For our Full service our team will put your gear through the following steps!
Base Repair
First is the P-tex repair. We embed p-tex into the bases with a combination of clear and black P-tex depending on the color of the base. The P-Tex is designed to fill in the bases from hitting rocks, or other debris while out on the slops. Our goal here is the ensure the gouges on your bases is filled in.
Base Grind
In this next step we run your gear through the belt sanders to remove all debris and to flatten your skis as we prepare them for the stone grind and texturizing process. This is process is important as we need a completly flat surface to ensure we can get a great texture into the base and to ensure we have a perfectly flat surface to properly set your side edge and your base bevel angles.
Stone Grind
The Science behind the stone grind. As the bases of your skis engage with the snow below, friction between the two converts kinetic energy into heat. And given heat’s propensity for returning frozen water back to it’s normal, liquidly self, a layer of water develops. Though short lived, it is this watery bridge between bases and snow that allows your skis to slide.
Now that being said, this layer of water can also be a speed thief – if too much builds up it creates suction, which disrupts your skis ability to glide fore and aft and side to side, this is where structure comes in.
Think of structure as a channel system. When matched appropriately to snow conditions and temperatures, the structure on your bases helps funnel the friction-produced water from under the ski and out to the edges where it is released. It is this shedding process that eliminates suction, and enables your skis to slide forward along the snow.
When implemented by experienced technicians the right structure on a ski will make changes to its performance you didn’t think were possible. With the current snow’s water content and temperature in mind, our shop will configure our stones accordingly.
Edges:
We use our a Wintersteiger Trim Disc 71 to set your edges. We set our base bevel edge angle at 1 degree, and the side edges are typically set between 87 to 89 degrees depending on the skier type.
Hot Hand Wax and Buff:
Yes we still hand wax all of our skis! we feel this gives the ski maximum wax penetration into all of the structures we created with the stone grind. Once the wax is applied we then use a scrapper to remove the excess wax. We then take a buffing tool and run it over the bases to ensure all of the wax is deeply embedded into the structures. It is important that we do not lose the structure as this is what is really helping the ski or board glide over the snow. The wax assist in this process it is important to remember that not much wax is needed for the gear to perform at it's peak.