>> There is more than one way to leave a legacy.
For some it means plaques, monuments, and halls of fame, but for others legacy comes from a place more simple... >> ...snip off the ends.
We're building a teepee shape.
>> ...the Ford F-150.
A proud supporter of "A Craftsman's Legacy".
>> Michigan winters can be brutally cold, but if you like to ski, it's a great place to live.
Today, I'm visiting a couple ski makers -- Jeff and John Thompson, a father-and-son team behind Shaggy's Copper Country Skis.
I'm pretty excited to find out how modern-day downhill skis are made.
Hey.
How are you?
>> It's good.
>> I'm Eric Gorges.
>> Hi.
Come on in.
>> All right, nice to meet you guys.
A craftsman battles for perfection, never willing to give in or walk away.
I'm Eric Gorges.
I build custom motorcycles using skills passed on by countless generations before me.
I used to work 9: 00 to 5:00, chasing money and titles, and it nearly broke me.
So, I started over.
I decided to work with my hands to feed my soul.
Please join me on a quest to uncover the skills that built our society.
We'll discover what drives the men and women who I call my heroes.
We'll learn their craft and maybe even find some inspiration along the way.
There's a part of you in everything you create, your legacy.
"A Craftsman's Legacy."
>> Our namesake, Shaggy, was my mom's uncle... >> Okay.
>> ...who carved her first pair of skis for her.
His name was Sulo, but they called him Shaggy.
>> [ Laughs ] Okay.
>> You know, they lived up in the Copper Country, up in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
They were miners up there in the copper mines, and, you know, that's what they did.
And, you know, their mode of transportation there was skiing.
My mom would go to her friend's house and they would have to use those skis to get there.
It's very deep, you know.
>> So these are like cross-country skis?
>> Yeah, they were, but they would also play on them and go down the hills and things like that, so it was the evolution of skiing.
>> Do you guys still have them?
>> I got them hanging over my fireplace.
>> Oh, how neat.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
>> How did it start?
Like, how did you get into making skis?
>> My dad always had us out on the hill, we were out skiing six days a week.
But we grew up racing.
And one day, I decided to cut apart an old pair of skis to attach them to my bike.
So after one of our ski races, I was gonna go and take a bike down the hill.
Um... >> [ Laughs ] >> So we kind of got started with this, and I looked at the cross-section after I cut the tip off to use on my bike, and I said, "Well, this doesn't look too hard.
It's just some wood and fiberglass."
We had made a surfboard the summer before, my dad and I, and -- >> You made a surfboard?
>> We made a surfboard.
>> Really?
>> And that was the first time I had ever used fiberglass and epoxy, and I said, "Oh, well, that kind of opens up the world into things that you can make."
So, we decided that, "Hey, we're gonna -- Why don't we try to make a pair?"
>> Okay.
>> We always made things in our family, so... >> Oh, so you grew up in a family of makers?
>> Yeah.
>> Right?
>> Yeah, always doing something, building something.
That was part of what we, as parents, wanted to do.
We wanted them to do things.
We didn't want them just sitting in front of the TV and that.
They were always busy doing something.
You know, my dad did that with me.
You know, I learned a lot through that.
>> We looked up, you know, "How do you make a set of skis?"
and there wasn't a whole lot of information then.
But we knew we had to have a press.
We have to have a way to squish everything together.
>> All the different components sort of get pressed together?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Okay.
>> You know, finding some of the components and that and putting it all together was the difficult part, yeah.
>> Do you still have, like, the first pair you ever made?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah?
Did you ski on them?
>> No.
>> You didn't?
>> No.
So that was -- We were headed up north, I had a race in Marquette, so we wanted to try our skis at this race, like, after we were done, and my brother was coming up, you know, he was gonna be two days after us, so he was gonna try to get these skis ready.
Well, he put them in the press that we had made, and it was in my dad's barn, and it was 40 degrees in the middle of winter... >> Ahh... >> Well, epoxy doesn't set up when it's 40 degrees outside, so they came out and immediately peeled apart, but at least all the materials were there.
>> Sure.
Yeah.
