Video

In the first part of the classs we all were given pre-cut paper-birch slats that were roughly shaped. Master instructor and co-founder of the North-House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN is Mr. Mark Hansen. He had made hundreds of traditional, skis, and all kinds of boats by hand. A really nice man and a wealth of knowledge and experience...and really funny!

Apprentice under Master Instructor Mark Hansen, Ian Andrus explains the process of tree/wood selection, and optimal grain characteristics for bending and making into skis, he also explains how to set up molds for skis.

After the skiis are made, I am going to add natural "Glide Wax" to my new hand-made birch skis before lace the bindings in. My goal is to try and treat these as primitively as possible, so instead of commercial ski/snowboard wax I am using a concotion of melted beeswax and tallow (3-4:1); more wax than tallow.