Ski Servicing Myths - The Fingernail Test

In Europe, if you are going to ski at this time of the year it will be on a glacier. The pistes will tend to be firm, so your edges need to be sharp. If you are not going to ski, then it is a good time to prepare your skis ready for next winter, rather than wait until the last minute. Either way it seems a good excuse to mention one myth of ski servicing which I keep hearing.

The fingernail test, or thumbnail test, is supposedly a way to tell if your edges are sharp enough. Simply scrape the flat of your nail over the ski edge and see if you scrape away a sliver of fingernail. It is certainly true that a sharp edge will easily take away a little bit of nail. The trouble is that fingernail is soft enough that even a blunt edge can scratch it easily enough. A couple of weeks ago I neglected to tune my edges between days on bulletproof icy pistes. I was sliding around all over the place, really struggling to find any grip and make the skis carve in the ice. I learnt a lesson about putting the time in to service the skis every evening when the conditions require it. However, at the end of that day my skis still passed the fingernail test, despite being completely blunt.

The best way to know if your edges are sharp enough is to run your fingers across them (but not along them as you will tend to slice them open). With practice you will learn what a really sharp ski feels like, and what a blunt one feels like.

How Often to Wax Skis

I have often been asked how often skis need waxing, but there really is no hard and fast rule. It depends on what the skis are used for, how much use they get, what the snow conditions are like, and how much the skier values the feeling of using fast grippy skis, versus the effort or expense of having them serviced.

Waxing frequently makes the skis run faster, and can protect and prolong the life of the bases. Waxing too often is not a bad thing, unless using high-fluoro waxes which can dry out the bases.

Frequent edging, on the other hand, whilst keeping the skis sharp and grippy, wears out the edges as metal is removed each time. When tuning the edges often, it is important to shave off the minimum amount of material, using a diamond file for example. This way it is possible for the edges to wear more slowly than if they were filed extensively from a blunt state after being left for some time.

A well tuned ski feels very different from one that is not, and so the simplest answer as to when to service skis is when they feel like they need it.

The table below shows how often I would tune different types of skis in my collection. It might act as a rough guide, but should also illustrate how much variation there is between skis I use for different purposes, and between skis where precise performance is more or less important.

Ski	Service frequency
Race Skis, used for racing or race training.	After each day of use
Piste performance skis, detuned race skis or carvers	Every week or two
Freestyle skis	Once or twice a season
Off piste or touring skis	When they feel like they need it, i.e. when the edges are blunt or burred, or lacking grip on firm snow, or when they run slowly on flat sections

Pre Season Ski Service

Following on from the last post it is about time to get your skis ready for the winter. My ski hill (Arinsal) is open this weekend as will plenty of others so the winter has arrived.

Since you gave your skis a good wax and edge before putting them away last spring (didn't you?) you will not need to do them again, although another wax won't do them any harm. Ideally you want to use a set of ski vices and a workbench, plus a rubber to hold the brakes out of the way, but otherwise you will need to improvise some way to hold the ski base up and the brake clear of the base.

You will need a plastic scraper and a couple of brushes now (horsehair and nylon). Scrape the wax from the ski bases using the scraper across the whole ski to avoid scratching the base with the corner. The scraper should have a notch in one corner which you can use to scrape the wax from the metal edges. Now use the brushes from tip to tail - nylon first then horsehair. This will restore the structure of the base making the skis look like new again with that fresh from the factory grainy look.

Time to Tighten Your Bindings

For those of you who loosened your DIN settings when putting your skis away at the end of last winter - as I advised in my Summer Ski Care post back in May - don't forget to tighten them up again before you hit the slopes. I know it seems obvious, but it is easily overlooked and a ski pre-releasing can have unpleasant consequences.

