Well the good news is that the damage is not as bad as it sounds from the thread title. Skis are being shipped back to me right now so no pics for a few days sadly.
On my gotamas, the side edges continues right up to the tips of the skis, where a separate thick metal tip piece covers the very end of the base of the ski. Kind of like a toe cap you might say. I hit a rock or something similar and a small section (maybe 1/4 inch by 1 inch) section of this metal tip piece, right next to the join with the side edge, was pulled slightly away from the ski. Side edge damage is zero thankfully. Tip piece retains all material and using pliers I was able to largely press it back into place. However, because it is on the rockered tip of the ski it needs to lie down curved to be flush with the ski, and it doesn't quite want to do this without pressure. If I press it down it fits back where it should perfectly, but without this pressure a gap between sidewall and tip piece of about 1-2mm opens up. Is there a glue strong enough to hold it down? This metal is stiff so needs something powerful to hold it down onto the curve of the tip against its natural tendency to be flat. How should I use epoxy to make sure that water doesn't seep into the ski through the wound?
I was able to do another days skiing just by using duct tape to hold the plier-restored tip piece flush against the ski. In terms of skiing function this is actually not a bad solution but will not stop seepage into the core of the ski obviously. I checked out http://www.telemarktips.com/BaseRepair.html but this doesn't seem to quite deal with my situation.
I know a picture is worth a thousand words and this must be difficult to understand just from a written description, but if anyone can figure out what I mean and give advice I would be really grateful!
edit: low res but on this picture you can see the silver tip piece on the left ski if you squint hard enough, in case you were wondering what I meant (not my skis of course, just found this pic through google):
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