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Initial TUNE options / PTC, SkiMD is out...help!


rjnakata

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I'm receiving a new board with 0/0 edges and it'll need an initial tune.  What are my options?

1) PTC / SkiMd No Longer does snowboards!  I inquired of Mike DeSantis and he said "Unfortunately I no longer grind snowboards as you can see on my website. They simply don't fit into my production anymore, and my true specialty is ski and ski racing service."

2) The local REI has a good stone grinding machine and used to have a couple of pretty skilled/experienced people who are now gone.  The new lead tuner "learned everything she knows from [the last guy]".  I just can't see handing over my board(s) to her.

3) Are there any other outfits that do mail order tuning like SkiMd used to?

4) I guess I can do it myself.  I've got the tools...but this is for a high-end board.  I'd prefer to maintain an initial pro set-up.

Please share your ideas.

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I wonder if we did back to back blind tests on good western conditions if a regular recreational Carver could feel a difference between a professional tuned board, a factory tuned board and one that has been simply waxed (when base is dry) and edges touched up when rocks are encountered.  
 

I have never ridden a professionally tuned board, other than how it comes from the builder, so I can not answer.

I put such little effort into waxing/tuning, but I think that has more to do with terrain and prevailing snow conditions.  
 

My answer to your question would be to ride it and see how it feels, wax it when the base looks dry and drag a file on the edges when rocks are encountered.

Enjoy your new board!

 

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10 hours ago, Atom Ant said:

Sport Thoma does a good job.  They are in NH.

AA

Which NH Sport Thoma you talking about....Lincoln or Waterville Valley?  And is there a particular Tech you use??

10 hours ago, Atom Ant said:

Sport Thoma does a good job.  They are in NH.

 

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21 hours ago, jburk said:

https://www.bootsandmore.ski/

He's done base grinds and tune ups on both of my Thirsts, and I know someone else who had a Kessler 162 repaired and ground by him. Very experienced, knows his stuff. 

Yes! Another vote for Boots and more - if I recall correctly, that's where Tinkler boards got their initial tune post-manufacturing. I went in for some bootfitting help last winter and he charged me basically nothing for a 30 minute chat and some foam pads that he customized on the spot. 

Also, I just noticed he has Jasey Jay listed as one of his clients (!)

 

Edited by Dan
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Thanks all,

I did inquire of Boots and More (they're  in Gresham, OR) and got a very thoughtful and courteous response from Greg Coulter there.  It sounds like they will do a mail order initial tune / hot box.

You would think there'd be someone decent locally in SoCal, but there are a lot of supersizes here.

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Got a new Nirvana from BV a couple of years ago. Came with 89 on the side and 0 on the base and the storage wax. BV provided the edge treatment details. Decided I would try it as delivered without any extra tuning or wax treatment. 

Brilliant to ride from the get go. Easy to side slip, hockey stop, manoeuvre at low speed, initiate turns, and edge hold was fantastic. I no longer add in any base angulation when I clean up the edges on any of my boards. 

I'm more with Dave Redman above when it comes to tuning. Make sure the base is well waxed rather than dry. Make sure the edge is an edge and not rounded or burred, but I no longer obsess about the actual edge angle. 

I suspect base/edge tuning is a little like buying and listening to high end audio equipment. Rapidly increasing costs for increasingly little return. That doesn't stop lots of people buying high end audio gear and being convinced they can hear the difference.

Each to their own. Enjoy your new board!

Edited by SunSurfer
Typo correction
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19 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

Got a new Nirvana from BV a couple of years ago. Came with 89 on the side and 0 on the base and the storage wax. BV provided the edge treatment details. Decided I would try it as delivered without any extra tuning or wax treatment. 

Brilliant to ride from the get go. Easy to side slip, hockey stop, manoeuvre at low speed, initiate turns, and edge hold was fantastic. I no longer add in any base angulation when I clean up the edges on any of my boards. 

I'm more with Dave Redman above when it comes to tuning. Make sure the base is well waxed rather than dry. Make sure the edge is an edge and not rounded or burred, but I no longer obsess about the actual edge angle. 

I suspect base/edge tuning is a little like buying and listening to high end audio equipment. Rapidly increasing costs for increasingly little return. That doesn't stop lots of people buying high end audio gear and being convinced they can hear the difference.

Each to their own. Enjoy your new board!

