for what they are, so maybe thats no big deal.

Is Airglas still replacing and serving owners on plastic replacement?

The old bonded on stuff was removed with a router, so I was told. I bet that was kindof a pain, but the remewed product was pretty when Landes was done with em.
 
Call Rusty at Troy Industrial in Brewer Maine. 1800 432 7967 They have a warehouse full of the stuff, 3 different classes of UHMW, also food grade. They usually have a bunch of cut offs pretty cheap and they will ups

If he wont take a credit card let me know I can get it thru my account. I thought the Airglas bottoms were bonded to the ski? Id like to know what they use, not much will stick to this stuff

Jim
 
Thanks for the replies. I have sources for the UHMW plastic already and have done several sets of aluminum skis in the past. My problem with the LW-2500's is not only how to fasten but specifically how to handle the transition area around the wheel opening in the ski. The existing plastic is cracking primarily in the curved area near the toe of each ski. I've completed temporary repairs using a plastic welder and P-tex type material similar to how we would repair downhill skis. Certainly not a permanent solution. The wheel opening area has the plastic material radiused upwards into the opening and I assume I could do the necessary bending using a heat gun, but fastening will be the challenge.

Ray
 
Airglas used a "scrim-backed" UHMW PE that was "inlayed" into the bottom and adhered with resin.

The scrim backed UHMW is peculiar stuff. Think "...fiberglass cloth impressed into UHMW sheet when the UHMW is nearly at melting point..."
 
well. I have not done this, but I hear it is slick. For UHMW FORMING of a "dish" tailski bottom:

heat UHMW SHEET evenly (large oven) until translucent and almost "floppy". form around mold wearing gloves. let cool. done. I guess it works really nicely.

You could form the bottoms and adhere the glass cloth ("scrim"?) in the same step maybe.

Hey, nothing good comes easy!
 
well. I have not done this, but I hear it is slick. For UHMW FORMING of a "dish" tailski bottom:

heat UHMW SHEET evenly (large oven) until translucent and almost "floppy". form around mold wearing gloves. let cool. done. I guess it works really nicely.

You could form the bottoms and adhere the glass cloth ("scrim"?) in the same step maybe.

Hey, nothing good comes easy!

i just use heat gun to form shapes...
 
UHMW 1/4" thick would be hard to uniformly heat with just a heat gun.

the dish tailski was formed from 1/4". Not as a plastic sheathing. It IS the ski bottom
 
Would have to buy the wife a much wider oven. 2 or 3 turkeys at a time.

I guess I'll just have to play around with some scraps and see how uniformly I can get glass mat to adhere to the UHMW.
 
Possibly Airglas could provide a vendor source for the scrimback?

.125" UHMW forms and heats much more readily than 1/4" by the way /)
 
Would have to buy the wife a much wider oven. 2 or 3 turkeys at a time.

I guess I'll just have to play around with some scraps and see how uniformly I can get glass mat to adhere to the UHMW.

You definitely want to make certain whatever you do sticks REALLY, REALLY well. Failure at the wrong time could/would be ugly.

Ive seen UHMW through bolted to these skis. Not pretty, but.

MTV
 
Screwing replacement bottoms on is common. Most guys extend the bottom width when they do it. The screw line is the place to locate the skegs so you get a doubler where the screws go.
 
Airglas is still doing bottom replacements with some exceptions to age and condition of the ski. It's the route I will pursue if I don't have a cherry set of original bottom L2500A's jump into my lap from one of the list sites. I did some research on the bonding of UHMW bottoms years ago and gave up deciding it may have too much of a learning curve to be worth it. The possibility still intrigues me and if you stumble on a source for bondable UHMW I would like to know your source. Crown Plastics has some 1/8 flame etched UHMW process but according to Airglas that does not work.

Jerry
 
Straight skis would be fairly easy to re bottom. If you buy regular UHMW, acetone wipe, lightly abrade the bonding surface, then flame treat you will have an excellent bond. The tricky part is flame treating the UHMw. Distance to the flame and speed of the flame moving over the surface needs to be just right or else it will not bond.
As jerry mentioned crown plastics sells base materials that is pre treated and bonds most excellently. You would also need to vacuum bag the ski or put it in a press for the best bond.
My experience is in building downhill skis. When it comes to airplane skis I just bolt new over the old.
 
This stuff is intended for airboats which are run through gravel and other abuses. Would this be an answer for your ski bottoms? https://bottomcoatings.com/

Q: Can I put Wetlander on top of UHMW poly?
A: Unlike other paints/coatings that cannot adhere to UMHW poly or provide minimal acceptable adhesion strength, Wetlander does in fact have a fair degree of adhesion to 50 grit abraded poly. However, the question remains “Does Wetlander adhere tenaciously enough to withstand the rigors of all-terrain abuse in airboating?”. We here at Wearlon are optimistic, but still in the testing phase. As of right now, Wetlander on top of poly does not pass our strict Quality Control guidelines and, as a result, we cannot officially advocate the application of Wetlander on UHMW poly. But, it may very well work for you and so it will have to be “try at your own risk”, knowing there is a risk of delamination.
 
Good thing I used to do that before the internet and super cub.org people said it wouldn’t work. :)


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org mobile app

Heat formed 1/4" locally? or a whole part WITH a heat gun?

Trying to gauge the tone of your remark here Mike.

Maybe a video or more explanation of your process? Thanks.

On another note: not having done a LOT Flame treating, it is something of an art from my experience. Mostly used it for prepping inlayed plastic parts in PVC foam core kiteboards prior to laminating carbon tops amd bottoms set in epoxy. good results, but I always wonder if I did it properly. "move flame at this many inches per second at this distance from material, etc"

On another note: for LW2500 or LW 3600, the area around tire opening does not have a "flange" to bolt to, so that is the crux of installing bolted on flat sheet bottoms unless a guy is will ing to blind fasten, relying on the actual fiberglass ski bottom to hold the fasteners in this area. Heck, it is known that some folks just sheetrock screw UHMW blind into the bottoms. maybe we are overthinking this!
 
Heat formed 1/4" locally? or a whole part WITH a heat gun?

Trying to gauge the tone of your remark here Mike.

Maybe a video or more explanation of your process? Thanks.

On another note: not having done a LOT Flame treating, it is something of an art from my experience. Mostly used it for prepping inlayed plastic parts in PVC foam core kiteboards prior to laminating carbon tops amd bottoms set in epoxy. good results, but I always wonder if I did it properly. "move flame at this many inches per second at this distance from material, etc"

On another note: for LW2500 or LW 3600, the area around tire opening does not have a "flange" to bolt to, so that is the crux of installing bolted on flat sheet bottoms unless a guy is will ing to blind fasten, relying on the actual fiberglass ski bottom to hold the fasteners in this area. Heck, it is known that some folks just sheetrock screw UHMW blind into the bottoms. maybe we are overthinking this!

round bottom tail ski... it was aluminum.. brand was????
 
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