WHY you need to tune your brand new skis!

[Erik Timmerman]

He also says they can break in a little bit when you ski them. If you flatten it right out of the plastic, it might not be flat after you've skied it some. So I break them in before I have them flattened.

 

[markojp]

Mine were railed and the edges ground poorly @ the transitions to rise both front and rear.

Interesting, mine a just a smidgen, I mean a very very wee edge high. I'll grind them and do a nice structure as well before I ski them... unless it snows a lot before I can get them on the machine. I'm sure they'll be ok out of the wrapper, but know they'll be even better after some love.

 

[Jed Peters]

In my experience, EVERY ski needs to be tuned and waxed out of the box.

Many skis (including the higher end Stockil) need to be stoneground--some MANY MANY times run through the machine to get them flat.

Once they're flat, you can take down the sidewalls, and begin to set edge and side bevels.

After that comes the prep and waxing process.

 

[crgildart]

Again, this post mentions the need to tune your brand new "$700 skis". If I'm paying $700 for a pair of skis I fully expect any reputable brick and mortar shop to ensure/guarantee that they are not railed or base high when I leave the store with them. If I want to go DIY with a top of the line, brand new product that I would need to tune myself I'll buy them online from the cheapest vendor available.

Folks paying brick and mortar prices at brick and mortar service centers ought to get the pre tune done for free or practically free when paying full price for the skis, and not entry level skis either..

 

[Jed Peters]

Again, this post mentions the need to tune your brand new "$700 skis". If I'm paying $700 for a pair of skis I fully expect any reputable brick and mortar shop to ensure/guarantee that they are not railed or base high when I leave the store with them. If I want to go DIY with a top of the line, brand new product that I would need to tune myself I'll buy them online from the cheapest vendor available.

Folks paying brick and mortar prices at brick and mortar service centers ought to get the pre tune done for free or practically free when paying full price for the skis, and not entry level skis either..

How about $1200 skis retail and then having to pay 105 for a tune? Welcome to my world....

 

[fatbob]

crg has it covered - if you are buying skis retail (let's say before closeout pricing) then it seems to me that a decent ski shop ought to be providing that "ready to ski" tune themselves otherwise they aren't selling something that is fit for purpose.

Now if you want the Rolls Royce package , multiple hotboxing cycles, personalised bevels then by all means I can see an up charge but I'm just saying you shouldn't "need" to tune store bought skis. Sure you may want to but that's different.

 

[fatbob]

Just another thought how many demo reps lovingly prep their skis like this? I've seen guys peeling off the plastic and drilling them on a demo bench before now. I don't know whether those observations are the anomaly but certainly I've skied more than one demo pair that I thought must have a bad tune.

 

[dawgcatching]

Some reps are under the delusion that tunes don't matter! Or that their skis are perfectly tuned out of the box. Well, when it takes 10 stone passes just to get the ski flat at the tip, I would call it railed.

Real question is; why sell a ski that is so poorly tuned out of the wrapper? Why not put some effort into making sure it works when it leaves the factory? Certainly, when I sell a bike, I don't send it on it's way with a bent derailleur hangar and with a rim rubbing on the brakes. If I did that, I would have the outside rep all over me, not to mention the customer. People don't care for ghost-shifting bikes.

 

[Pat AKA mustski]

I am confused. I have never had to tune a ski when buying it new. They have all skied fine. Now, I don't claim to be an expert - if fact, by NO definition of the word am I an expert, but I have skied skis AFTER a bad tune and it's really noticeable (mine were railed during a grind). Is this an issue of personal preference for those of you who are expert skiers and notice small details that we, mere mortals, do not?

 

[Jed Peters]

I am confused. I have never had to tune a ski when buying it new. They have all skied fine. Now, I don't claim to be an expert - if fact, by NO definition of the word am I an expert, but I have skied skis AFTER a bad tune and it's really noticeable (mine were railed during a grind). Is this an issue of personal preference for those of you who are expert skiers and notice small details that we, mere mortals, do not?

Pat, the better skier you are, the more sensitive you are....whether it's tune, setup, fore/aft position of the binding, boot cuff, etc.

In fact, a racer with an attuned sense can absolutely feel things even the best recreational skier can't feel--because they're on snow, and all different types of snow, hundred of days a year.