A few years ago I was working as a Plongeur (washer upper / kitchen porter / dogsbody) in Meribel. After a couple of days of hard work on arrival, I got my first chance to go for a ski. I grabbed my old straight Salomon Equipes, went up the chairlift and did about three turns in chopped up snow before both skis ejected. Thinking this was a bit odd, as I wiped the snow out of my goggles I checked the bindings and realised both were wound down to about three. I put the skis back on and gingerly traversed onto smooth groomed terrain to take the easiest route back down and find a screwdriver. Unfortunately I forgot myself halfway down, and took a tiny bit of air from a tiny bump. As I landed the right ski released and the brake chose that moment to detach itself from the ski - I think the screw pulled out of the plastic. The ski accelerated faster than I could manage on one ski at the time, and I careered after it, terrified that it would injure somebody, or worse. Luckily it shot off the side of the piste and into the trees without doing any damage. Less luckily that was the last I saw of it, despite an extensive search. I was forced to become a full-time snowboarder for a couple of weeks until I found a pair of previous season Volkl P40s in a sale rack.

I know it is early season, and you may not be skiing for another few weeks or months, but the season is beginning, so a reminder is timely for resort staff, ski-bums and anyone getting some snow in before Christmas. Of course forgetting this little detail won't usually lead you to lose a few hundred Euros' worth of ski kit, but it can easily lead to unexpected falls and potential injury. One final point to note, is that it important to tighten the binding to the same DIN setting as it was at before, assuming it was correct. A binding set too tight or too lose can be dangerous. I will elaborate on pre-season ski servicing, and binding safety in the next couple of posts, but for now, ski safe.

Get The Iron Out

It's only two months until ski areas start opening around Europe, and the Northern Hemisphere. If you want to make it feel a little bit closer and you have a bit of free time, why not get out your skis and give them some TLC. Not only will it make you feel better while you are missing the snow, it will make them faster as well. If you serviced the skis well at the end of the season, there is no need to sharpen the edges, and no need to scrape the wax off either. Just iron in a new layer of wax, leave them somewhere warm for a couple of hours, then put them away again. Use a mid-range wax for this, not an expensive high-fluoro wax which is not long lasting enough. The idea is that each time you apply wax it will impregnate itself deeper into the base, lasting longer and making the base faster.

Summer Ski Care

Being back in England, most of my skis won't be seeing any use for a while. It seems a good time for a reminder of what needs to be done before putting skis into storage for a while.

Tune the edges as normal ready for the next use, then apply a generous amount of wax and make sure it covers the edges as well as the bases - this will protect them from rust over the summer. Don't scrape and brush as you would normally, but leave the wax on the skis as a protective layer.

Finally, loosen the DIN settings of the bindings until they are as low as they will go - this helps the springs to last longer. However, if you do this MAKE SURE YOU TIGHTEN THEM before you use them again.

Little and often

For years I treated ski servicing as a major chore to be done after a couple of weeks of use, or I would let the shop do it when they were in for repairs after I hit a rock. The problem with this approach is that (a) it takes a lot of work to get the edges sharp again, and (b) the skis don't perform at their best and the edges wear faster.

A better approach is to spend a little time servicing the skis after each day on the hill. The edges can be given a once over with a diamond file (and guide) to restore their sharpness. Leaving it until they are blunt means taking a lot more metal off with the file to get them sharp. Waxing the skis regularly makes the bases faster and does not take too long (but always scrape the wax off when you have finished or they will be slower than if they had not been waxed at all). It is not necessary to wax every day, but it should be done fairly often to get the best out of the skis. Ski racers will often wax their racing skis even if they have not been used, as each wax will make them a little quicker.

Obviously, if you have a ski shop service your skis it is not cost effective to send them in every day, but if you invest in a little equipment, and learn how to use it you can save a lot in shop services. The minimum you need is a file (and guide), an iron (an old clothes iron will do), some wax and a scraper. Ideally you also want a diamond file for finishing off the edges, some brushes for the bases and a vice to hold the skis. Learing how to use all this kit is beyond the scope of this post, but there are plenty of courses and books out there so go Google.

I really need to apply the 'little and often' maxim to this blog as well ;-)