Do you detune a decambered board? If so, how?

[NateW]

Some background first: I had a bit of a revelation last year when I realized how much difference detuning makes in the way a board handles when riding with the base flat on the snow. A couple years ago I took my F2 183 in for a base bevel and without my knowledge or consent it got detuned as well. Funny thing is, I loved the results. So I've been detuning my primary board little by little until it handles as nicely as the F2. As of a couple weeks ago, it's about right. I can now go in a straight line with no worries. :)

I ended up dulling the edge about an inch back from the contact points, front and rear.

It's been a huge win for me. Carving doesn't seem to have suffered at all, or it has, it's been a negligible change. I'm OK with that... what little I lost is more than worth it, just for the extra straight-line stability.

I'm pretty sure that I will be getting one of the new-school decambered boards next season. I love my skinny Donek AX, so a similarly customized metal version sounds very appealing. This raises some questions...

1) Do the new boards feel grabby when riding fast in a straight line with the base flat on the snow? At all?

If not, then I guess I'll be perfectly happy right away, and that's all I need to know. But if they do need detuning to feel neutral in a straight line...

2) How do you detune a decambered board? Put little dull spots where the contact points are when you stand on the board? My intuition says that's what needs to happen, but the idea seems a little weird.

If any of you early adopters can shed some light on this, I'd really appreciate it. I have about 6 months to make up my mind. :)

[Snowman]

I have ridden a bunch of them and everything that I have been on is tuned to the tip. Some boards feel a bit grabby with a fresh tune but it seems to wear in quickly. I never have liked de-tune and the same seems to holds true with new geometry decambered snowboards. Do you want all of the available effective edge to be "effective" or just a dull uneffective extension? Sharpen it to the ends, mabey try some different base angles on the tip to soften engagement but don't round it off.

Think Snow!

[inkaholic]

Do you want all of the available effective edge to be "effective" or just a dull uneffective extension? Sharpen it to the ends, mabey try some different base angles on the tip to soften engagement but don't round it off.

+1

base and side edges can be changed to get the results you want.

Well said snowman.

Ink

[BobD]

I think more to the point with a precamberd nose and low rise turn up, is how to determine where the effective edge ends. I normally don't detune any of the effective edge, but totally blunt the nose turn up so it can't pull the board around if it hits a rise. It's not so easy to see how much of the nose turn up is supposed to be engaged on a modern shape.

[KingCrimson]

I don't know if I'd detune a decambered board.

On all my boards I file the nose past the widest part at 45* but I wouldn't call that "detuning"

It DID kill the chatter problem I had on hard snow with my Factory Prime.

[Snowman]

I think more to the point with a precamberd nose and low rise turn up, is how to determine where the effective edge ends.

With the new shapes, I find myself mounting my binders as forward as possible to stay in positive control of the nose as all times. I do this to avoid the inherent nose flubber on decambered boards. In doing this , the nose is always engaged and therefor effective to the tip, not the hinge point of the rocker. The new prototype Doneks I was on last week have done an excellent job of eliminating flubber an now I many be able to reset my binders to a more centered stance on the board knowing the nose isn't predisposed to bouncing around.

Think Snow!

[DEON]

I have/do de-tune my kesslers. My reason was for racing, it allowed me to do the drift and lock or the slarve what ever you want to call it.

My way of de-tuning is to take a gummy stone and make 3 passes on the edge, where you start is personal preference, I did my nose from in between the 2 s' up and 2.5 inch's from the tail. The board is still sharp there its just looses the grabbyness

[csquared]

I had an unhappy experience after sharpening my Coiler NSBX (decambered nose and tail) this year and neglecting to detune. In normal hard carving conditions, the lack of detuning was not an issue or even apparent. However, at low speeds, the nose had a tendency to hook up HARD on the toe-side.

My first discovery was cruising up to the lift line corral at the end of one day when I made a very minor turn initiation and hooked up so hard and so quickly that I was turned almost backwards and went through a crash net, over a bank, and landed upside down beside a tree. No injuries but it looked so bad the lifty called the ski patrol before racing out of the shack to see if I was still alive. I couldn't figure out what happened and decided that there must have been some bad snow but I couldn't see it when I inspected my track...shrug... back to boarding.

The next day I took another spill off the side of a run after a very similar incident (again, miraculously, no injuries). Then the light went on: forgot to detune. Three passes with the gummy stone and the problem disappeared.