 

[ScotsSkier]

On the other hand, my tuner recommends skiing them a bit before tuning them.

yeah, I tend towards that approach in most cases. i will check them with the bevel meter and true bar to see if they are a million miles off but assuming they are not, i like to get a few runs on them first to see how they are and then do the fine tuning afterwards. With race stock of course they are all over the place. In my experience, Atomic, Blizzard and Fischer come pretty reasonable out of the box. Rossi/Dynastar usually take me about 3 hours work before I take them out

 

[Monique]

So here's a question. Everyone has been posting that "you" need to tune your new skis. What about those of us who don't do our own tuning? I don't know how to evaluate whether a shop is good enough to do my tune for me that is appreciably better than what it came with. (Although come to think of it I should probably take it to the shop where @Doug Briggs works .. pretty sure they're decent ;-) )

 

[Doug Briggs]

As someone that handles a lot of new skis for mounting and does tuning for a (part-time) living, I'll say this about that.

New skis come in a wide range of conditions. They are tuned at the factory before the ski has had time to completely 'settle' so what may be a 1 base, 2 side tune at the factory may settle into something else. I have seen brand new skis with 0 base bevel, severely concave bases and a slew of other conditions that will destroy your first impressions of a ski. Not a single ski has come with a tune that I'd consider perfect. Perhaps race ski are the exception, sometimes, but not always.

Many skis will ski just fine out of the wrapper but when you get that first tune done properly, you may find that what you had isn't what your shop subsequently put on them and they will ski differently. Everyone has their preferences for their bevels. How is the factory going to know what YOU like? My preference is for a 1 and 2 but I ski in CO.

In a nutshell, you can't count on the tune from the factory to be what you want, much less skiable.

(and thanks @Monique. I'm pretty sure you're right.

 

[SlideWright]

So here's a question. Everyone has been posting that "you" need to tune your new skis. What about those of us who don't do our own tuning? I don't know how to evaluate whether a shop is good enough to do my tune for me that is appreciably better than what it came with. (Although come to think of it I should probably take it to the shop where @Doug Briggs works .. pretty sure they're decent ;-) )

Definitely take them to Doug and maybe it's time to also learn how to tune your skis yourself:

 

[fatbob]

So here's a question. Everyone has been posting that "you" need to tune your new skis. What about those of us who don't do our own tuning? I don't know how to evaluate whether a shop is good enough to do my tune for me that is appreciably better than what it came with.

My rule of thumb is to check out the range of waxes they have under the counter and whether there are lots of race skis in the tune shop. Its not infallible but it's a way of weeding out the rental and tourist tune businesses. Mind you as a fan of the Doug Coombs Q&P I'm not exactly a poster boy for tune geekery.

 

[Doug Briggs]

With a name like ours and all the Fischer race skis waiting for delivery, I guess we'd pass your test. ;-)

 

[newfydog]

I looked over a batch of new skis some friends ordered....the only ones that were near perfect out of the plastic were the ones made in China.

 

[Monique]

I looked over a batch of new skis some friends ordered....the only ones that were near perfect out of the plastic were the ones made in China.

Interesting, and totally counter to "received" wisdom.

 

[jmeb]

...Mind you as a fan of the Doug Coombs Q&P I'm not exactly a poster boy for tune geekery.

I'd never seen the video of this. Thanks for mentioning it. Classic. Favorite skier to watch.

Link for the lazy:

 

[dawgcatching]

I am confused. I have never had to tune a ski when buying it new. They have all skied fine. Now, I don't claim to be an expert - if fact, by NO definition of the word am I an expert, but I have skied skis AFTER a bad tune and it's really noticeable (mine were railed during a grind). Is this an issue of personal preference for those of you who are expert skiers and notice small details that we, mere mortals, do not?

The only way to tell is to buy a new ski, ski it for a few days, then get a tune from a reputable shop (not one that rails your skis). If you notice them being easier to engage and release, with no loss in stability, as if you just bought new tires for your high performance car, then you benefited from the tune. If no difference, then yeah, either you had good skis to start with or your skills may not be at a point where a tune matters all that much.

Throw a true bar on your next pair of new skis. That will tell you a lot. Many skis are railed out of the box at the tip and tail. A ski that is railed will be noticeable for abrupt engagement and not wanting to release at the end of the turn.

I bought a pair of MX83's 3 seasons ago. They were good out of the wrapper, but I had my friend who does race tunes at Race Place in town do a few light pneumatically weighted grinds (around 18lbs per pass, 5 per ski), just enough to make sure they were 100% flat and then to re-bevel. He marveled at how flat they were out of the wrapper and how the base didn't expand after a couple of passes and they warmed. Anyways, re-beveled them after making sure they were completely flat, and I couldn't tell a difference. But that was Kastle, which has a great tune on them out of the wrapper.