Viable at-home alternative to grinding?

[surfski]

Haha, you guys are wasting your time with the $500,000 robotic machines and spending 5 hours with a steel scraper.
This is how to do it fast.

OMG I wish I had seen this first now i know how to do it none of that wasted money on guides and diamond stones, perhaps Jaques will be able to up his production rate now if he sees this, shame my bench sander is back in the UK, got to admire the man who can do such great accurate work and so fast.
Thanks Jaques I hear your sage wisdom as to how to proceed. I sharpen the scraper as ive seen you do but dont seem able to get a good or worthwhile burr along the length of the scraper and it doesn't seem to last more than a few pulls. Might this be due to the type of file I bought ? the files here ive seen so far are not the ones I would have chosen back in the UK

 

[Noodler]

Haha, you guys are wasting your time with the $500,000 robotic machines and spending 5 hours with a steel scraper.
This is how to do it fast.

Wow, I don't think he did a single thing correctly in that video. He doesn't even know how to use a toothed file correctly. So, so scary. Amazing people let him touch their skis.

 

[surfski]

Yea pretty shocking in one way if I was going to be generous it would be to relate his work to the state of the skis that were brought in doesn't make it right though. Still glad I learnt I need to lube my bindings I had forgotten that part so lucky for me this was posted. Do you think some WD 40 would work if the snow is a bit on the wet side as Fluro wax is a bit expensive and I believe becoming a thing of the past.
I do want to add that if it had not been for the time taken by people on this site giving their experience generously I would not have looked to find out what could be wrong with this pair of skis rather than blame poor design or my lack of technique leverage or the stars not being correctly aligned when ive used them.
The part im sad about is mostly time on the slopes is precious and to have spent that on a ski your not enjoying does seem a waste
Still so many skis so little time so if after all this i dont like them at least I will have learnt a LOT and can move on to the next addition

 

[Noodler]

Yea pretty shocking in one way if I was going to be generous it would be to relate his work to the state of the skis that were brought in doesn't make it right though. Still glad I learnt I need to lube my bindings I had forgotten that part so lucky for me this was posted. Do you think some WD 40 would work if the snow is a bit on the wet side as Fluro wax is a bit expensive and I believe becoming a thing of the past.
I do want to add that if it had not been for the time taken by people on this site giving their experience generously I would not have looked to find out what could be wrong with this pair of skis rather than blame poor design or my lack of technique leverage or the stars not being correctly aligned when ive used them.
The part im sad about is mostly time on the slopes is precious and to have spent that on a ski your not enjoying does seem a waste
Still so many skis so little time so if after all this i dont like them at least I will have learnt a LOT and can move on to the next addition

Please don't go near your bindings with WD-40.

 

[Jacques]

Haha, you guys are wasting your time with the $500,000 robotic machines and spending 5 hours with a steel scraper.
This is how to do it fast.

OMG! Destroyed that poor set of skis! Not enough smoke from that wax and iron!

I'll add another for edge tuning.

 

[Jacques]

OMG I wish I had seen this first now i know how to do it none of that wasted money on guides and diamond stones, perhaps Jaques will be able to up his production rate now if he sees this, shame my bench sander is back in the UK, got to admire the man who can do such great accurate work and so fast.
Thanks Jaques I hear your sage wisdom as to how to proceed. I sharpen the scraper as ive seen you do but dont seem able to get a good or worthwhile burr along the length of the scraper and it doesn't seem to last more than a few pulls. Might this be due to the type of file I bought ? the files here ive seen so far are not the ones I would have chosen back in the UK

There are better ways to sharpen the scraper, I'll admit that. Sometimes I put it in a vice, then attack the top.
Then use a knife rod to create a better burr.
Some nice wet 220 grit sandpaper on a flat surface works okay as long as you use a guide to maintain as exact 90-degree angle.
Then again there are better scrapers, but no edge will last forever. Since you live so far from a shop, and want to do your work, this guy has some sweet scrapers.

BTW, if you click to order page, you will see he now makes them with replaceable edges.

