Head Standard
[4] Martin was a pioneer in the use of a plastic honeycomb material sandwiched between two thin sheets of aluminum to build bulkheads and floors in post-war aircraft.
[4] He was immediately frustrated by the weight of his rented hickory skis, which he felt were archaic in an era of modern lightweight materials.
"[2] Investing $6,000 of poker winnings, Head rented the corner of an electrical shop and started work on a composite ski.
Head came up with the idea of placing the skis in a heavy rubber bag, pumping out the air to produce a vacuum to provide pressure, and then immersing the entire assembly in a barrel of boiling crankcase oil.
[N 1] Head returned to Baltimore, and on 2 January 1948, quit his job at Martin to work on the ski design full-time.
Head found that the plastic core was simply too weak to provide the strength needed to match the hickory skis.
[2] Over the next year, he and a number of moonlighting Martin engineers made 40 pairs of skis, shipping them to Robinson and Don Traynor at Mansfield for testing.
Head gave pairs to Steve Knowlton and Clif Taylor, formerly of the 10th Mountain Division and now instructors at Aspen Ski School.
They found they skied well in the powder at the top of the hill, but as they descended hit harder snow they simply wouldn't dig in and became impossible to turn.
Taylor stayed long enough to tell Head that the ski needed real edges, and some way for the bottoms to hold wax.
TEY, creators of the earlier Tru-Flex and Alu 60 designs, faced the same sticking problems and had started selling a self-adhesive celloid plastic sheet that could be used with any ski and eliminated the need for waxing.
[2] By this point it was late in the spring of 1950, and Head took the prototypes to the only place left in the east with good snow, Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
One last problem needed to be solved; the mirror-like topsheet was distracting in the sun, so a thin sheet of black plastic was added to the top.
[2] In 1956 Head developed the first damping system for skis, inserting a neoprene layer under the top aluminum sheet.
Two years later a third of all skiers in the top 10 of every major downhill race were on Competitions, winning a total of 18 gold medals, 15 silver and 15 bronze.
In 1967 the last major introduction in the Standard-based line was the Head 360, based on the Competition structure but with a flex suitable for intermediate skiers.
The competition was quick to introduce similar models of their own, but Head continued development and maintained a leadership position throughout.
Head preferred to be a hands-on manager, and after being pushed from the ski operations he lost interest and turned his attention to tennis.
[2] Taking up tennis in earnest, his trainer quit in frustration and told Head to keep practicing with a ball throwing machine.
Continuing development of the aluminum racquet, Head invented the modern oversized design that revolutionized the industry.
