Why has my skiing gone to shit?

[Muggydude]

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Use a true bar, plastic wax scrapper or metal scrapper on its edge and have light on the other side and check for light coming through. The pic is showing edge high or light coming through the bottom which I think you have on your skis.

After getting the ski flat or it it seems flat, use a flat file like in the 1st pic and run it from tip to tail and see if it catches at all. Clean the file often and run the file tip to tail until no area “catches” any more. Most times when people feel the need to detune, that ski will catch with a file and may need a grind as well.

Hey look those are my my skis! Haha

Agree with the base grind to get them flat, and heavy detune tips and tails around the contact points.

A trick I like using to tell if the base needs a grind for edges high is to try and slip a piece of paper underneath the middle of the true bar. if it can't slide through, it's not railed enough to warrant a grind.

Don't know if I'd do that with the caliper though it's decently straight but there's a reason they sell a special tool to check base flatness.

[Skidog]

Yeah, that’s an edge high ski. Get them ground, ask for a 1degree base bevel and a 2degree side bevel with appropriated defining. I think you will be blown away. As an earlier poster stated, I now ski my traditional skis sharp tip to tail if flat and beveled. Attended a tuning workshop by a WC tuner from atomic who was preaching it. I thought he was nuts and it would make the skis hooky....man was I wrong. Just makes them quick to engage.


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Peruvian at Alta used to do my setups 1base 2 side. Always liked em.

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[Jacolac]

Getting bases stone ground to flatten and 1 degree base and 2 degree side bevel. Will report back in a few days.

[buttahflake]

How much are they charging you for the tune up? Also, post a pic of the finished product in good light, I like to see what structure other shops are running. I like 1&2 on my daily driver Ripstick 96, with just a soft pass of the grey gummi, to neutralize the hanging burr. On pure frontside and beer league, .75&3 with no gummi, I like the feel of the hanging burr on ice.

[Jacolac]

How much are they charging you for the tune up? Also, post a pic of the finished product in good light, I like to see what structure other shops are running. I like 1&2 on my daily driver Ripstick 96, with just a soft pass of the grey gummi, to neutralize the hanging burr. On pure frontside and beer league, .75&3 with no gummi, I like the feel of the hanging burr on ice.

$55 Canuckistan bucks. No idea if that's worth it or not but need them by the weekend so don't have time to mess around.

[noslow]

$55 Canuckistan bucks. No idea if that's worth it or not but need them by the weekend so don't have time to mess around.

Stone grind, edges and wax usually run around $50-70 Canadian at most shops around here. I just get the $20 stone grind only and do the rest myself as I’ve got all the gear and enjoy doing it.

Good luck with your skis. Looking forward to your report!

[SumJongGuy]

Just man up and ski them. They're not "railed". That's hardly an issue at all. It also looks like they're good and flat near the edges where it matters.. and I also see some pretty major base bevel on those edges. Spend some time on groomers working on your carve and throw in some checking and hockey stops both ways.

[Bushwacka]

yeah a railed ski wont even carve that welll.....

"spend some time carving, and throw in some checking and hockey stops"

yep great advice.

[old goat]

I may be slow, but why would mildly railed skis be a problem in 3D snow, which is what the OP is describing, and why would detuning help in that situation? He says they ski fine on the groomed.
Why ignore the obvious which is that he went from one kind of ski to another and is having trouble adjusting technique to the new skis. If I demo a bunch of new skis I will love some and hate others, and these are skis all of which sound like they'd be good for me.

I'm not saying he shouldn't get those bases flattened, but if he skis better off piste after the tune it's because he has more time on them, not the tune :--)

[swissiphic]

I may be slow, but why would mildly railed skis be a problem in 3D snow, which is what the OP is describing, and why would detuning help in that situation? He says they ski fine on the groomed.

Railed skis hook tips, catch tails and resist tail release in 4f+ to 1 finger hot spring pow, upside down slabby moist snow, breakable melt freeze crust, wind slab and m/f zippercrusts. For sure, less of an issue in textbook staircase progressive snow pack densities or other dry pow conditions.

Case in point; Traumatic memory of a specific run burned into the neural network from April, 2008. Had the good fortune/misfortune of skiing this 6500 vert foot run peak to creek on railed Atomic Helidaddies in conditions that started out great and deteriorated to 3d/2d snow mentioned above. Twas an exercise of hanging on for dear life for most of the bottom half of the run.

[Jacolac]

I may be slow, but why would mildly railed skis be a problem in 3D snow, which is what the OP is describing, and why would detuning help in that situation? He says they ski fine on the groomed.
Why ignore the obvious which is that he went from one kind of ski to another and is having trouble adjusting technique to the new skis. If I demo a bunch of new skis I will love some and hate others, and these are skis all of which sound like they'd be good for me.

I'm not saying he shouldn't get those bases flattened, but if he skis better off piste after the tune it's because he has more time on them, not the tune :--)

You may be totally right and a good chance I just want to blame the gear. I did not have an issue in deep 3D snow or on groomers, only variable 3D/2D snow. I think though on groomers I can let the skis complete the turn and dont need to disengage quickly like the variability of crusty old backcountry snow and tight terrain might require. That's all I got.

Got them stone ground but checked again and they are still not flat. Took them to another ski shop who had an actual true bar and they said they are definitely concave too. They think the stone used for the grind was too worn or not dressed properly. Will be calling to bitch at them tomorrow.