>> So, we eventually decided to tear up my brother's room that he wasn't using anymore in the basement... >> And you moved everything inside.
>> We moved it all inside.
>> It was self-teaching, 'cause there is no information out there on how to do this stuff, so trial and error was our teacher.
We were making skis and we were skiing on our skis and finally got to the point where we said, "These are pretty good, you know?
We think we need to get other people on them," you know, so... >> You know, there were friends that wanted to try them.
They thought it was cool that we were making skis.
>> So, how many years do you think it really took you to get to a point where you were really happy with the product, like to a point where you could expect to start selling them?
>> That was honestly probably 5 years in.
>> 5 years?
So now you've got a company that actually is manufacturing on a smaller scale, right?
You know, you're always chasing perfection, right?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So, can you tell me about the craftsmanship?
>> It's paramount.
So we're a small-scale manufacturer, right -- we say manufacturer with a grain of salt.
We're crafting products.
The quality control is our eyes and the people who are building skis.
Every little aspect has to be checked and re-checked by a person, by us, it's not a part scanning under a computer, you know, that's being scanned and is there an imperfection kicking it offline.
Every part that we put into a ski and every part that we make, it's got to be perfect.
>> How do you guys view yourself -- as craftsmen or artists?
>> I would say craftsmen.
>> Yeah?
>> That's what I would say, too.
>> Art is carving snow?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, you know, the art is getting out and having the fun on them and the beauty of them.
But, you know, the craftsmanship of putting them together and making it work and making them ski well is the part that I really enjoy.
>> It really is all about the knowledge.
More in crafting the product, the more and more we can know about it and more intimately we can know everything about what we did.
It helps us in making everything, you know?
Where do we have to do this better?
Where are we doing it well?
>> So, you guys about ready?
Make some skis, show me what's going on?
>> Absolutely.
>> Think we'll be able to do it?
>> Yeah.
Let's make them.
>> All right.
[ Claps ] Let's check out your shop.
Skis have played a huge role in global exploration.
On December 14th, 1911, a high-stakes race across the snow and ice reached its exciting conclusion.
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team used their superior skiing skills to beat out their British counterparts to become the first humans to reach the South Pole.
For Amundsen, skiing was a way of life, a Nordic tradition passed down for generations.
It's believed that skis were invented by an early indigenous people called the Sami who lived in the Arctic region that is now northern Sweden, Finland, Norway, and parts of Russia.
For the Sami, skis were a necessity for survival, allowing them to navigate frozen terrain as they hunted for food during the harsh winters.
Cross-country skiing continued to be an essential part of the Nordic culture and has played an important role in military training and operations.
The introduction of the ski lift gave rise to the popularity of alpine, or downhill, skiing.
With the creation of Shaggy's Copper Country Skis, John and Jeff Thompson have harnessed the great skiing tradition of their Finnish ancestors.
They're adding their own spin to this age-old craft.
This is where it all starts, right?
>> We do it all here, so...
The core is the most important part of our skis, so we make them.
>> What kind of wood do we have here?
White ash.
>> White ash from Michigan.
>> From Michigan.
Some of the best stuff in the world, right here.
>> Right on.
So, how do you start?
>> So, we start by flattening this board out.
So, we're gonna plane it down till the top and bottom sides are flat.
So what we're gonna do from this state is we're gonna rip it into a bunch of little strips.
So, every little strip that we have here is then put onto a basic flex tester, and we measure how stiff each piece of lumber is.
>> Okay.
And then what does that tell you?
>> So, we can have up to 30% variation in stiffness from this side of the board to this side.
I mean, it's wood.
>> Oh.
Do you want that when you make skis?
>> No.
So we want to get rid of that, that's why we don't use a solid piece of lumber when we make a core.
>> Like, this says 112 on it, are you gonna take a whole bunch of 112's and put them all together?
>> The biggest thing is consistency.
So we want to make that core symmetrical from the inside out, and then we want core 1 and 2 to be the exact same.
And that's what we're going for.
And so, when you flex your ski, it's not weird one way or the other way.
It's the exact same.
>> And then you glue them together?
>> Yeah, so we're gonna take about seven different strips of wood, and we're gonna re-laminate those back together.
