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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
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    ski shop tuning mags: Grinding stone life question

    Sure it has been asked, and I think I have an idea, but putting aside infinite variables, how many pairs of skis do you expect to tune before replacing your grinding stone?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
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    Mexitana
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    depends if you bevel the edges before or after you run it on the stone.

  3. #3
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    Oct 2007
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    Roughly a shitload. Depends on prep and what you want to do with the stone. And different companies have different suggestions, i.e. Montana says basically stone everything, sparks be damned; Wintersteiger says do all your pregrind on belts, finish with the stone, and don't get the edges anywhere near it. Safer procedure to subscribe to, IMO.

    If you've got a decent belt grinder and use it properly, you can make a stone last a long time; if you are grinding the shit out of skis with the stone(high pressure, high rpm), and as lobstah said, not beveling your base edges beforehand, then it'll go much faster. And if you're actually paying attention to what your structure looks like and dressing your stone often enough. In either case, unless you're working in a very high volume shop, you probably won't be replacing a stone more than annually, even with some of the softer compounds.

    Shop I work in, we get a new stone about every other year, and that's using one stone for everything, including the rental fleet next door. But we don't do nearly the volume we used to back in the old days when people still tuned their skis.

  4. #4
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    I am trying to isolate some numbers, however anecdotal.

    We operate by WS standards;
    -de burred edges and base bevel set pre stonework
    -although I know some WS reps who push more pre grind on the stone and less on the belts, we do just more than a cleanup with the belts, and finish with the stone.

    Our shop isn't huge volume, but growing. Using a med density all around stone.

    I have heard some anecdotal accounts of 2000 tunes before considering replacement and I am trying to see how that number seems to play to others.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    WA
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    2,524
    Quote Originally Posted by ZomblibulaX View Post
    Roughly a shitload. Depends on prep and what you want to do with the stone. And different companies have different suggestions, i.e. Montana says basically stone everything, sparks be damned; Wintersteiger says do all your pregrind on belts, finish with the stone, and don't get the edges anywhere near it. Safer procedure to subscribe to, IMO.

    If you've got a decent belt grinder and use it properly, you can make a stone last a long time; if you are grinding the shit out of skis with the stone(high pressure, high rpm), and as lobstah said, not beveling your base edges beforehand, then it'll go much faster. And if you're actually paying attention to what your structure looks like and dressing your stone often enough. In either case, unless you're working in a very high volume shop, you probably won't be replacing a stone more than annually, even with some of the softer compounds.

    Shop I work in, we get a new stone about every other year, and that's using one stone for everything, including the rental fleet next door. But we don't do nearly the volume we used to back in the old days when people still tuned their skis.
    This matches my own experience.

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