Reparing edges after hitting rocks?

[Asle]

Its impossible to never hit rock. I try to avoid it but sometimes I just can´t. Dropping clifs when riding pow and hitting all kinds of bumps near by the slopes I sometimes find scratches on my edges after hitting rock.

After hitting rock I always fix my edges. Sometimes the scratches go deep and I have to remove alot of steel to get the edges perfect. If this happends I usually try to repare the edges as smooth as possible, but I don´t go deep enough into the steel to make them perfect. That leaves the edge not perfect. The reason I do this is to not remove to much of the edge and by this give the snowboard a longer life.

What do you do when hitting rocks, how deep do you go and do you somethimes go with less than perfect edges after reparing?

[Mike Tokar]

I agree that it's almost impossible to not hit a rock. It usually happens to me carving up the sides of a trail that looks like it has good coverage, and finding a rock hiding just underneath the snow.

I've tried to take good care of my edges and base, but if you try to get your edges perfect, you'll take off so much material you'll wear out the board too fast.

I've taken the advice of honest tuners and "settled" for imperfections, in order to keep as much edge and base material on my boards for as long as possible. Obviously, I'll use a deburring stone first to take off the major damage, and after deburring, use the coarse, medium coarse and then fine diamond files for clean up.

You probably already know that the steel becomes tempered by heat from friction when riding over a rock, and that you have to start with a stone first because the steel on the edge will be harder than a file.

If anyone has other ideas or techniques, I'l love to read them.

MT

[Gecko]

I've used a ballpeen hammer to beat edges back into shape before appliing steel or stone...

[outsider]

i can safely say that i have never hit a rock where i ride

you can avoid rocks yourself by riding the midwestern landfill-style resorts with expertly blown snow. no rocks at all where i ride, keeps my board's edged nice and clean

[kjl]

If I grind a rock bad enough to make sharp, rough spots that will stick in the snow, I grind them down with a diamond stone right away. I just send the stone back and forth until the horrible scratching sound goes away. All the other nicks and cuts and dings stay in there. Once a year or so I take the file out and put a real edge on it again, but only over the undamaged parts - the little indentations from the rock hits are still there when I'm done filing (after all, you don't want to file down 1mm of edge just to get rid of the nick - there are only about 3mm to start with!)

This probably only works in Tahoe where we don't see any real ice and you don't really need to sharpen your edges.

[Jon Dahl]

I've a friend who has done a lot of ski tuning. He says smoothness to the edge is the most important thing. I would think as a coach/ski bum he would know. I've always went by that motto and have yet to go wrong, so judge for yourself.