I spent this afternoon over at the new shop space, which I’m tentatively calling “the Rocket Factory”. I moved in a few things from my basement storage unit – table, chairs, tools – then went to Home Depot for a ladder and some cleaning supplies. The place is still almost empty, but now we can start building workbenches and shelving units.

Once I had the essentials in place I started in on my skis. I took off the bindings, scraped off the REI stickers, and sanded down the top surface. Then I pried off the rubber tip caps, which turned out not to be such a smart idea. I had imagined the rubber bits as caps over the ends of a normally shaped ski, but it turns out that the skis themselves are weird stubby-ended things, and the rubber is what makes them come to a point. I think I will solve this problem with bondo. In the meantime, I went over one of the skis with a light coat of paint, just to get started; it’s going to take a good few coats to make the color opaque, but once it’s done these are going to be some dramatic skis.