At the end of the season, I noticed three pairs of skis in my basement that we had retired over the past years: all of them old-school, made-in-the-USA Volants (two pairs of "Power-Ls" and one pair of "Super Titaniums"). I figured that they had better things to do than sit in a dark space and collect dust, so I called my friend Stephen, who has, together with his father, made some nice furniture for his Brooklyn apartment. Since my woodworking chops are pretty limited, I proposed that he take over the role of creative director in this project, while I served as production assistant (I sawed, stained, drilled, cooked lunch, and drove us to Home Depot).
I naively figured that we could knock off this job in a few days, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Over the past 2.5 months, Stephen commuted out to NJ nine times for four to six hour stints. He started off with some plans for a typical Adirondack chair taken off the internet, but improvised most of it. The most difficult part was dealing with the full-metal-jacket caps of the Volants. We both gained new respect for how goddamn hard the steel/titanium was to drill or saw through. Now I understand why ski shops always bitched when I brought Volants in to be mounted with new bindings. You need a special titanium tipped drill and most importantly, a drill press. There's no way we could accurately bore through them with a hand drill.
Toward the end, we realized that rather than having the wood frame touching the ground, it'd be much cooler to install a pair of skis as "feet." Unfortunately, I didn't have any more skis that I felt comfortable sacrificing, so last weekend, while at my mother's house upstate, I noticed a pair of old skis laying in the rafters above her garage. I pulled them down and they were my father's 40-year-old Holzners, a really handsome pair of all-wood longboards (200cm) made in Bavaria. My mother estimates that they had been sitting up there since 1974. He used to take them on jaunts to Song Mountain near Syracuse and weekend trips to Sugarbush during its salad days. Holy crap, you should have seen the "bindings" that we removed -- they looked like medieval instruments of torture.
We put the final screws in yesterday. It's comfortable as can be; you'll now find me on most summer afternoons/evenings sitting on it listening to Yankee games -- a chair that a man can call his own. 8)
Thanks again to Stephen for all the hard work.
First Seat
Checking For "Integrity" :?
Proud Parents
I naively figured that we could knock off this job in a few days, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Over the past 2.5 months, Stephen commuted out to NJ nine times for four to six hour stints. He started off with some plans for a typical Adirondack chair taken off the internet, but improvised most of it. The most difficult part was dealing with the full-metal-jacket caps of the Volants. We both gained new respect for how goddamn hard the steel/titanium was to drill or saw through. Now I understand why ski shops always bitched when I brought Volants in to be mounted with new bindings. You need a special titanium tipped drill and most importantly, a drill press. There's no way we could accurately bore through them with a hand drill.
Toward the end, we realized that rather than having the wood frame touching the ground, it'd be much cooler to install a pair of skis as "feet." Unfortunately, I didn't have any more skis that I felt comfortable sacrificing, so last weekend, while at my mother's house upstate, I noticed a pair of old skis laying in the rafters above her garage. I pulled them down and they were my father's 40-year-old Holzners, a really handsome pair of all-wood longboards (200cm) made in Bavaria. My mother estimates that they had been sitting up there since 1974. He used to take them on jaunts to Song Mountain near Syracuse and weekend trips to Sugarbush during its salad days. Holy crap, you should have seen the "bindings" that we removed -- they looked like medieval instruments of torture.
We put the final screws in yesterday. It's comfortable as can be; you'll now find me on most summer afternoons/evenings sitting on it listening to Yankee games -- a chair that a man can call his own. 8)
Thanks again to Stephen for all the hard work.
First Seat
Checking For "Integrity" :?
Proud Parents
