Weird edge feel after a shop sharpening

[LiveEastSkiWest]

I'm skiing on a pair of Black Crows Atris 2016/17 184's. Probably have about 15-20 days on them at this point. After a full day at Northstar last Friday, they felt like they'd lost a bit of grip on the groomers, so I brought them into the shop for a sharpening and a wax. This was the first time I'd had edge work done since they were new.

When I got them back the next day, it was with a few inches of new snow on the hill. On anything remotely soft, they felt fine: maybe a bit faster from the wax and maybe a bit less vague on edge...but again, that was in softer snow. On anything truly firm, they were a mess.

Running bases flat was ok, but they were totally unpredictable when turned on edge. I'm used to rolling my ankles/knees over to the side and just "riding the rails" in a carve, but in anything firm they just didn't track "right". It was as if, as soon as you rolled onto the edge, the new downhill ski immediately wanted to either a) get back to bases flat or b) turn itself totally sideways to the fall line. I spent the better part of the day wondering if I'd forgotten how to ski firm snow and trying to prevent my legs from twisting in half at the knee. I put about 5 hours on them, with the same ski always on the same foot, and by the end of that time things were *slightly* better, but still plenty weird. I tried switching which ski was on each foot at that point, and things were immediately as bad as they were first thing in the morning, if not worse.

The next day saw even more new snow. Again, things were totally fine in the soft stuff. But, again, with the skis on the same feet as the previous afternoon, things still felt awful on firm snow.

That was the last day of the trip, so on my way out of town, I brought the skis into the shop that had sharpened them and explained what I was feeling. I asked if they thought it might be burrs or other ragged edges (which had given me a different kind of "weird" feeling on a pair of improperly finished edges on rentals a few years ago). They were adamant that "their ceramic set up doesn't leave burrs", and to be fair, I have no reason to doubt that. We put a true bar on the bases and the skis are ever so slightly edge-high underfoot (maybe 0.5mm), but I can't imagine that changed from the first day of the trip so I doubt that's what caused the radical change in feel.

Any ideas what might be going wrong here / what I can do to get my skis back to "normal"? Could it be any of:

• There is a burr problem (doesn't feel ragged, though)
• It's the slight edges-high problem (but that can't be new, can it?) **note, i initially typed "base-high" here, that was a typo**
• The shop tried to put a different angle on the ski than came from the factory, but left the job half done so the edge angle is varying? (From the factory they should be 1 degree base and 1.5 degree edge)
• The skis weren't detuned properly

If I bring these into another shop (suggestions in NYC?), other than explaining the situation as above, what can I tell them in the hopes of getting things right again?

[doebedoe]

Sounds like a burr or a detune issue. Buy yourself a gummi stone and go to work.

[galibier_numero_un]

.5mm edge high is quite a bit. At least it's only under foot. I consider this unacceptable. Maybe they were trying to save some material at the expense of a crap tune.

Were they edge high before?

Do you know if/how they were detuned before?

Did you specify bevel angles to them? If not, then it's a lesson learned for your next tune.

You answered your own question about what to tell any shop (1/1.5), although detuning is something you'll likely have to play with.

... Thom

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[hoarhey]

burrs are easy to feel by hand

maybe the base bevels got messed up

[Skidog]

my guess is they randomly picked a base and side bevel. Its not what you're used to or like.

Out of curiosity did you ever put a true bar on these when new? were the bases good prior to this tune? We the base/edge bevels vastly different from factory?

[couchsending]

I’d be interested to know what they actually did to the skis. If they ground them or just ran them through the side edger? Did anything by hand?

It sounds like they just might have a hanging burr but really it could be anything. Diamond stone and a gummy stone might solve the issue. I’d just take a fine diamond stone and run it along the base edge then make sure the rockered sections are rather dull with a gummy.

It’s literally amazing what even some of the better shops can do to a ski when it gets dropped off to get “tuned”.

