I have a pair of skis I bought sight unseen and they have an unbelievable bottom bevel of 7, yes 7 degrees. Is there a fix to get them to 1?
I have a pair of skis I bought sight unseen and they have an unbelievable bottom bevel of 7, yes 7 degrees. Is there a fix to get them to 1?
Wow...can you return them? If not, base grinds are your only chance to get them flat. That is going to be a lot of basea mterial to get off. BTW, how did you measure them?
As an engineer and a race coach I think I can offer some advice. Basically, Phil is correct, you need to have the skis ground flat. The only way to get back to 1.0 base bevel once you go past it, is to grind the base down to an almost zero bevel. Its more material than would normally be taken off, but its not a big deal to do it. Your base ptex material is about .040 - .060 inches thick. One degree of base edge bevel is about .001 inches. You need to remove .007 inches roughly to be able to get a 1.0 bevel back on the ski. Its roughly 20% of the base thickness. That's a lot of base for a single grind, but it is what it is.
Your only other option is to become a park Rat and learn to ride rails. That is the type of bevel someone might put on a park ski.
No offense intended if you are a park rat.
Wow...can you return them? If not, base grinds are your only chance to get them flat. That is going to be a lot of basea mterial to get off. BTW, how did you measure them?
I've got a pair like that as well (may even more base bevel. if it can be true)
Soft snow has been my solution. ;-)
A friend with extensive home ski shop had a device he rocked up from base until it touched the edge. Not sure what it was called.
Thanks for the reply. dj the ski j
This is why I gave up buying ised unknown skis. Your example is amazingly egregious, but actually fixable. There's a lot of carving type skis that have been essentially ruined by so detuning the tips that they areno longer able to be sharpened. I've seen very expensive Kastles ruined this way. It's very hard to see such things on photos.I have a pair of skis I bought sight unseen and they have an unbelievable bottom bevel of 7, yes 7 degrees. Is there a fix to get them to 1?
Your only other option is to become a park Rat and learn to ride rails. That is the type of bevel someone might put on a park ski.
Every mm of clearance from the base at ~60mm from the edge represents a 1* of bevel.
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Sounds like he used a true bar or straight edge. Every mm of clearance from the base at ~60mm from the edge represents a 1* of bevel. The base has to be flat and true for any measurement system to work for checking bevels. The base is the reference point. It is one of the ways described here: Measuring Edge Bevels
I'm not sure this reflects reality. If so, the edge would be worn down below the thickness of the steel for a 7 degree bevel. Just the steel is a much smaller area subject to beveling so your 7 degree bevel (of just the steel) will need a base grind of about .15 mm to get flat (trigonometry assuming the base is flat and the edge is around 1.2mm wide - my measured edge on an available ski). That's a fair amount of base grinding but you will still have ptex left.
Obviously, a convex base will reflect what @Doug Briggs is describing but that's pretty extreme. Likely a combination of both that a good base grind will address. I have never had all the ptex ground away so you should be able to fix things. Just don't do multiple 7 degree base tunes that you change back to 0. Not sure how you can add the convexity?!
You might not be able to grind out a 45 degree beveling or massive rounding of the edges that @James describes. Hopefully yours are fixable.
Get a quality grind, set the bevels to what you want and enjoy the skis.
Eric
@Doug Briggs Got it, thanks. My misunderstanding.
I would, however, have a hard time holding a 60 mm straightedge to perfectly match the bevel on about 1mm of edge (is the entire steel even beveled?) projected out. I could get a pretty good idea if it's 1 or 7 but I'm not sure my accuracy of measurement would discern 1 vs .5 degrees - especially with uneven wear.
At least it's a good way to get an idea - if my kid with good eyes and a steady hand helps.
Eric
Good excuse to buy the ski visions base tool. With your luck just don't buy a used one on ebay.
It might take a lifetime to do by hand even with an edge cutting tool.There is a steel cutter bar that you can supposedly cut the edges with. Would I attempt to flatten the base that much by hand? Not in this lifetime.