>> Is there a special kind of glue you have to use?
>> Just wood glue, basic wood glue.
>> Get out of here.
>> No, it's simple.
>> Push up the bottom.
>> Okay.
>> Make sure we're just under eight inches.
>> Okay.
>> I'll lower this down.
And look at our deflection, and we're just at 1 inch.
>> All right.
>> Mark a 1.
Lift it up.
So you want to hold this together... and kind of just put glue on it.
Put it on that side.
All we're gonna do is tighten these things.
Just cinch them up.
[ Ratcheting ] And we're gonna let those set for about 10 hours before they get worked.
So from this point, we've got to take all the ridges out -- the variation between the different pieces of wood -- so we're gonna plane that down.
One side of it's smooth, dead-flat, and then cut the ends off so we have a nice, clean piece of lumber to load onto the CNC machine.
>> And what does a CNC machine do?
>> So what that's gonna do is it's gonna profile the thickness of the core, so it's gonna get thinner at the tip, thicker where your foot goes -- we call that "underfoot" -- and then thinner again at the tail.
It's about a 10-minute process for a pair of cores to get profiled and then cut out to shape, also.
[ Machine whirring ] >> This looks like the base of the ski.
>> It is.
>> And what kind of material is this?
>> This is a centered UHMW, which is made specifically for skis.
Very durable, real hard, real fast material.
>> Fast for the skis?
>> Fast for the skis, yeah.
>> Gotta go fast.
>> Well, that's what it's all about.
The need for speed.
>> And this is our edge?
>> Yep.
>> This is very important, isn't it?
>> It is the important part.
It's what makes the ski hold on the hard-packed snow and gives you your ability to make turns.
>> So we're gonna install this edging on the base right now?
>> Right on.
So we have to conform the edge to the base material itself.
I'll show you what we do.
Grab that edge a little bit and give it a little bit of a bend.
I bend it a little bit extra, so if you will check that.
You know, after doing a few thousand of them, you know, it comes easy.
>> Just a little easier, eh?
>> Yeah.
>> And you want it a little springy -- >> You want it a little bit springy so it will push it into place.
>> Okay.
>> Okay.
You can see that it settles in.
Perfect.
Just follow that edge.
There you go.
Push that glue underneath the tube a little bit, there.
>> And this causes it to cure instantly?
>> Yep.
It's called INSTA-SET, and it does.
Push this out of our way.
>> Look at that.
>> I give it a little shake, 'cause if it's loose, you'll hear a rattle.
So now our edges are all attached.
>> Look at that.
Where do we go from here?
I see all this epoxy everywhere, like, dripping off the shelves and stuff, everything's coated in it.
>> Oh, yeah.
So, what we're essentially gonna do is build a symmetrical sandwich.
We're gonna start with our base, but everything is really built around the core, so we're gonna have fiberglass and carbon fiber below the core.
And the base, obviously.
We're gonna have fiberglass and a top sheet above the core.
>> And the top sheet has the graphic on it?
>> So, that's printed into the plastic.
So between every layer we're actually gonna have epoxy.
So we have to work that in to every layer so everything sticks together.
>> So how much time do we have to do this, because epoxy sets up in a certain time frame, right?
>> Yeah.
So we have 20 to 25 minutes of working time that we have to have everything assembled and then in the press.
>> And this is the press behind us?
>> Yep.
>> These things are really, really cool -- they look completely handmade.
>> They are.
We try to figure out the fastest way to be able to change over and switch between models so we can do custom work for everyone.
>> I'm sitting between geniuses.
It's pretty neat.
[ Laughs ] All right, let's make our skis.
>> Take this core, put it in the middle.
And you get some epoxy on here.
>> Do you smooth this out?
>> Same thing.
Yep.
>> Spread it all out.
So now we'll put our tip and tail spacers on.
>> Oops.
>> So we're gonna flip this over, 'cause we coated the bottom of the core.
>> Squeegee.
Push that rubber in a little bit in there.
>> Okay, now we'll do our next one.
Okay, so we'll do the rubber one more time.
>> Fiberglass.
>> Yep.