[dgillis73]

Working in a shop, I've run into this issue before, and there are a few things that can be done to remedy the situation.

First, you say in the right up that it is 0.5 mm edge high, and then say that it was base high later on. You're going to want to figure out exactly which it is with a true bar, and then go from there. If you are base high, a full stone grind with the sharpen would be what you would want to do. If its edge high, I would recommend sharpening the base edge by hand and still giving it a stone grind to try and get the edges and bases as close to true as possible.

Next, 1.5 deg on the side may be harder for a shop to do depending on what tools they are using to sharpen the skis. I know on our Wintersteiger you can get 1 deg or 2 deg (there are more angles available, but not relevant here) on the side, but there is no setting for a 1.5 deg side edge. And we generally would do 2 degrees on the side and 1 degree on the base unless the customer asked for something specific. There shouldn't really be a huge difference in feel for you between 2 and 1.5 though. Any shop should be able to set your side edges to 2 degrees with out much issue, if you want them to.

As far as burrs are concerned, ceramic stones can still leave a burr. This of course depends on all sorts of things, like the wear on the stone, or maybe the stone isn't perfectly round, etc. The easy solution to this is to take a gummy stone and lightly run it along the edge at a 45 degree angle, this should remove any sort of burr that was created from sharpening.

Also, I have been lucky enough to pick the brain of Mike Wagner, one of the reps and race techs with Swix, about sharpening, and one of the pieces of advice he gave me that has really stuck, was that your ski edge should be sharp, but it should also be a soft edge. Meaning that the edge will still scrape away some of your thumb nail when you check it, but it should also be soft enough that you can run your hands along the edge with a little bit of pressure and not get cut or worry about cutting yourself.

Sorry for the essay, but I hope this information helps you out

[auvgeek]

I bet the edges are just sharper than you prefer. Detune with a gummi, diamond stone, etc. Too sharp edges can feel super weird on hardpack.

[LiveEastSkiWest]

A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. Here are responses:

• @doebedoe: Does it matter whether I get a "hard" or "soft" gummi? I assume this is for both deburring and detuning tips and tails
• @skidog: I didn't put a true bar on these when I bought them (they were/are my first pair of skis), and not prior to the tune, either (in the future I'll look at that with any shop before I leave it with them). I didn't check (and don't have the tools to check) exactly what the base/edge angles are now post the suspect sharpen. What is the right tool for that measurement?
• @couchsending: they claim they did no base work other than the waxing.
• @dgills73: thanks for the essay! (First off, I meant to write "edge-high" everywhere in the original post, I have since corrected my typo.) I was thinking a base grind was going to be necessary to get any peace of mind here. But perhaps before I do that I'll do the gummi/diamond stone work alone the length of the ski (to make sure there aren't any burrs). Would be a bummer to try that and find out it didn't fix the problem and then lose a ski day to more weirdness. But that's the tradeoff I guess.
• @auvgeek: that's a totally fair comment, and one I'm afraid to admit is true. My friend and I have boots that are the same BSL and the first day (before I had any problems) we swapped skis for a while. His were a just-tuned pair of rentals (or so the shop said) and I skied them without issue (they were Black Crows Daemons). Maybe his tune was less aggressive. Or maybe less screwed up. Or maybe they just lied to him and hadn't tuned them.

One other thought...when you look at the Atris from the side, along the edge, there is a small vertical line *near* where the rise begins on the ski, but is, in fact, closer to the tip than the contact point. The shop told me they detuned the tips and tails plus 1" beyond the contact points (more toward the middle of the ski). Perhaps they only detuned 1" beyond that line and not beyond the actual contact point (leaving a couple inches more than they meant to "sharp" at the front end of the ski). Not sure if there is a similar issue that might have led them to leave too much of the tails sharp, but can check tonight.

