The Right Way to Tune Your Skis

Jed Rockwell has worked around skis and skiing his entire life. He used to help design and build racing skis for K2; he tuned skis for serial World Cup champion Bode Miller; and he has advised the ski technicians who travel with the sport's top competitors to prep their gear before every run. The stakes are lower for recreational athletes, but, Rockwell says, waxing skis or snowboard bases once a week can make turning smoother and more fun. Taking care of the steel edges will help too. As an added benefit, "sharp skis turn better, so they're safer," he says. 

Rockwell does have a warning for DIY technicians: Be careful. Taking a garage-sale iron to your bases, for instance, can destroy a $1000 investment. (Hint: If you want to skip the cost of a specialized iron, just use paste wax.) The following methods apply to both skis and snowboards, but snowboards require slightly different tools, such as a wider wax scraper and snowboard-specific vises. 

1. Hold the brakes back with stiff rubber bands. (Rockwell suggests saving the ones used to package broccoli at the grocery.) Zip ties work too. 

2. Use a vise and clean the bases with a citrus solvent. Then sharpen the edges by making light passes from tip to tail with a file held in a guide. Make sure the vise, solvent, and file are all ski-specific, or you risk causing damage. Feel the edges–if they seem duller after a few days on the hill, it's time for more work. 

3. Remove filing burrs with a polishing stone. You can rub the stone gently on the edges–just be sure to keep the stone flat. Dust off the filings. Lightly dull the edges near the tips to keep from hooking them on groomers. 

4. Melt some wax onto a ski-specific iron and drizzle it onto the skis. Be generous: "It's easier to wax with more wax than with less," Rockwell says. Let the wax cool briefly, then iron it in. Never stop moving the iron, or you may damage the base. 

5. Let the wax cool. Then scrape off the excess using several passes of a plastic scraper, moving from the tip backward. Leave on a fine layer–an old skiing saw goes "thick to stick, thin to win." 

6. Now run a longwise wax brush from tip to tail, using five to 10 strokes. You're done when the wax shines.