 Poster: A snowHead
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Spent last week in ADH, and had a marvellous time.
I hired skis, and skied on one pair of edges the first two days. As they were noticably blunt, I swapped them over and used the other pair of edges for the second two days. By which time the second edges weren't as good as the first.
And so I took them into the shop (Ski Set in Villard Reculas) and asked the chappie to sharpen the edges. "No way," he said, "My skis have a limited life, and every time they are sharpened they get narrower. Anyway, they're still perfectly sharp," and he proceeded to show me "exactly" how sharp they were by scratching his fingernail on an edge, and proving that it shaved his nail. No wonder, it did, for it was a beautifully burred edge that he was running his finger over.
So, is this typical for hire shops? Am I right to be annoyed? Fortunately there was a good dump of powder for the last day so edges weren't so very important.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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James the Last, I can imagine him not wanting to sharpen them too often as their life would be dramatically shortened. If everything else was the same (ie snow condition) I'm surprised you noticed them degrading in a couple of days though. Assuming you were skiing on snow and not rocks or rails.
On the other hand, if you were unhappy with the skis, you should quite fairly have expected to exchange them for another pair.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| James the Last wrote: |
| I hired skis, and skied on one pair of edges the first two days. As they were noticably blunt, I swapped them over and used the other pair of edges for the second two days. By which time the second edges weren't as good as the first. |
You use all the edges whatever feet you have the ski on, Unless you ski 100% on downhill ski which in effect is only using 50% of your grip.
any hard to icy slope will dull the edges within a few runs.... then its not the edge but the ski which makes a difference and also the skier technique
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I try to get round to running a stone over the edges every day to debur them, and often an edge tool too.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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James the Last, the standard test I use is if it will shave a finger nail it's fine....a burred edge won't do that.
Any video of you skiing a whole day on 1 pair of edge's 
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achilles, and since you do a fair bit of skiing, how quickly do you wear them out? I use an edging tool when I think the skis need a sharpen, but am wary of sharpening too much.
I never swap my skis over. This would ruin the graphic effect and is very unlucky.
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JulesB,
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I never swap my skis over. This would ruin the graphic effect and is very unlucky.
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You have just joined the select band of my favourite poofters! 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| JulesB wrote: |
achilles, and since you do a fair bit of skiing, how quickly do you wear them out? I use an edging tool when I think the skis need a sharpen, but am wary of sharpening too much.
I never swap my skis over. This would ruin the graphic effect and is very unlucky. |
Im sure there is a more technical answer but
an edge is approx 2-3mm wide and of that you can probably sharpen 1mm and each sharpen shaves off .01-.02 mm
so about 50-100
calculation is probably off but the main thing is the rest of the ski and base will be beyond repair after that much time on the snow. If you are on soft powder you don't need edges so will only sharpen on hard and icy stuff.
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achilles, wow, I've never seen that kind of graphic before.  It would certainly unsettle me to have them on the wrong way round, but that's because I'm so anal/borderline OCD. I'm sure that neither you nor JulesB are like that!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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achilles, glad to hear it. I fear I might be a bit heavy handed when sharpening am hopefully getting some proper tuning tips next trip. As for unhanded skis, that seems just wrong. Maybe I have loads of style or am a bit OCD so don't mock the afflicted Hurtle
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Hurtle, you got the OCD bit in before I did 
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daehwons, you have the answer to all our sharpening worries- only ever ski powder.
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You know it makes sense.
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James the Last, frankly I think edges are overrated! As I was skiing down the rock hard Garmisch Kandahar on a pair of Völkl Mantras* the other day I asked myself when was the last time I sharpened these things... Oh yeah, never. Maybe once every three years is a bit on the low side. On the other hand... They work! So who cares 
*Not really an ice piste ski!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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sharpening can mostly be done with a diamond stone, not a file, thus hardly taking any metal off.....
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Poster: A snowHead
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not sure hire shops spend much time lovingly applying diamond stones to their rental stock - they probably just get shoved through a grinding machine every now and then which does take a fair bit of edge material off
that said, i am definitely in the Steilhang school
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Quote: |
Any video of you skiing a whole day on 1 pair of edge's
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I guess you can do exactly that if you snowplough everywhere...
