Post season ski care

skimore wrote

Coach Z wrote

 

 If your skis are not sharp you can not trust the ski to hold and thus will not be able to develop or maintain correct movement patterns

False. Stop skiing on loud snow

Skimore contradicting his username again telling people to ski less.

snoloco wrote

skimore wrote

Coach Z wrote

 

 If your skis are not sharp you can not trust the ski to hold and thus will not be able to develop or maintain correct movement patterns

False. Stop skiing on loud snow

Skimore contradicting his username again telling people to ski less.

Similar to how snoloco despises snow and loves skiing on ice which really is ice skating

Skiing on manmade snow doesn't count anyway

hahahahahahhahah!  I leave them in my locker till next season when I take them out and ski on them!!!  

skimore wrote

snoloco wrote

skimore wrote

Coach Z wrote

 

 If your skis are not sharp you can not trust the ski to hold and thus will not be able to develop or maintain correct movement patterns

False. Stop skiing on loud snow

Skimore contradicting his username again telling people to ski less.

Similar to how snoloco despises snow and loves skiing on ice which really is ice skating

Skiing on manmade snow doesn't count anyway

I don't despise snow, I despise lack of snow, whether it be natural or manmade.  And I'm pretty sure I got many more days than you did this year, because most people in the east were skiing manmade snow.  I'm not using Mountain Creek as a reference.  Hunter had a mere 11 inches of snow all year, Killington has what like 60 inches of snow now, and they usually get over 200.  Except for maybe Jay Peak, everyone in the eastern US was skiing manmade snow 90% of the time.

To keep things on topic, I don't really do anything special with my skis after the season is over.  Next fall, I take them to the shop to get tuned and ski on them once ski areas have made snow and opened.

snoloco wrote

<  And I'm pretty sure I got many more days than you did this year, because most people in the east were skiing manmade snow.  

hip hip hooray............but you should forget those days anyway as they don't count

They most certainly do count.  Are you saying that everyone else's days on manmade snow didn't count?  You're just all butt hurt that you didn't get out much if you did at all.  I accepted the weather I got and made the most of the skiing that was available.  Didn't get as many days as I'd have liked, but I got more high quality days than I did in the past.

As far as ski tuning goes I do a similar routine as Z. It's been a long time since I did race skis and when my racers were 11 YO and younger the skis were tuned each day after use by me. As they progressed in age by the time they were 13 I was out of the race tune business and they took care of their own skis. My grand daughter does all her own tunes now.

I don't scrape and brush my skis aggressively as I am not trying to shave a second off my time. I just take a few passes with a scraper and then use a scotch bright scrubber to polish them up a bit. I made my own wax scrapers years ago out of a sheet of thick lexan. I keep them sharp by running them through my jointer set to take a shaving cut. I found this is  the best way to sharpen plastic scrapers and a sharp scraper makes quick work out of excess wax removal.

My edge guides are fixed angle guides from Artech in New Hampshire and I use spring clamps to hold the stones, 2 and 3 degree. I like 3 on my slalom skis and 2 on my wider skis. I also have beast base guides at 0.5 degree and 1 degree. I am not afraid to use the Artech base flattening file and a base planer to flatten the ski and work out edge gouges on the base side and then reset the base angles with the base file guides. However usually it is just side edge tuning with the diamond stones. I also will use a very soft wax to hot scrape out the dirt (did that a lot early this season). I will wax the ski at the end of the season with a base prep wax and do not scrape it. I will scrape it off and apply a normal all temp wax at the start of the season. As Z said, you need a side wall planer when working the side walls otherwise you are wasting your time.

I find the nail test is not adequate. It will tell you if the ski is dull but not if it is really sharp. I use two tests, I very gently run the tips of my fingers down the edge to see if it is smooth, there are no perceptible burrs. Then I lightly scrape my finger across the edge and it should feel like a knife edge and it should actually scrape some dead skin off my finger. After a lot of experience you will learn the feel of a sharp edge and you easily test the ski from tip to tail. Doing the nail test on a sharp ski will take off lot of nail after a few tests. Another trick is to shine a bright light right at the edge, you should see no reflection back, anyplace you see even a minuet reflection is a dull spot.

I have to get to summer-izing my skis, I put them I'm the basement and have had good intentions for the past 2 weeks.

I agree I also feel the edge but unless you have callouses built up and on a 3 degree edge you could be bleeding pretty quick if you are not careful

Its that spot Ptex mentioned that does feel or look sharp that gets out the file for me.

at a minimum i'll touch up the edges with a diamond stone and iron a coat of summer wax on the the slalom skis.

it all depends if and how deep the flyers go into the playoffs as to how many skis and boards get the same treatment  

the gloves got some hestra balm love during last nights ot win over the caps.