DIY edge sharpening?

A snowHead

We have 8 pairs to service, not much to do at the moment as they only had 3 hours skiing on our last curtailed trip, and there is one new pair to prep etc. I do like the therapy of doing them myself, and I think they end up pretty well done, anything major and they are off to Spyder Jon though. I shall start on the new pair while off work for the next week, will also help me find the ski stuff from 2 years ago...

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Hardest bit is doing this on the balcony of a ski apartment with the skis wedged on 2 chairs or over the railing, plus the wax doesn't scrape off so easily at -10 degrees. Did have waxing wars over the balcony with a guy who had brought a service bench etc wth him. ( I lost) A little room for us types in an apartment block would be very welcome.

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@endoman, said little room unlikely to be used much (for ski servicing)

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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@Mjit, thanks - unless the edge starts out proud of the base, then filing it down eventually leads to file/base contact. I only tried it a couple of times but was definitely starting to catch the edge of the base (which may be technique, or lack thereof).

For my snow skis, I’ve never actually run out of side or base edge, or base material. However for our dry slope skis, I’ve had a few pairs reach end of life due to lack of side edge, and that’s very common amongst regular dry slope users. At a race you’ll rarely see anyone touching the base edge of their skis, just filing frantically away at the sides. Hence why I’m wondering if I can re-bias the sharpening more towards the base edge and get more life out of some of our skis.

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If you file the base edge it will very quickly start removing bits of base, if you take to much material off you are just starting to increase the base edge angle. Just lightly tidy the base edge with oxide stone and then a light diamond stone, and do all the work on the side edge. Eventually skiing will wear and round the base edge, when sharpening the side edge will not result in satisfactory sharp edge. That is when you need to get a very light base grind to reset the base edge. I get Ski cCinic in Cluses to set everything at 0.5 degrees base and 3 degrees side, and then when the base edge gets a bit rounded, I hand set it to 0.75 or 1 degree to get a bit more out of the ski, or just get them base ground again. Ski Clinic will do a really very light grind to remove as little base as possible.

After all it is free

@Zorrac, v helpful thanks, and glad I’m not the only one who ends up making contact with the base itself when doing the base edge.

Ski clinic is nearby. I might do a mid season trip there with the family ski collection to get them all nicely tuned up ready for me to continue DIYing them for another year.

Some good info on here and some not quite so good.

I’ve lost count of the number of times that people have shown me their claimed 0.5 degree base bevel that they’ve set by hand. They’re often adamant it’s 0.5 because their special file guide says so and/or they’ve been blessed with super powers after a tuning course. However, the actual angle is often 1.5 degrees or more.

Ski base flatness plays a huge part in achieving accuracy, particularly when the desired base edge angle is less than 1 degree. Proper flatness can only be achieved with a stone grind - don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

The reality is that applying accurate base bevel by hand is easy to mess up and you need a ‘clean slate’ (post stone grind) to start with. Using a marker pen also isn’t a perfect way to measure the accuracy of your work.

A properly calibrated ceramic disc machine as previously mentioned is the way to go for accuracy, consistency and durability. By all means tinker with the side edge if you want or feel the need to, but try and leave the base edge alone. The more you hack away at it, the bevel increases, performance subsequently decreases and as and when you do need a grind in the future, more base material has to be removed to get the base as flat as possible in relation to the base edge.

Modern machines are used at the top level all the time these days. Super precise results can be had time after time with minimal material removal.

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@crosshatch, it's true that modern machines can outperform hand these days (not always good, as all speed skis on WC are still done by hand, while GS is sometimes done by hand sometimes by machines, depending on racer and conditions. For SL it's almost always machine). But for this, we are talking about handheld machines in range of 2000+eur, which normal people will never have, nor will have knowledge and experience to operate them. Cheap battery powered machines for few 100eur, are nowhere near properly done hand tune. Neither are shop machines.
As for base bevel I totally agree. For 99% of normal people, it's something they should never touch. Mostly because 0.1degree difference on base really shows, and doing thing accurately to 0.1 degree is not something anyone can easily do. Especially not someone with not much of experience. Side edge is way more forgiving, and 3 degree or 4 degree will not feel as much difference then 0.1 degree on base does.