I just sharpened my edges after the equivalent of about 2 solid weeks skiing - there's been scarcely any icy or even hardpacked slopes round here. I hadn't waxed them in that time either; they seemed to go just fine. You can faff waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much about all that stuff. Or maybe I'm just an insensitive skier, not tuned in to the finer aspects of my planks.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| pam w wrote: |
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Any video of you skiing a whole day on 1 pair of edge's
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I guess you can do exactly that if you snowplough everywhere...
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Ahhh, never though of that....
in which case the advice would be "get back to the green slopes"
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If skiing in powder, you are instructed to distribute your weight evenly between both legs.
Therefore this is proof that there must generally be more weight on the inside downhil ski than there is on the outside uphill ski.
If I guess at a ratio of one third - to - two thirds, and then assume that wear goes as the square of the applied force, this suggests that inside edges will wear at four times the rate of outside edges?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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If skiing in powder, you are instructed to distribute your weight evenly between both legs
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MORE evenly, still not 50:50 though.
Also, you really don't need to sharpen your edges that much, unless you're racing.
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I had a ski lesson in powder yesterday and my instructor advised around 60:40.
But that's irrelevant anyway. Unless you just go round and round the mountain like going down a helter skelter (like the weak joke about Welsh sheep.....) then surely your uphill outside edge is likely to become your downhill inside edge before too long?
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In Ron Le Master's book he states that a ski skied for 1 day on proper ice is no longer sharp enough! It varies, if a shop tries to keep their rental stock going for years then yes they would be concerned about a high frequency of edge sharpening. Edge condition and angles are a big factor in why I continue to take my own gear despite the ever increasing hassle of doing so. It also depends on the skis, cheaper skis often seem to have edges made of softer steel which dull quickly. If you skid your turns rather doing pure carved turns you will dull your edges much more quickly too.
Edge hold is also not just related to edge sharpness, the torsional rigidity of the ski is a big factor; 2 weeks ago I was skiing with some early intermediates all on brand new rental skis complaining about the hardpack, on my atomic slalom skis I hardly noticed it and they are due for an edge tune.
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I guess you could take something like an edge trick tool with you to sweeten the edges on a hire ski, if you really felt that they were getting blunt.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
a ski skied for 1 day on proper ice is no longer sharp enough
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no longer sharp enough to ski on proper ice - no doubt. But how many of us who are recreational skiers ever get more than a minute or two on "proper ice"? I certainly haven't, and so far this season I've not seen any at all. People talk glibly about "ice" when what they mean is a hard packed piste. When I do see ice, I go somewhere else - and if absolutely unavoidable try to just slide over it and not edge at all. Folk who ski iced racing runs are in a whole different category but the OP didn't suggest that was what he'd been doing. Surely ADH won't have had much in the way of "proper ice" last week?
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James the Last, from my experience, I'd say daehwons has it about right. I do a lot of dry slope skiing, and so am always sharpening my dry-slope skis. Last summer I was sharpening them on average about 5 times a week (races most weekends, need to sharpen them between runs). I went through two pairs of skis in about 3 months each pair - i.e. about 60 sharpens each - but each ski had about half the edges left when I retired them, as it was actually the bases that went not the edges. My previous pair lasted nearly a year (only sharpening about twice a week outside of the racing season), and I'd been doing a bit less racing that year, so they probably had about 100 sharpens, and they were starting to get a bit on the thin side.
The simple solution to your initial problem - take your own file and edge guide and do it yourself. It's what I do .
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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100 sharpens !!!!!! on a dry slope too.... how much of the original base was left after filling with ptex?
On ice (propper ice on an ice rink) when you sharpen skates the edge is so sharp you feel like you have sand paper on for a couple 100 meters till the edge wears off..... then they are good for a very short time after that.... diferent kettle of fish with short contact surface area but its amazing how essentially water can dull steel
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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daehwons, totally pointless trying to PTEX a base for a dryslope. It may last 10 turns if you're really lucky. Araldite works a bit better, but it's still not great. Since you're always on edge though, and trying to slip them is not normally your major problem ( ), it doesn't really matter much, until you've burned off enough base near the edge that you're down to the core...and then it's time to be thinking about their replacements.