Kuzmin Ski Technology AB

www.kuzmin.se

 

[surfski]

Yes I forgot about him not getting the iron hot enough how did he expect good penetration into the base ?
On a serious note I planned to hot scrape when I get to that point is there merit in using the black moly wax after hot scraping and prior to wax of the day ?
I was kidding Noodler I know to only use a grease gun on my bindings

 

[Noodler]

I was kidding Noodler I know to only use a grease gun on my bindings

Sorry, but wasn't obvious. This time a see a winking emoji, so I'm assuming you're also kidding about the grease gun. We just need to be careful because lots of folks read these threads and we need to consider anything that has to do with skier safety cautiously.

 

[surfski]

Thanks for the link Jaques the scrapers look interesting. I have been working my tail off to get these skis done and onto snow simply to see if I like them with such a radically improved tune. Later in the year or prior to next season we will make the trip to get several pairs of skis ground and a couple of pairs of boot canted but going now is just not going to happen as far as I can see.
The shop ground my I-slaloms right at the end of last season and checking them today they are flat but if I wish to reduce the base bevel then they would need to take them down for me

 

[Jacques]

Thanks for the link Jaques the scrapers look interesting. I have been working my tail off to get these skis done and onto snow simply to see if I like them with such a radically improved tune. Later in the year or prior to next season we will make the trip to get several pairs of skis ground and a couple of pairs of boot canted but going now is just not going to happen as far as I can see.
The shop ground my I-slaloms right at the end of last season and checking them today they are flat but if I wish to reduce the base bevel then they would need to take them down for me

If they are flat, I'd leave the base bevel alone, but that's just me.
Steel scrapers are the bomb for a convex base!
I also use only steel for scraping wax. I just make sure that scraper is not too sharp.
These methods take some time and practice, but once learned, pay huge dividends!

 

[surfski]

Have you seen or tried the Kuzmin scrapers yourself Jaques ?
am I to take it that with one of these scrapers i could remove the 'need' for stone grinding ?
Note I never want to spend this long working to flatten a ski again

 

[surfski]

20 hours x $10 = $200. Not to mention the materials you use (belt, bandages, etc.)

At the shop I work you'd get a flat base, bevels set and a nice wax job for $60. Even at $5 hour for your time, you'd come out ahead. And that's just one ski done. As you haven't started ski two, I'd be really interested in a photo of the base with a true bar on it.

That your skis came brand new as bad as you describe is remarkable. I've seen plenty of brand new skis and never one from a respected manufacturer that needed tons of work, much less more than some, to be skiable. Independent brands, plenty. I won't name my 'favorite' 'crap out of the wrapper' winners but they have been concave, convex, rough belt sanded and lots of other things.

Doug can you name brands that you have found to be good in general terms, and are their race department skis for example better ? I have read for example that Fischer WC skis are very good out of the packet ?

 

[Mark1975]

Wow, I don't think he did a single thing correctly in that video. He doesn't even know how to use a toothed file correctly. So, so scary. Amazing people let him touch their skis.

Yeah, haha.
I actually thought this vid was a parody at first. You know, like the other crazy vids you see on Youtube. But after some investigating, this shop actually exists in Scotland.

 

[Mark1975]

OMG! Destroyed that poor set of skis! Not enough smoke from that wax and iron!

I'll add another for edge tuning.

Haha, that is crazy too. At least he didn't go after the base with a 6" shop belt sander...

 

[Mark1975]

I can't help thinking that Mike deSantis (SkiMD) would have a heart attack if he saw either of these videos. A lot of his business is fixing tuning screw-ups from other ski shops that can't operate real tuning equipment correctly. I just can't imaging what he would say if he got a ski that one of these two got a hold of first....

 

[Doug Briggs]

Doug can you name brands that you have found to be good in general terms, and are their race department skis for example better ? I have read for example that Fischer WC skis are very good out of the packet ?

Head, Rossi, Fischer, Atomic are brands that our shop carries. While most racers want their bevels set to their specific needs, any of these could be skied out of the wrapper, both race and consumer skis.