>> Just want to push down.
>> A low angle the first time.
>> Yep.
>> And we're just gonna try to keep our hands off of the main area.
>> Oh, okay.
>> ...tears.
There, that's covered.
>> So now we can just flatten it out a little bit with our hands.
Underneath, not that the pressure doesn't take that out, but the more we get out, the less problems we have.
>> Less cleaning later.
Shift that way first.
>> Land in here.
Tight.
>> Pull it over.
[ Air hisses ] >> Look at that.
>> Now we'll turn on the heat.
>> We're back to two skis again.
>> Yep.
We took it to the back, cut them apart on the band saw, sanded the edges down, shaped the tip and the tail.
Last thing we do is put two bevels on the sidewall so that the edge can do its job and make us ski through the hard stuff real easy.
>> But these are far from ski-worthy, right?
>> Far from ski-worthy.
Now we have to work on the base.
We've got some tape, we've got epoxy -- We've got to get that off.
>> And we've got a couple different machines to use, it looks like.
>> Yep.
We have a belt grinder that we're gonna do the bulk of the work with.
Five different belts taking down the material, smoothing it out.
From there, we'll go to the edge grinder and we'll do a pass on that.
And then we come over to the stone grinder.
The stone grinder flattens the ski and puts structure into the base.
That's a ceramic stone and what we do is we buff out that edge, make it nice and shiny and sharp and give us a nice finish on the edge.
>> We are just about done.
>> Yeah?
One step?
>> One step.
We've got to wax them.
It's gonna hydrate our base first with wax, it's gonna condition it.
But it's really gonna be fast on the snow.
The wax is faster than your base on the snow.
>> Oh, really?
>> Yep.
>> All right.
So, what do we have to do to wax it?
>> We use a ski waxing iron.
>> Okay.
>> And we drip it on and smooth it out, let it sit for a couple of minutes, scrape it off.
And we've got a hot iron here, you want to drip a little bit on that side?
>> Sure.
>> Just kind of go back and forth.
>> Now, is it a problem if you put too much on?
>> No.
No.
So here, if you want to take over.
>> Sure.
So you sort of want to sit on it for a bit to let it melt.
>> Yeah, you just want to go nice and slow, let it get molten, and then you can move it around.
Scrape back and forth.
I'm not putting too much pressure on it.
But I also want to take that stuff off.
So we're looking good on here.
Now we're gonna look at this end here.
There's a little bit of wax.
Just gonna go back and forth a couple of times.
[ Buzzing ] >> Hey, man.
>> Hey.
Looks like we're ready to go.
>> I think so.
>> All righty.
Ready for the peel?
>> Yeah.
>> Hold it sturdy.
>> This has to be a pretty exciting part for you guys.
>> It is.
It's always fun.
>> Yeah.
Oh, look at that.
How cool is that?
>> Might get a little split here.
Nope.
>> Ah, there it is.
You ever have it where it rips off in about a thousand pieces?
>> Yeah.
We've tried to figure out which material does that and not order that again.
>> [ Laughs ] Yeah.
>> There we go.
>> Look at that.
These look fantastic.
>> Thanks.
>> Man, I had a great time.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Yeah.
Thank you.
We had a great time showing you the process.
>> This was awesome.
And we're going skiing tomorrow morning, right?
>> Yeah, man.
>> All of us.
>> We're gonna have some fun.
>> All right.
>> On these brand-new sticks.
>> [ Laughs ] Yeah.
Even though I've been skiing most of my life, I didn't realize just how complex skis are to create.
The passion and desire John and Jeff have for skiing has driven them to produce an amazing ski.
And as a team, they're continually pushing each other to improve the skis and the process.
It's truly amazing what can be accomplished with ingenuity and imagination.
>> There is more than one way to leave a legacy.
For some it means plaques, monuments, and halls of fame, but for others legacy comes from a place more simple... >> ...snip off the ends.
We're building a teepee shape.
>> ...the Ford F-150, a proud supporter of "A Craftsman's Legacy".
>> To discover more about "A Craftsman's Legacy" and the craftsmen we feature, please visit our website.
And you can also follow us on social media through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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