It seems like the next step is pretty clear from everyone here: get a gummi/diamond stone and make sure that the tips and tails are definitively detuned. I'd appreciate a specific reference for how to tell how detuned is appropriately detuned in this region (both ahead of and 1" behind the tip contact point and both behind and 1" ahead of the tail contact point). In addition, I need to *lightly* deburr (detune?) the rest of the ski (the middle bit): again, any specific reference here for how much pressure to use/how to tell how aggressively to do this would be really helpful! And as I alluded to above: "soft gummi" vs "hard gummi" vs other? Very happy to buy this and give it a try!

I know this isn't rocket science, but this is my first pair of skis and I'd love to avoid screwing them up. I know these are probably dumb questions, but I'm new to this and am trying to learn it so I don't need to dump $50 on an unnecessary shop visit this time (or ever again). Really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their knowledge on this!

[toast2266]

Seems like it'd be easier to just only ski soft snow.

[galibier_numero_un]

Well, at this point, that shop's work is a sunk cost, and you'll never know if they (for example) partially fixed a base that was even more railed.

Just take a recommendation for a good shop, specify a 1/1 bevel (you don't need a 1.5 or 2 degree side bevel, although that's ok too). Make a point of mentioning that the last shop left them partially edge high.

Why does everyone trivialize this latter point (edge high)? If I were demoing a ski in this state of tune, I'd never pass judgement on it - one way or another. PERIOD.

Detuning can definitely help, but without a baseline of a FLAT (neither railed of convex) base, you'll never know what works for you.

Ask if they can walk you through the tune after the fact (true bar), while conveying the reason you're being so "picky" (previous shop).

Ideally, you could have this done at a ski area over a 2-3 day weekend so you could test out the tune.

... Thom

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[MnO_____]

It's the base bevel angle almost for sure. The wrong side bevel is noticable but not that dramatic. And a ski can be razor sharp without feeling strange if the tuning angles are right. There's no need to reduce edge sharpness. Just increase the base bevel angle some and you're done.

[couchsending]

So the skis felt fine before right? Like when you first got them. They just started to get a little dull?

If that’s the case and the shop didn’t touch the bases then they’re not edge high or the base bevel isn’t off. Those variables would still be the same as when he brought them in.

If they feel fine in softer snow but are scary in hard then most likely it’s not that the tips and tails are too sharp, as in softer (and especially more dense Tahoe snow) they’d feel odd and catchy even in softer deeper stuff.

It depends on what machine they have and how skilled the person was using it but chances are good they either ran it through a ceramic side edge machine or god forbid a side edge belt. Either machine will leave a nice little hanger on the edge and needs or be knocked back by hand after using the machine. If they just used the side edge belt then they might need a little more work.

Buy a 400 or 600 grit diamond stone and run it just along the base edge of the ski. You can be pretty aggressive. This will most likely knock the hanging burr off. Then take the gummy to the tips and tails just to be sure. They can be dull as fuck, you don’t need those sharp at all. I’d bet they’re already dullish anyways.

Take a closeup pic of the side and bad edge. Different machine leave different marks in the edge. Might be able to diagnose it that way too.

[Cabinfever]

Seriously? Tune you own fucking skis.

[charles martel]

I'm skiing on a pair of Black Crows Atris 2016/17 184's. Probably have about 15-20 days on them at this point. After a full day at Northstar last Friday, they felt like they'd lost a bit of grip on the groomers, so I brought them into the shop for a sharpening and a wax. This was the first time I'd had edge work done since they were new.

When I got them back the next day, it was with a few inches of new snow on the hill. On anything remotely soft, they felt fine: maybe a bit faster from the wax and maybe a bit less vague on edge...but again, that was in softer snow. On anything truly firm, they were a mess.