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I set my edges once with a file and then keep a pocket tool with a diamond stone with me. If it's hard snow I use the tool before skiing each day. If it's a powder day I don't bother.
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You know it makes sense.
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Hey, I've never "serviced" my edges myself, care to post a link to the tools you use?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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Thanks achilles!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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kitenski,
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the standard test I use is if it will shave a finger nail it's fine....a burred edge won't do that.
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Er yes it will: do the fingernail test and then run a piece of tissue down it, if it doesn't snag it's sharp if it does then it's a burr.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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But don't hire skis have thicker bases and edges so that they can be machined weekly through out the season, then sold off to some unsuspecting punter in April? Therefore they should be a lot more sharpening in them than ones own bespoke skis.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Wow, so nobody has the foggiest. Every view between "I sharpen them daily (or twice daily)" and "I seldom sharpen them" (and "I only ski powder so don't need edges...").
| pam w wrote: |
| I had a ski lesson in powder yesterday and my instructor advised around 60:40. |
Right, so I guess that not in powder, the ratio is more like 80:20. And I'm fairly certain that blunting will go as the square of the force, so your outside edges will suffer only 1/16th of the wear of the inside ones.
| pam w wrote: |
| But that's irrelevant anyway. Unless you just go round and round the mountain like going down a helter skelter (like the weak joke about Welsh sheep.....) then surely your uphill outside edge is likely to become your downhill inside edge before too long? |
No. Only if you swap the skis over from left to right. Otherwise your inside edges will wear, and your outside ones won't.
Somebody made a point about technique. I dare say mine isn't particularly good, that was only my fourth week. Maybe I notice edge degradation more than do better skiers as my technique isn't good enough to get blunt skis to dig into the piste. Certainly when it was minus 20ish first thing in the morning on the third day, changing skis from left to right made the difference between control and out of control.
Finally, skis are a high(ish) performance piece of kit. They are tuned, and set up to work correctly. There is surely NO doubt that the presence of burred edges doesn't comply with manufacturer's spec and they therefore should be removed. I shall indeed be buying an edge sharpener.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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James the Last, Have a look at Spyderjons' site. I don't think you need an edge sharpener - rather just a diamond stone to refresh the edges each night.
My snow maintenance routine runs like this;
1) Service skis before trip - so fill holes, sharpen edges (if needed) and wax.
2) At the end of each day I run a diamond stone along the edges - to remove any burrs.
3) If I can be bothered, I'll put some Zardoz on as well.
This routine applies to piste skiing only. For offpiste I'd probably forget about the edges and for race training, I'd be sharpening and waxing daily etc as above.
At the end of a week, unless the snow is very hard, or I've been lucky and found lots of rocks, my edges will be as good as thet were at the start of the week.
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Tue 2-02-10 15:29; edited 1 time in total
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Perhaps I don't mean an edge sharpener then... A "Burrbuster" looks like suitable kit? Or an "Edge Trick tool"?
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James the Last, Edge trick would do the job.. or a diamond stone
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Maybe I'm more sensitive than most, but I can easily notice the deterioration in performance that arises from 1-2 day's skiing on hard pistes and I find things unbearable after 4-5 days. When I used to hire skis, I never had trouble persuading the rental shop to provide me with a free midweek sharpening, and neither do my kids who to still hire skis.
My son (he was only 10 at the time) was once told by a Canadian ski instructor that a week was too long to go without sharpening his skis and that he had a right to expect the shop to provide a free midweek service. The same instructor used to inspect all the class's edges before each lesson and give stern warnings to parents who were negligent enough to send their kids into his lessons with blunt skis.
I guess it depends how you ski. If you skid every turn or are lucky enough to only ski fresh untracked powder, you don't need sharp edges. Everyone else should agree with the hire shop that a midweek sharpening is part of the deal; if they refuse, take your custom elsewhere.
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