This is likely true with many things in snowboarding. I think part of it is what is known as "cognitive dissonance". If one spends a lot of money and/or time on something they expect to be better, we tend to attribute a positive experience on some sort of "secret sauce" that the manufacturer put in. We can't accept that the subtle differences between board A and board B may not be worth the big price differential. 

I think we all do this in some parts of our lives. Some people are aware of this and others are sure there is a big difference. 

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4 hours ago, Aracan said:

Interesting to know. I would have thought 0° on the base is hard to drift in a pinch.

I had read and heard the same thing many times. But I wondered how such a tiny change could make such a big difference especially given the large, and by comparison relatively imprecise, angulation changes made by the rider. The chance to try a board with 0 degrees on the base was part of what led to me trialling the board as it was delivered.

Over the course of my 35+ year career in my professional life, much of the "received wisdom" I was taught in my training has been replaced by guidance based on experimental evidence, and often counter to that received wisdom.
In my snowboarding I've enjoyed the analytical thinking and the experimental aspects of my riding almost as much as the actual riding itself.

Edited by SunSurfer
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I run a 1-degree bevel solely because you have to remove so much material to remove a ding from a 0-degree base bevel.  

I was also skeptical that a 1-degree bevel on a board that's slipping across an irregular surface has a substantial effect, but I have experienced a board that was a little 'hooky' on cat tracks and the like until I put some base bevel on it.  I couldn't tell the difference once turning.  

<-- Never had a professional tune, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing.  

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3 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

I had read and heard the same thing many times. But I wondered how such a tiny change could make such a big difference especially given the large, and by comparison relatively imprecise, angulation changes made by the rider. The chance to try a board with 0 degrees on the base was part of what led to me trialling the board as it was delivered.

Over the course of my 35+ year career in my professional life, much of the "received wisdom" I was taught in my training has been replaced by guidance based on experimental evidence, and often counter to that received wisdom.
In my snowboarding I've enjoyed the analytical thinking and the experimental aspects of my riding almost as much as the actual riding itself.

Are you sure you want to make a declaration like this on an open forum ?  Please investigate the possibility of purchasing some carbon credits to fly guilt free and join us at Turner to further these career limiting discussions. 
 

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5 hours ago, Corey said:

I run a 1-degree bevel solely because you have to remove so much material to remove a ding from a 0-degree base bevel.

Just doing a little math to put a context on your proposition above.

To create a 1 degree base angle on a 3 mm steel edge requires the removal of .05 mm of material.

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On 11/2/2019 at 11:33 PM, dredman said:

if we did back to back blind tests on good western conditions if a regular recreational Carver could feel a difference between a professional tuned board, a factory tuned board and one that has been simply waxed

Snow crystal structure will have a big influence on how a board responds to base/edge variance, and how the rider is affected by those things.

If, by 'western conditions', you are not including fresh, dense and abrasive machine made, then odds are good that if the board slides, it's good enough for most.

On the other hand, if you have a base with a coarse/open base structure, with zero degree base bevel (or some variant on the generic ski shop quick grind) on that kind of machine made,  you (and possibly others) would probably notice a few things at slower speeds, or during moments where you wanted to use finesse rather than brute force inputs.

Looking back, I've noticed the effects of flat base/base structure, and edge bevel a lot more than missing chunks of Ptex, or the wrong/absent wax.

For the better part of the east coast season, wax is primarily useful as a means of retarding base erosion in the area directly next to the edges.

8 hours ago, st_lupo said:

I’m sure things like early rise nose/tail have a bigger helping effect than the base bevel.

They do, if you're the kind of rider that needs that kind of help.  As Aracan mentioned, 'correct' base bevel can make a board more maneuverable where the board is transitioning between flat glide and edge rise. Appropriate base bevel provides more positioning options over a greater area.

That's not to suggest base bevel is a fix for iffy technique, rather it's like using a more specific tyre tread/compound for a given set of circumstance, rather than just using something black and round.

 

 

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Wow, ok I didn’t see the direction this post is taking when I wrote it...it’s interesting though.  
I was wondering where I can get a good initial tune in an area I’m thinking is devoid of such. Now some of you are saying it may not be necessary!

Edited by rjnakata
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6 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

Just doing a little math to put a context on your proposition above.

To create a 1 degree base angle on a 3 mm steel edge requires the removal of .05 mm of material.

Agreed, and I dislike removing .05 mm of material from both edges and the entire base width to remove a .04 mm ding on one side. 😉 Adding base bevel allows for a simpler refurbishment. 

