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Alex dropped off his well-used K2s for a proper repair & service. The bases had seen some action:

Fortunately K2 put proper thick P-tex on their bases so there was plenty to work with. An hour or so with the base doc soldering iron and many P-tex strips and we were back on track:

Also in the Cave a the same time were a typical pair of lightweight tourers, in this case John’s new Factions. John has previous form on bringing in horribly damaged skis and these were no exception. Take a look at that extra-thin P-tex which put up no resistance to the first rock it saw and stripped straight down to the edge tabs – twice:

John has had the lecture about coloured bases more than once but some people simply have anarchic tendencies so he keeps on going back to whacky colours which look rubbish when you fill them with black P-tex – which is why there aren’t any photos of the finished skis.

When Dave picked up his planks a couple of days ago he asked what he should do to keep them in good condition. It turned into a bit of a list but there may be some value in recreating it here to save me some breath next time. So here it is, not necessarily in order:

1. Once you get to the end of your trip dry your gear off. Properly. Remember that your bindings will have some packed snow in them. You’d be horrified at how much steel you have to remove from your edges to sort out rust damage.
2. Use velcro & foam straps to keep your skis together without scraping the bases. I have a supply of unbranded ones at £1.50 each or you can spend £5 at well-known outdoor stores.
3. Ski don’t slide. If you’re on hard snow/ice/stones skiing means you should only get longitudinal grazes which aren’t too damaging. Those 60 degree gouges in your base edges are a nightmare.
4. If the surface is bad consider getting in the gondola to go down. For some reason this seems to have negative connotations but there’s nothing big or clever about gubbing your skis in the last 10 minutes of the day’s sport just so you can boast that your chalet is ski in/ski out.
5. Carry a 200 grit diamond file in your pocket to tidy up any dings on the slope. Remember to wet the file surface before using.
6. I’ve never done this myself but apparently some people stick old bits of hose pipe on their edges before they stick them in the bag to prevent transit damage and to stop the edges cutting the ski bag. Worth a try I suppose.
7. Finally lots of people ask how often skis should be serviced. Obviously the answer is “when they need it”. Certainly after a week in the Alps you’ll probably need fresh wax and might need edges tidied up. If it’s been lovely soft snow all week the edges won’t need any attention. Conversely 15 minutes at Glenshee can reduce the best prepared kit to a shocking state. If you feel a little burr when you slide the flats of your fingers down the side edge from the top of the ski it’s probably time to do the edges. If you’re actually skiing (see 3) the burr should build up in the same plane as the base. Don’t mistake a burr (which feels sharper one way than the opposite way) with a nice sharp edge (which should be equally fine in both directions). Remember always check sharpness with the flats of your fingers and perpendicular to the edge to avoid slicing fingers.

Hope that was helpful.

So as is often the case January is the month when it all kicks off. I’ve mentioned before that it’s easier for everyone if you remember to drop your planks off in August so I can service them in the garden in glorious sunshine but for some reason the message simply doesn’t stick.

As I took four weeks in Spain from mid-December, to help build up vitamin D stocks before another Scottish winter, there was an understandable build up of demand in January so I didn’t really get many photos as I toiled away in the Cave.

Here are a couple of photos so everyone can understand that I wasn’t sitting with my feet up watching Oprah all month:

So thanks to Scott, Claire, Steve, Colin Evan, Alyssa, Martin & Emma for these shots and to Mark, Dave & Lewis who got their gear in before Xmas:

It’s that time of year where I’m too busy working to take photos, so if you see your gear in the pictures and would like to leave a comment please do. Just a note to Susan – the 90 minute turnaround on the Gnu was an artifact and not a promise for future performance 🙂

As noted earlier, Martin handed in his good board (“Alpine Board” rather than “Scottish Board”) a few days ago. It was interesting in that it’s a banana board, all rocker rather than camber:

 

 

Or is it? Maybe a bit of hybrid going on there? Very hard to see/photograph:

 

 

Anyway it was a pleasure to work on, with very few little base nicks that were sorted in a few seconds. The edges had been either hand tuned at the factory or else someone had done them properly sometime, so they just required a bit of diamond filing and gummi stone to bring them to (nearly) mirror finish. Very satisfying. Even the bases just took a polite sip of base wax, rather than gulping down gallons of the stuff, indicating that the board might even have been waxed sometime.

Here it is after a good polish. And Martin explained when he picked it up that it is hybrid rocker, not pure banana. Lovely piece of kit.

Scott showed some initiative in getting his ancient Salomon blades into the cave for a short back & sides before the tidal wave of gear starts later in the year (here’s hoping…).

Tops were in good nick, considering they must be 14 years old. Bases scored top marks for flatness, but they were a bit more used-looking, completely lacking wax and with a few wee scratches.

However the scratches were mostly superficial, and as the dead white bases needed a good seeing-to with the structure stone to try to bring them back to life I had another look after the treatment. Each base had five or six minor scratches that deserved attention:

So these tiddlers were quickly filled and scraped flat, then structured again to blend them in.

The edges had never been sharpened, as they still had the usual factory inflicted grinder 45 degree striations and the sidewalls were virgo intacto. However Salomon had managed to make an intriguing pattern on the side edges; presumably they ran the blades past the grinder once, turned them around, let them get halfway through the grinder again then changed their minds.

 

I had a hunt around the internet to see if the blades were given a different tune from the standard Salomon base 1/edge 2, and sure enough the tech manual suggested base 1.5 and edge 1 – unusual as most people normally maintain an edge angle of 90 degrees or less. Anyway 5 mins with the Sharpie revealed that these blades had left the factory with a 1/2 tune so that is what they got.

Regular readers (I use the plural here optimistically) will know that I tend to sharpen skis to the tips then leave it to the owner to detune the tips if they wish. For the blades I saw a couple of stern warnings of certain death if the tips aren’t detuned so I buckled under the pressure and brought them down a little.

Following some tidying up of the nicks on the tops, time for some Zoom pink base renew and green universal top wax:

After a bit of elbow grease the bases came up nicely, ready for the next 14 years…