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About time we had a couple of posts on the diy reality of obtaining 0.5 base edge accuracy .

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Thats the exact point or rather diy/tourist service "degree of accuracy" regarding the base edge that Crosshatch and Primoz are making ist it?

They are suggesting its far easier to mess up the base edge accuracy with diy or using a tourist service centre ....without a precision stone ground flat base to start from .

More often than not when attempting the base edge diy ....it can end up not as little as 0.1 degree out ...you can end up with more like 1.5 degree or far more out .

Certainly when doing the base edge.... the devil is in the detail !!

They are not talking about skier ability to analyse performance as most only do one or two weeks a season .

You know it makes sense.

@On the rocks, believe me, you would notice difference between 0.75 and 1.0 degree on base... regardless how good (or bad) skier you are. On the other side, you would have to be really good skier, have really good feeling for skis (not even all top WC racers have that, and this comes from personal experience of being serviceman on WC tour for years), and you would need to ski on much more icy track that normal ski resorts have, to notice difference between 2 and 4 degrees on side.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

is there a rough chart of base edge, side angle for ski/snow/dryslope and ability

A snowHead

A snowHead

@Gregors,

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

What’s the best online guide/video or book if you wanted to learn about the details of this stuff starting from basically zero knowledge?

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I read the Piste office guides and all johns posts but also balance that with USA views .

As mentioned above you can get alot of mis info so if time was short just go with the piste office track and then as you progress for your own personal needs take on board more from elsewhere.

Ultimately you have to practise alot at anything to get where you want to be so making a start with the Piste office is the right course from scratch without any doubt.
This will also save money on buying the wrong tools and cheap rubbish you dont need..its a stepping stone affaire of mistakes otherwise.
Im certain the Piste office would personally advise you here as well so you avoid sales bs or any wrong options for ones personal needs

My 2cents would be buy a 1000w iron as they work in freezing rooms or working anywhere thats not optimal diy .
You have to get the base warm to suck it up deep and a 1000w iron does that job better than lesser irons and quicker on wide powder equipment.
Often in my diy case you start from 100% correct method then deviate as required as resort non workshop conditions may requite and your time allows .
(I have waxed with pillows on a bed in a 4 star using towels to protect the bed and scrape outside ..whatever it takes )

In other words in practise, first chair on a powder day may mean the right wax and quiver powder board having a surface area/lenght for float is all that matters at 7am.... forget the edges altogether.... as fresh wax maxes long glide and runouts... saving energy to ride longer.... as its a endurance event .

Tomorrows another day worry about that when it arrives via the weather report .

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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It’s also worth taking into consideration that factory claimed edge angles (both base and side edge) aren’t always as accurate as stated. As an example, I measured a brand new Black Crows ski the other week because on the same ski, the left and right base edge looked different to the eye. Sure enough, that was the case. One base edge was 1.4 degrees and the other (on the same ski) was 2.4 degrees. Not really what you’d expect on a brand new ski in 2021, is it?

Some of you are now probably thinking “well there you go then, machines aren’t as good as you implied previously”. My point is, when they are accurately calibrated, they are superb and put out a great finish in very little time.

Some great Wintersteiger kit is available to customers in the UK, although you won’t currently see the same automated machines that are often available in resort (Scout/Mercury/Discovery/Jupiter etc). Other manufacturers like Reichmann and Montana will no doubt have similar offerings but I am not familiar with them.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@Scooter in Seattle, as far as the shops goes, it's all about how particular shop do their work. Some are good, some not so much, but fact is, none does it great, at least based on my merit Very Happy

. But it's understandable. They don't prepare skis for races, they don't have 5 or 6 pairs to be ready for next day, but up to few 100. With such numbers, and also with knowing most people don't really need super great tune, especially as based on what I see on forums, pretty big majority of people do skis once a season, those shop tunes are just fine. But in my mind, if you want to ski good and skiing on properly prepared and maintained skis (service once a year is not that) makes skiing so much more fun, doing it yourself is only way to go. It takes a bit to learn how to properly do it, and it takes a bit to get all the equipment, but for me its worth the hassle (in reality it's not really hassle... it's sort of therapeutic Laughing

).