 

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6 hours ago, Beckmann AG said:

...

They do, if you're the kind of rider that needs that kind of help.  As Aracan mentioned, 'correct' base bevel can make a board more maneuverable where the board is transitioning between flat glide and edge rise. Appropriate base bevel provides more positioning options over a greater area.

That's not to suggest base bevel is a fix for iffy technique, rather it's like using a more specific tyre tread/compound for a given set of circumstance, rather than just using something black and round.

I was understanding Arcan's post as pointing out the benefit of base bevel as relates to not catching the wrong edge if you get out of form...  Never really thought about bevel enhancing maneuverability, so here I'll have to defer to the expert.

 

As far as general tuning...

It really depends on what you need.  The three big things you get with a good tune are:

Flat base

Base structure

Edge tune

Thankfully for me #1 hasn't been a noticable problem on any of my snowboards.  Take a true-bar or something you know is absolutely straight and place it on the base of the board perpendicular to the length of the board.  Make sure the board is at ambient temperature and unwaxed!  Drag the truebar down the board and look for any light shining through.  Some convexity (base higher than the edges) you might be able to fix yourself, concave is a pain in the ass to fix.  A convex board is going to be a bit vague when running flat and during edge transitions, it will also "washout" your side edges a bit.  Concave is going to do the opposite and make the board squirrely.  Concave/Convex problems should be fixed by a knoweldgable professional.

#2 depends a lot on your riding conditions, your riding style, and how big your need for speed is.  Spring snow (wet) and man-made snow can push you in the direction of wanting some base structure to improve glide.  Pow and dry packed-pow reduces the advantage of the base structure.  Are you a racer? Then this is something you want to consider (you might then even want to obsess about what kind of structure you get as well ). If you are a recreational carver then ask yourself how often you have the whole base gliding flat on the snow?  Here I've got two Coilers without base structure, one F2 with structure and one Kessler with structure and I ride mainly on chalk/man made snow.  The Kessler is definitely my fastest board but that isn't base structure.  After waxing the board and riding for a day, only the outer inch of wax on either side shows any wear.  Even in spring conditions, when I'm riding the un-structured Coilers at a resort (with any sensible amount of pitch), I can't say that I'd be willing to shell out for getting base structure to get maybe a little bit extra oomph when I've got my board running almost flat on a catwalk.

#3 again depends a lot on your local conditions and riding-style.   For the side edge:

Pow: who cares

Packed-pow: edges are nice but you don't need to obsess

Ideal conditions, ie Chalk/Man-made: trade edge sharpness with maintainability (sharper ie 87deg will give noticibley more grip but it wears noticibly faster)

Ice: sharp!

My two Coilers have 89 deg side edges and they hold up really well through a whole season (maybe two), predictable grip on pretty much anything.  The Kessler has 87 (because that's how I got it) and it really has razor handling on almost anything, but I do touch-up work on the edges every couple of weeks when I'm really riding that board.

For the bottom bevel that is dependent how you ride and your skillz. A bottom bevel will buy you a little margin of safety regarding catching a "wrong" side edge.  You remember your first year of snowboarding when you were sliding perpendicular to the board and caught an edge then either made you scorpion or slam the back or you head in the ground?  Race skis typically have from 0 to 1deg bevel (starting with 0 to a little bevel for slower-technical events (SL) and progressing to more bevel for speed events GS-->Super-G-->DH) , recreational skis/snowboards typically have 1 to 2 degree.  If you ride really really fast you might just want some base bevel because the consequences are that much worse.  My two Coiler's have 0 bevel and that has worked fine for me the past 3 to 4 years.

All of the above is from a recreational carver's perspective.  Racer's will have a different view of things.

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35 minutes ago, st_lupo said:
6 hours ago, Beckmann AG said:

As Aracan mentioned, 'correct' base bevel can make a board more maneuverable where the board is transitioning between flat glide and edge rise.

I was understanding Arcan's post as pointing out the benefit of base bevel as relates to not catching the wrong edge if you get out of form... 

I am not sure I see the difference between those two things, since catching an edge will certainly have a negative impact on maneuverability. But yes, my main concern was not with catching an edge but with being able to side-slide if necessary. Since such necessity often comes with the wanting to avoid a crash, I would want to make sure a tune does not stand in the way.

That said, I never thought much about it. My board came with 1° base bevel, and since it rode well from the start, I have kept it that way.

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