Tough ash and maple cores

A rock-hard wood core lasts longer than the inexpensive spruce and fir plywood cores used by most factories. It's livelier, holds binding screws securely, and remains dimensionally stable through the life of the ski. Because our hardwood cores are fully cured before we carve them to shape, they won't swell or shrink during or after the high-temperature molding process - which means we do the final base-grind on a stable ski and you get a perfectly tuned ski, ready to ski right out of the box.

Hi-tensile heat-treated metal

Big factories make fast skis using structural layers of an expensive alloy called Titanal. The stuff actually contains no titanium, or only a trace, accidental amount. When metal is called for to achieve higher speed or better crud penetration, we use the same high-alloy, heat-treated aircraft aluminum specified by Boeing for critical aircraft parts. And we use the finest tempered carbon steel edges, from an American subsidiary of InterMontana Sports.

Aerospace resins and fibers

We use Kevlar - the bulletproof vest fabric - to protect against rock impact. But the main structural loads are carried by a glass-fiber and resin system sold to aircraft manufacturers for use in defense products, including stealth aircraft. The stuff maintains high strength when flexed at very low stratospheric temperatures.