After all it is free

@primoz, yeah I'm a veteran of self-service and where it indeed was once therapeutic, particularly with an unpretentious claret, now I sort of need therapy after scraping the damn things, especially with cold wax! So now they get a midseason grind and I keep the edges clean and wax 'em not nearly often enough.

Which prompts this question: for recreational skiers, do you think the scrape is mandatory, or can we just let it wear off? Sure is tempting.

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Did Mrs endo's new skis yesterday, quick diamond over the edges and a hot scrape then a few layers of wax, it's 2 years since I last did any skis so it was a little unfamiliar at first!

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@Scooter in Seattle, yes scrape is mandatory if you ask me. For recreational, or for even less recreational skiers. First, unscrapped ski feels like sh**t, and second, you don't really do much of good to ptex if you don't scrape it and let snow do the "scraping". With sharp scrapers you sort of "cut" (sorry English is not my native language so sometimes it's sort of hard to properly explain things in English) wax of the ski, while leaving wax in pores of ptex. When snow does that, it drags patch of wax off including parts that should stay in ptex, so you end up with "dry" ptex really fast.
Recipe for easy scraping (hard cold wax is actually easier to scrap then warm wax) is sharp scraper. Most of people won't get machine for sharpening scrapers, and honestly, it's too expensive thing to recommend it anyway, so easiest solution is 120 grit sand paper taped to flat table. Then just be carefull to drag scrapper at 90 degrees up down on that, and it's sharp. For most of my serviceman career I was sharpening my scrapers this way (there were no machines for sharpening yet for most of my time), so if it was good enough for WC, I'm pretty sure it's good enough for home use too (now I'm lazy and have luck to still get these sort of tools for free, so I use machine). Just take care to do it regularly, as basic rule is one sharp scraper is good for single pair, then sharpen.

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@primoz, Sandpaper works fine for me to sharpen a scraper.

@primoz, thank you and Happy New Year. This was helpful, and I think your English is excellent. I wondered about ripping the wax out of the pores by skiing without scraping, and so it is. I'm getting lazy too, maybe this will spur me.

Some firm is offering "permanent wax" around here. Sounds like "permanent weight loss" to me...

You know it makes sense.

Thanks for the masses of helpful responses and advice so far. I’ve since bought and watched the Piste Office videos on DIY ski servicing. It certainly seems attractive to be able to refresh the edges and wax every few days during a 2 week or longer trip without the hassle and uncertainty of going to a shop. How practical do people find this in a ski locker area or if allowed apartment without a proper work bench and vices etc and risk of making a mess spilling wax on the floor etc?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@On the rocks, those issues are not so bad as you can use backs of chairs or folding electric piano stand and towels on the floor to catch wax. I think being able to work on a room that is not freezing cold is a big help when applying and scraping wax.

A snowHead

You can also sharpen [plastic] scrapers with a file. I shall try using the "sandpaper" I have around and see which works best - thanks.
The only time I don't scrape is if I'm storing the boards... and then I have to remember to scrape before using them. Never tried riding on an unscraped board.

These days I just use local shops for waxing etc.
Some Austrian places I've stayed in do have benches in the ski rooms, but your typical Canadian locker room doesn't have that.
Posh places like the Banff Springs the hotel will valet your gear you and sort out the waxing too, for a price.

On piste you should be able to feel when more/ different wax is needed, but 3-4 days is typical for me.

A snowHead

I waxed a quiver over 2.5 months on hotel bed with pillows for vices.
Never scraped wax inside..... used a log fence, scraper and ptex pad often in a foot or more snow.

Went through the resorts best powder season since 1955 doing so with a very large quiver .
As said key point is the best 1000w iron you can get otherwise the adversity is mind numbing .