[swissiphic]

Got them stone ground but checked again and they are still not flat. Took them to another ski shop who had an actual true bar and they said they are definitely concave too. They think the stone used for the grind was too worn or not dressed properly. Will be calling to bitch at them tomorrow.

Hopefully it was just a bad grind, but, dunno if you read my post lower down about SOME skis not grinding flat. The heat/cooling from the grinding process rerails the ski. All you need is 10-15mm of flat from edge towards ski center...not up to speed on the best method for obtaining that result.

[noslow]

Probably a case of poorly dressed stone or not enough passes I’m sure. Is the second place who actually has a true bar doing more passes on them now?

I’ve had my latest set of skis that were similar to yours ground but even though I mentioned how they were edge high, I think they only did the typical 2-4 passes total and didn’t measure after. Still didn’t ski well so had them done at a second place who did about 8 more light passes on a stone and they were now flat.(A pass on a machine fed stone takes off very little per pass vs free handing on a belt sander.) Touched up the edges with a file basterd file for any high spots and then beveled the edges and they are mint now.

[gregL]

A pass on a machine fed stone takes off very little per pass vs free handing on a belt sander.

For a ski that needs significant base/base edge contouring, most experienced techs would use 2-3 progressive grit changes on the belt sander first, then finish on the stone.

[buttahflake]

Or we just crank the stone speed and slow the feed speed. Sparks!

[gregL]

Or we just crank the stone speed and slow the feed speed. Sparks!

Probably makes more sense to do the heavy work with relatively cheap sandpaper belts and not have to re-dress the stone an extra time per season . . .

[wckdmediocr]

try harder

[wckdmediocr]

way harder

[Jacolac]

Update. Brought skis back to shop. They reground them at no charge and said they dressed the stone first so my skis were the first to go over it. They also said they would do 6 passes. They also said some skis just never ground flat...

Got them back an hour later and brought them home and here's what we got:




It's almost worse than before. Just more consistent. Ski tech said they will ski just fine like that. My OCD says otherwise. This is going to drive me nuts. Every time I ski like shit I'll be thinking of that light gap!

[swissiphic]

Well that really sucks man. Looks like you might have some of those skis that don't grind flat. Find a good ski tech who can manually get 10 - 15mm of flat from edge towards center or warranty em. Life's too short for railed skis.

[noslow]

Feel bad that you are running into such issues getting a competent stone grind. Usually a tech will measure with a true bar, maybe even mark with a marker high areas so that’s it’s quicker to see if those areas are indeed getting hit. Measure again after each pass or so on the Pre-Grind flattening stage and once you’ve done enough passes you do a few passes with your structure grind. USUALLY most base high problems are solved with a few(2-4 passes?) and then get a few structure passes, so that’s why most places are used to not even measuring and just assuming they “should be good” after 6 total passes. Edge high skis may need 3, 4, 10 plus more flattening passes to be good and I think that’s your issue still.
The good thing is that they are not being overly aggressive and removing lots of base with a slow, heavier pressure belt grind. At their rate, you could probably do 250 plus passes and still have base left! Lol


Think it more uniform across now and just looks like it might need a few more passes to be perfect. I’d bring the skis back to the shop, SHOW THEM the high areas and get them to run a few more pre grind/flat passes and then measure to confirm.(like a good shop should have done the first time!)

[XXX-er]

I had a set of Verdicts ( foam core made by atomic ) that were concave like the pics , I got them done on a Montana Saphir machine in Whistler the operator didn't know shit but the machine was all computerized he fed them in and the bases came out flatter than piss on a plate

they had a lot of camber, they had been fairly evil handling skis, I dulled the tails 10cms and they skied much nicer

[Jacolac]

I had a set of Verdicts ( foam core made by atomic ) that were concave like the pics , I got them done on a Montana Saphir machine in Whistler the operator didn't know shit but the machine was all computerized he fed them in and the bases came out flatter than piss on a plate

they had a lot of camber, they had been fairly evil handling skis, I dulled the tails 10cms and they skied much nicer

Maybe I should go there. What shop was that?

My OCD got the better of me and I bought a true bar. Every pair of my skis and my wives skis are concave to some degree, except for my beat to shit, delamming, old Lhasa Pows which are 100% flat from tip to tail. Imagine that.

[XXX-er]

I believe it was Snowcovers at Creekside but that was 2010 olympics, I don't know if they still have a Montana Saphir M/C you may have to go to Vancover ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g7PBrsvvCE

It might have been an earlier version than in this ^^ vid but it was a big long fucking M/C that did everything

which was good cuz the staff at the time were too incompetent to load the M/C cuz they had forgot to do my skis overnight, then when I came back 3hrs later to get them the 2nd time I caught buddy loading them into the Montana cuz they had forgot to do my skis again

Then they got mad/pissy when I laughed at them ( I might have been drunk and I am a happy drunk ) when they finally loaded the skis into the Montana and pushed the go button ... perfect skis in < 15min

Vancouver ski services is one of the recognized go to shops


At the time 10 yrs ago I was under the impression that when foam core skis cure, the bases go concave ?

[Angle Parking]

Update. Brought skis back to shop. They reground them at no charge and said they dressed the stone first so my skis were the first to go over it. They also said they would do 6 passes. They also said some skis just never ground flat...

Got them back an hour later and brought them home and here's what we got:




It's almost worse than before. Just more consistent. Ski tech said they will ski just fine like that. My OCD says otherwise. This is going to drive me nuts. Every time I ski like shit I'll be thinking of that light gap!

German Shepard?