Hello triumphman not sure if your still on her, but i have the same issue you had my skis ate racing skis and have the metal steel side rail as well as the aluminium tip. I thought abot cutting them ofc to make it less rigid but i was afraid of delamination of the material and taking away all of the useful rigidity. So i left them and while stringing it I started to hear cracking so I tested the weight by resting it on blocks and jumping on i, I weigh 160lbs and not a creak. So I figure with the skis in their natural for it must be pulling 200+ pounds or its the 15° angle adding to the stress either way I went ahead with attempting to string it after reinforcing the grip and naturally it snapped in half under the reinforced part. I used a mixture of red oak, hard maple, and pooplar. (Yes i meant to spell it like that). I fliped the template the wrong way and made the poplar the load bearing section. But I plan to reengineer it. My question is how do the skis hold up after cutting off the rails?