shop recommendation: South Lake Tahoe

[Henry]

I really like 0.7 or 0.75° base edges with 3° sides. (I call it precise skiing, not necessarily aggressive.) It takes some getting used to. The skis do what you tell them to do (grip) even when you don't know that you're telling them to do that.

As a transition you can feather the front 1 foot of the tip base edges and back 6" of the base edges to 1° while leaving the rest of the base at the more acute angle. The next year tell the shop to set the full base edges at the 0.7 or 0.75°.

Anyone know of a shop that actually checks and calibrates their ski edge grinding machines? I mean like run a junk ski through the machine and measure the resulting edge angles, then adjust the controls to match the results?

 

[raytseng]

When the machines get service / maintenance, I think that would be the time you would get that kind of calibration.
In practice, you wouldn't bother calibrating out of the blue with junk "test" skis, that'd just be wasting time and resources.

Instead, you'd just run real customer's skis through, and being sure to periodically measure afterwards to make sure it's still right.
Only when the machine messes up a (real) ski and no longer is correct, then you go back and check/fix what's wrong and recalibrate (and quickly redo the messed up customer's ski).

 

[skistudent]

Henry, I love the suggestion about feathering the edges at the tips and tails to have slightly more base angle than the rest of the edge, as a way to ease in to "precise skiing"as you say -- how would that compare with setting the whole base edge at (say) 0.75 from the get-go and simply detuning the tip and tail sections with a stone?

BTW, the angle measuring gauge in your post looks super useful, thanks for posting that - I see it's in stock at Utah Ski Gear.

 

[Henry]

Detuning means dulling. I like the edges sharp from the front contact point with the snow to the rearmost contact point. What feathering the bottom edge angle does is makes them a bit more forgiving until one gains the feel for great grip on the snow.

Ray, there are multiple ways to do what we're discussing. The point is whether a shop actually does inspect the angles their machine is producing and correct them as needed. I'm sure they look to see that the edges look good, but are they measuring the result? I'm a part-time machinist, and I want the results to be reasonably close to meeting the spec I give them. If I ask for 3° and they're a quarter degree off, I'll probably never feel the difference. If they're a degree or more off, most of us will feel it, and we'll probably blame ourselves or the ski brand or something else; it can't be the tune, we just had that done (well, maybe it is the tune). Every tune takes some life away from the ski edges and bottoms. Let them train new workers, examine the machine's operation, check calibration on a junk ski, not mine. Yes, check a few customers' skis during the season to check the machine and the operators, but don't wait for a complaint to come back or a disappointed customer.

I was skiing in Austria a few years ago, Lufthansa Airlines had prohibitively high ski luggage charges, so most of the group rented skis over there. I found the rental shop that had skis like mine, Stöckli Laser AX, and reserved them. Took them out and skied the hardpack. No where nearly as good as mine at home. That afternoon I asked the shop to tune them--no problem--they went into the huge mass-tuning robot. They were better, but still not as good as they should have been. If I'd paid to have my skis tuned, I'd have complained. As a renter, I just lived with them. A good tune, a tune that meets the specs you give the shop, makes for a happy skier.

 

[Philpug]

I was skiing in Austria a few years ago, Lufthansa Airlines had prohibitively high ski luggage charges, so most of the group rented skis over there. I found the rental shop that had skis like mine, Stöckli Laser AX, and reserved them. Took them out and skied the hardpack. No where nearly as good as mine at home. That afternoon I asked the shop to tune them--no problem--they went into the huge mass-tuning robot. They were better, but still not as good as they should have been. If I'd paid to have my skis tuned, I'd have complained. As a renter, I just lived with them. A good tune, a tune that meets the specs you give the shop, makes for a happy skier.

And THIS is the problem with thinking that you can make a purchased based upon demoing skis. If you didn't own an AX already and knew how it skied with a proper tune, would you have bought it based upon your first impression of the rental? I would say, probably not. I will reiterate, "when you are demoing a ski, you are demoing the tune more than you are demoing the ski."

 

[raytseng]

Ray, there are multiple ways to do what we're discussing. The point is whether a shop actually does inspect the angles their machine is producing and correct them as needed. I'm sure they look to see that the edges look good, but are they measuring the result? I'm a part-time machinist, and I want the results to be reasonably close to meeting the spec I give them. If I ask for 3° and they're a quarter degree off, I'll probably never feel the difference. If they're a degree or more off, most of us will feel it, and we'll probably blame ourselves or the ski brand or something else; it can't be the tune, we just had that done (well, maybe it is the tune). Every tune takes some life away from the ski edges and bottoms. Let them train new workers, examine the machine's operation, check calibration on a junk ski, not mine. Yes, check a few customers' skis during the season to check the machine and the operators, but don't wait for a complaint to come back or a disappointed customer.

The "whether" is all shop dependent, there is no rule, but the price of the tune should reflect what you are going to get, but of course there are individual variations in reality.

If you're at the premium priced shop; e.g. specialized for racers,, that has been around for awhile and has 50% higher prices across the board and doesn't even take on cheaper work; I'd expect that extra price to pay for those extra meticulous things you're talking about including re-checking the angles before and after every tune on every ski to immediately notice when things are off. If they are checking every ski, then that becomes the same as doing an occasional test ski. If the machine just suddenly breaks down; that's bad luck and the breakdown had equal chance that it just happened on your ski.
Then market forces and statistics should help even out the variations. If they've been consistently disappointing customers, they will go out of business or lose business to the better shop in the area that isn't disappointing customers.

If you're going to the more average shop; even one that happens to offer a premium "race tune", I don't expect the extra calibrations or employee training and things like you say, which is the majority of the shops, but also I'm paying much less.
It's a free market, so you'll have to seek out a match to the shop to your expectations, but expect to pay accordingly if you have high standards. At the premium price point, I also expect the tuner to be avail to talk over the ski and answer any questions, even your questions about the machines and calibrations and any concerns before starting work.

But on the flipside, those looking just for a recreational good-enough tune can seek out that high volume less expensive tunes at the lower price and get tuneups more frequently for the same $ spent.