Running bases flat was ok, but they were totally unpredictable when turned on edge. I'm used to rolling my ankles/knees over to the side and just "riding the rails" in a carve, but in anything firm they just didn't track "right". It was as if, as soon as you rolled onto the edge, the new downhill ski immediately wanted to either a) get back to bases flat or b) turn itself totally sideways to the fall line. I spent the better part of the day wondering if I'd forgotten how to ski firm snow and trying to prevent my legs from twisting in half at the knee. I put about 5 hours on them, with the same ski always on the same foot, and by the end of that time things were *slightly* better, but still plenty weird. I tried switching which ski was on each foot at that point, and things were immediately as bad as they were first thing in the morning, if not worse.

The next day saw even more new snow. Again, things were totally fine in the soft stuff. But, again, with the skis on the same feet as the previous afternoon, things still felt awful on firm snow.

That was the last day of the trip, so on my way out of town, I brought the skis into the shop that had sharpened them and explained what I was feeling. I asked if they thought it might be burrs or other ragged edges (which had given me a different kind of "weird" feeling on a pair of improperly finished edges on rentals a few years ago). They were adamant that "their ceramic set up doesn't leave burrs", and to be fair, I have no reason to doubt that. We put a true bar on the bases and the skis are ever so slightly edge-high underfoot (maybe 0.5mm), but I can't imagine that changed from the first day of the trip so I doubt that's what caused the radical change in feel.

Any ideas what might be going wrong here / what I can do to get my skis back to "normal"? Could it be any of:

• There is a burr problem (doesn't feel ragged, though)
• It's the slight edges-high problem (but that can't be new, can it?) **note, i initially typed "base-high" here, that was a typo**
• The shop tried to put a different angle on the ski than came from the factory, but left the job half done so the edge angle is varying? (From the factory they should be 1 degree base and 1.5 degree edge)
• The skis weren't detuned properly

If I bring these into another shop (suggestions in NYC?), other than explaining the situation as above, what can I tell them in the hopes of getting things right again?

Yeah, a common prolem when the shop has the "latest" machine, but the techs don't know what the are doing. It's not just a mechanical process.

Edge high when you checked them at the shop explains a lot. It's their fault. Skis should be flat.

Good luck.

Sent from my moto e5 plus using Tapatalk

[t-the-east]

Seriously? Tune you own fucking skis.

This. I can’t believe it took that long. When did everyone become so nice and helpful?

[dgillis73]

I mean, tuning your own stuff is definitely the way to go. For the price of a couple of shop tunes you can easily have all the tools you need to sharpen and wax and still have some cash left over for beer to drink while you tune your skis.

To sharpen your edges all you really need is a side edge file guide (just get a standard one, and choose an bevel of your liking), a file (I like a medium cut), a gummi stone, and maybe a medium coarse diamond stone if you really want to get fancy. A hefty rubber band comes in handy for getting the brakes out of the way, but I've also used voile straps and other similar items to the same effect.

Also if you are just doing a sharpen and wax on your own, my recommendation would be to leave the base edge alone most of the time. Do 98% of your sharpening on the side edge, and only sharpen the base edge as required by rocks and what not. You will still get a ski that has a sharp edge, and by leaving the base edges alone for the most part, you avoid the whole base high issue (though I am aware that is not what you claim to see with the true bar).

[LiveEastSkiWest]

For the sake of completeness:

Was in Vail this past weekend and started the trip with a visit to Vail Ski Base. Took them all of 10 seconds of looking at/feeling the edge on the skis to tell me they were pretty sure they just hadn't been detuned nearly enough. Five minutes later they'd reset the side edge (just in case) and detuned the tips and tails a more reasonable amount. Left the bases alone.

Cost? $0. (I've been there a few times before, but still, that was awfully nice...). Put a healthy tip into the jar and hit the hill. Everything back to normal. My best guess is that the Tahoe shop didn't detune nearly far enough (probably since they used that small vertical mark on the sidewall rather than the actual contact point to decide how far back to detune).

Really appreciate everyone taking the time to chime in here. This was the best (and most affordable) conceivable outcome, but I feel like I'm much better informed going forward if more serious issues come up.

And yes, I went ahead and got a gummi stone to keep in my ski back to deal with this myself in the future.