I start at the rise in the nose and do a 2", a 4", and then a 6" pass with the gummy stone. There is still plenty of edge left to hold on anything but the tendency for excessive and unpredictable initiation is gone. I think detuning is likely less critical on the heel side so I am experimenting with limited or no detuning on that edge. Seems to work fine and provides a bit more bite/initiation.

[NateW]

base and side edges can be changed to get the results you want.

I did try that before I resorted to detuning. First 1 base / 1 side, then 2 / 2. It still didn't give me the neutral feel that I want, and I was afraid to go higher.

How much bevel do you run on the base? Did I just give up too soon?

[NateW]

Bevel does affect running flat, but so does detuning, albeit not as much.

That's strange to read, because my experience was exactly the opposite - bevel made very little difference, but detuning was like night and day.

The one time I thought that beveling had really made a difference, I later found out the shop had also detuned the board. :)

[Snowman]

I don't think that detuning results in an ineffective extension. It is essential for feathering the edge and being able to enter and exit a carve at will, especially when in the middle of one. So you lose a few cms of sharpness. You gain a ton more control.

??? You are going against logic Jim. If you use a knife as your tool, and you round off the far out reaches of the knife, those portions of the knife are no longer sharp and no longer will penetrate and hold a firm snow surface as well as if were sharp. Therefor "de-tuned" and not as "effective" as it was when sharp.

Think Snow!

[eajracing]

I've alwayd detuned my old-school boards, finding the advantage of stability while running flat outweighed the almost imperceptible loss of effective edge, and added to that racing ability to 'slarve' around a gate, or some dude in jeans on rental skis at the last second.

on my VSR, i find the decambering itself takes care of that scary-edge-catch-twitchiness, however, the nature of the beast is that the board likes to initiate by letting that nose hook up quickly. It can be flappy as snowman points out and it can be scary at low speeds as csquared points out. When Bruce gave it to me, he warned me to play nice for the first few runs to get used to it, particularly at low speeds and get a hang for how the different sidecuts and decambering try to out-compete each other on the flats. I think I've just grown used to how it behaves now and try not to ride it in situations where the nose is flappy and be aware how it wants to hook up at low speeds and/or on flats and generally try and avoid them.

I really like the way the nose initiates once i got the feel for it and I havent tried detuning yet as a result. It never really seems to need it the way the traditional cambered glass boards did, but you still need to be aware that it isnt and the traits that come with it.

[softbootsurfer]

Where You Ride...Colorado Dry :) or East Coast Plate is one example

Racing gates or Freeride is another example

What works best for each after some experimentation should be correct...

De Tuning does not mean Dull necessarily?

[bobdea]

I don't detune anything

I do have a kessler that came from a top level racer that is detuned so I assume there's some merit, I will give it a full sharpen at some point and see how different it is.

[NateW]

De Tuning does not mean Dull necessarily?

To me it does.

[Allee]

I find nothing wrong with detuning boards. I detune the tips all of mine a few cms. I find that it helps with my style of riding, which doesn't involve clean carved turns all the time.

Thank you for this, because I've been told I'm a complete girl for detuning the nose and tail about an inch on mine. I don't carve all the time. I find that a little bit of detune goes a long way toward skidding to avoid grommets, making a graceful entry to lift lines, and flatbasing on cat tracks.

[KingCrimson]

I'm not sure detuning makes a difference in running flat as much as it does entering and exiting carves.

I rode a non-decambered Coiler Slalom with a 1 base bevel around Copper, and most of the cat tracks had rutted up chalk from the wind. It was no problem standing dead flat on the board, it would even hit stuff and just track instead of catching and turning.

Stance and bevel seem to matter way more running flat..In particular with a flappy nose Kessler where an inch from the widest part might be sky high running flat!

[NateW]

I'm not sure detuning makes a difference in running flat as much as it does entering and exiting carves.

I am sure. :) I haven't had my AX tuned since last season but I've been detuning it little by little and the difference is huge.

[NateW]

Approximately seven years later, I am here to answer my own question. Should have answered long ago but I'd forgotten about this thread. Hooray for the "threads I've posted in" feature. :)

I'm riding a Donek AX with a slightly decambered profile - cambered, but with flat sections just inside of the tip and tail, so that when standing on the center, the tip and tail lift up just a hair.