 

[Mark1975]

I don’t think it’s an obsession with flatness that’s the issue, but skis that work. Flatness may be a big issue, but it’s not the only one.

It really drives you nuts. Worse, there are people out there who think it’s them, or the ski, not the tune.
There’s only two shops in the East that I would say give you a near 100% chance of walking away with a fully skiable ski. One of those is out of business when the owner decided to leave the industry. I used to drive 2 1/2 hrs to bring him skis. Some were screw ups from other shops. It was easier to just take them and get them done right than to take them back and go through all that entails. If it was certain they’d come out right, maybe it would be worth it.

We’re talking about shops that have $250k+ machines. Some nearly twice that. There is no feedback loop or control or assessment of what comes out of these machines.
Back when I first started with “my guy”, he just had a small manual machine and rented space in a ski shop. Bevels were hand done. By the end, he had one of the big expensive machines. In all those years, like 15, never a bad grind or ski with problems.

I’m dealing with this now. A ski I got last year has issues. Literally the day skiing shut down, I took it out in the morning. Too screwed up to ski, I switched to the slalom skis. Finally last week I decided to deal with it. I went over it quickly with a .7 guide. Lots of metal coming off, tells me the base beveling step was skipped. I didn’t have time to fully bevel it, the metal in spots near the ptex was still untouched by the file. Went out and skied it. Still a bit of a nightmare. Inside ski catch and release, transitions you never know what will happen. They don’t slide well. Two runs and I’m done. If it was fully hard snow would’ve been 1/2 run. Take the Pivots off and feed it to the woodchipper, it’s just not enjoyable to ski.

See, if my guy was still around it would’ve been taken there last year and I would’ve enjoyed it already. Problem solved, for 5 hrs driving and the cost of the grind. It’s now back at the shop, they’re going to bevel the base. We’ll see how it goes.

The whole situation with ski tuning is just so depressing. The industry really needs to figure this out. Making $500k machines with no quality control loop is a travesty.

No wonder people want to spend inordinate amounts to do it themselves.

You hit the nail right on the head!

Robotic machines can be really good IF they are calibrated and QA is done on each ski. But in my experience, neither is done.

A local ski shop recently put one of these uber machines in. I know the backshop manager, and decided to throw them a bone by ordering their "top of the line" race tune on a pair of older race skis.

What I got back was anything but a "race tune".

I told them to flatten the ski, 0.5 base, 3 side. They didn't make enough passes to flatten the ski, the new structure was inconsistent, the edges where closer to 1 degree instead of 3, and the base bevel was over 2 degrees! They skied worse than before I had them tuned! I took them back and showed the results to the manager. He reply was "I knew this was going to happen" so he said he would regrind them for me personally free of charge. It took him multiple passes, and inspections to get the ski flat. Then he decided to set the edge and base bevels by hand. I ended up with a pretty nice tune.

However, he told me "off the record" NOT to expect this again. The "powers that be" were sold on this machine because of its production and profit capacity, not it's ability for great tunes (if used properly with constant calibration and QA). Basically told me if I want a real race tune, go to someone who is willing to take the time to do it correctly.

 

[Scruffy]

I sharpen the scraper as ive seen you do but dont seem able to get a good or worthwhile burr along the length of the scraper and it doesn't seem to last more than a few pulls.

You want to put a hook burr on that scraper. You also want to push, not pull the scraper along the length of the ski. Use your thumbs in the middle of the scraper near bottom edge to control scraper flex. I use a chef's knife honing steel to set my burr hook.

Watch these two vids.

 

[Tom K.]

Haha, you guys are wasting your time with the $500,000 robotic machines and spending 5 hours with a steel scraper.
This is how to do it fast.

Well, if we're going to have fun with a ski tuning video, NOTHING beats this:

 

[Mike Thomas]

Well, if we're going to have fun with a ski tuning video, NOTHING beats this:

Well, Doug could actually ski, so the tune didn't matter as much as for most folks posting here.