I wasnt using Jons Dominator wax but imagined it would have helped vs the Data all temp stuff I wanted to deplete .
3 days was about the best glide I would get with full days in powder of 4-7 hours on chairs .

The differculty of doing the work to any sort of completion level ,the cheap Data wax but the best heat levels from the 1000w iron worked but it was only ....best I could do in the circumstances.
The room was freezing as all windows doors were opened cause of alarms.
No one else did this so its not recommended but can be done .

Had to pay extreme care to the room often hoovering it and had melted carpet at home prevously so was aware of that pitfall.
This whole waxing drama wasnt ever easy but I only got better at doing it and I believe the glides worth the work.
A workshop would have been a monumental luxary you actually wished for one .

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@philwig, (Fitzwilliam) file makes it sharper, but it's harder to make it perfectly flat. And you want to have scraper perfectly flat, as otherwise you starts making your ski base either convex or concave depending how scraper is shaped. This is especially true with xc skis, where there's no edges. But as sandpaper makes it sharp enough, even though sharpness lasts little bit less then when done with file, I would suggest sandpaper not file.

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err... Fitzwilliam is not what I meant to write Wink

Forum changes bas**tard file to Fitzwilliam file Laughing

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

IMHO while a shop doing it properly (with the reasonable gear) can do a better job (at least compared to me), for the vast majority it is better/useful to self service most of the time. After a few days I doubt the difference between a good tune and a perfect tune is noticable (especially if you also take the tools with you to do minor tunes/servicing depending on conditions etc)

As pointed out by others the shops usually have a lot of skis to get through, so often will ignore the existing edge angles and base grind regardless of state (as pointed out, if they are servicing 100's of skis they don't have time to manually reset the machine properly every time, unless it is a very high end one (e.g. some people have mentioned top of the range Wintersteiger machines which google tells me can read barcodes on the skis to automatically set the angles - and they have automatic feeds (so can be loaded with a bunch of pairs and left to get on with it), but they also cost a (not so small) fortune)

Equally a lot are happy to wax skis and leave the edges alone, but most seem unwilling to do the edges without also grinding the base. Presumably because the shop machines generally do both side and base angle together (so want a flat base to set base angle...) I have found it reasonably doable to at least run a diamond file along edges (even if I can't do a full tune) in resort even if space/vices for more aggressive file + wax is difficult, and accept the cost to get them waxed

Plenty of places in the UK advertise high end servicing with grind flat, then ptex repairs, then no doubt grind again to get repairs flat, then stone grind for structure! A great way to remove loads of base material... In practice for the vast majority this only needs doing at worst after several weeks, not every trip (n.b. I expect one of my pairs probably could do with a grind, but having my own servicing kit means I can apply a diamond stone to the edges (still mostly sharp after PSB due to lots of powder) do limited ptex repairs, and put off the grind until after/during the Gnarlibug, SoPiB and (hopefully) GUFF which given off piste could easily leave them in a worse state than they are now, even if I get them done (especially given I will most likely be skiing for most of it on the wider pair...)

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Expensive but amazing are the handheld electric edgers. They are much faster than a file and take a lot less material off the edge, only issue is the price. I've always found doing my skis very relaxing so I don't mind doing it.

Basis home kit would be
Sidewall planer - often over looked but needed.
Edge Guides (88 or 89 is common) simple metal ones are best
File - fine
clamp for file
Diamond file for polishing.

Iron
Couple of brushes - copper to clean the base before waxing and one for finishing after scrapping
Scrappers. - also something to sharpen the scrappers.
Rubber bands
Wax.

You could add ski vices, a stand/table, different waxes, different guides 87/88/89, and about a million other things.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

just as an aside, if anyone's after an acrylic scraper it might be worth checking out your local sign making shop. I ducked into one close to home to ask if they had any scraps, the guy pointed to a large bin of off-cuts in the corner and told me to help myself. Came away with 1/2 dozen scraper sized pieces all with lovely sharp edges

Help!!

DIY edge sharpening?

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