It has not been detuned at all, and it feels perfectly stable and neutral when riding with the base flat. Even more so than the detuned regular-camber AX that I was riding before this. It feels the same in every other respect, caves the same, transitions the same, just way more stable when riding with the base flat, despite having a sharp edge all the way around. I'm pretty sure the edge bevel is 0/1 but I wouldn't stake my life on it. Might be 1/1 or 1/2 (base/side).

[lowrider]

Detune or not  depends on snow conditions as well speed the most twitchy ride for me occurs at slower speeds especially on my Skwal's. Riding flat on harder surfaces with a load on the nose will sometimes make the board feel impossible to turn and that's what it's design dictates. How and why you change that boils down to personal preference and riding style. Understanding the mechanics and consequences to your board require a little effort. Think long effective edge vs shorter , sharp edge tip to tail vs slightly dulled tip and tail.  

[lonbordin]

I do the same as @GeoffV said here-

Quote

This is also a great visual of a decambered nose, look how far up the the edge of the board is being used. This is exactly why I don't detune my edges.

He was referring to this shot-

No detune for me please!

Edited March 3, 2017 by lonbordin
formatting...

[lonbordin]

2 hours ago, Jim Callen said:

Ah, but detuning doesn't matter when the board is that high on edge.  It's the entry and exit of the turn where it comes in to play.

On another note, I didn't read all of Snowman's posts earlier, but he's as big a proponent of detuning as I am these days. 

 

Snowman is a very good rider.  He's very approachable in person, to bad that didn't come over to his virtual side.

I've ridden a lot of boards now in a lot of conditions.  I'm still not detuning.   I want ALL of that effective edge.

[BlueB]

I recently hopped onto a girly little e-deck that I sharpened tip to tail. It was almost impossible to do a sliding turn. 

[NateW]

10 hours ago, Jim Callen said:

Since this thread was last brought up, I have increased the detuning regimen for both my boards, as well as Bomber's demo fleet. I detune a good two inches past contact both nose and tail, feathering the stone closer to said tip and tail.  Without the detuning, the boards are hooky and abrupt.  With detuning, turn entry and exit is smoother and more easily controlled.

Also Nate, is it an Axxess you are riding?

When I posted this thread, I was riding a custom Donek that was based on the Axxess 172, but with a 19cm waist and a 13m sidecut, and really stiff. The camber was basically the same as every other board from the 90s / 2000s. I loved it, but all the talk on this forum about decambered profiles was making me wonder...

A couple years later I broke it, and bought another sort-of-Axxess, with all of the same dimensions except that the camber was borrowed from Donek's metal race boards (still regular wood/glass construction).  I love this one even more. It rides the same, still carves great, the only difference is that (despite no detuning...) it feels completely stable and predictable when the base is flat. I don't do that very often, but I do it on jumps, and the new board gave me the confidence to hit some bigger ones. 

Edited March 4, 2017 by NateW

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

De-tuned edges, as in, take a contour from "base-Flat", and add a slight bevel of 1-3 degrees, and employ that near the nose/tail of a board, as it can make a Cambered board go from 'too edgy' to 'Very playful' quite easily.

The tricks are in this; Detune only a few bits [5mm, or less than a 1/4"] at a time, working from the ends of the board.; Consider your over-all tune {is it an acute angle you use?}, and then Match It, along the whole length-of-edge; [ie, if you're an acute edge of 88*, when you "de-tune" to a base-bevel, mark that spot, then CONVERT that area that got De-Tuned into an '88' and Minus the 1-3 degrees, thus it is Still Acute and Sharp, just rolled-up-and-away from immediate snow contact.]  This takes Marking, patience, persistence, and, Eek, NOTES To make it work ! However, the payoff is huge! You can keep a board Very Sharp at the middle, letting you do CMC-type Icy turns, and still spin PSR-like 180 FS NoseRolls on your 182 Tanker at speed!  {{ And, Luis, should you ever read this, CURSE YOU for Fracking up my 158 Madds tune when you borrowed it for a decade; It was NOTED AND TUNED ACCORDINGLY before you took to NYC. I certainly treated the F-2 you stuck me with, with far better regard..}} So, the tuning, and 'de-tuning' can indeed be "majic" for better performance and comfort!  And, no, I will not divulge how I dealt with the Safari 205; only to say this, "it was SPECIAL".