DIY Ski Tuning Made Easy: Expert Insights For Everyone

Ensuring your skis are tuned well, whether they're brand new out of the wrapper or you've been skiing on them already, is probably one of the most fundamental steps you've got to make if you want to make consistent progress in your skiing. Today I talk with Chris Hillier again from Sidecut Tuning, and we go through some real basic steps, and the goal here is to make tuning your own skis less daunting, less of a scary thing because it can feel that way. When I talk to people about like doing some of their own tuning, the first thing is I don't think I have the skill to do that. Well, you're going to find out in this podcast you absolutely do have the skill. And there's some simple steps to start out that are almost foolproof if you have 4 simple pieces of equipment and you take them wherever you go and you make it consistent. That you do the tuning of your skis more often, you are going to find it is far easier to make improvements and you're going to have a safer time. You're going to have more fun on the slopes if you do these steps. I just wrapped up the season in Australia and we've not had the great sort of luck of a lot of snow, which meant a lot of snowmaking and also very varied temperatures where, where it's firm and hard in the morning, sugary, lumpy, soft in the afternoon. And with the lack of snow also, there's more grit, more kind of things you're hitting which are taking away a nice sharp edge to your skis. Now, because I ski a lot in Australia, I developed my skiing skills a lot in Australia, I found out the importance of tuning my skis really early on. And it's a habit now. I cannot go out, I do not teach, I do not try and ski unless my skis have a really sharp edge first and foremost, and that there's a consistent base edge tune. You're going to find out why, you're going to find out how easy it is to take simple steps to do this yourself, and you are really going to benefit if you can make this a habit of your own for future skiing. Okay, so now you've got this first, most fundamental step right, your equipment is in good shape, ready for you to take on the mountain. The next thing is knowing what to be aiming for. What's the target? What are you trying to improve? Are you getting bored doing the same thing? Are you stuck in a rut? Well, Big Picture Skiing, my video library full of tonnes of other resources, is your go-to to help with these areas of improvement. It's very cost effective. It's an additional thing if you're an instructor and you are taking courses or you're working towards your next cert, or you're even just looking for that inspiration to help your students progress. It's cost effective if you do take lessons because it's going to give you far more understanding of what the instructor is talking about, what they're trying to help you with. It's just this, this thing that is going to give you far more value with your skiing through having webinars, tutorials, lessons, preseason workouts. There's a whole section of workouts you could be doing right now to get ready for winter. So you come into the season, hit the ground running, already primed and ready. Your body is in a good position, your joints are mobilized, you really have some sensations that are specific to skiing, you know what to be doing. This is something that is really going to help all skiers out there, all ski instructors as well, give you a, a better season, I promise you. So if you've not become a member of Big Picture Skiing before, head over there, check it out now. There's a 7-day free trial so you can try it risk-free. I think you're really going to find great value in it. Okay, let's get into this episode so you can find out more about the importance of doing some simple steps to tune your skis so you have that fundamental set in place, so then you can start working on techniques, start working on style, enjoying the mountain, skiing faster. Let's hear from Chris into this next podcast episode from Big Picture Skiing. Now, the reason I wanted to get you on the show again is we've been sort of chatting over WhatsApp and, and, uh, and discussing that we still see there's a problem out there that people are not sort of paying attention enough to their ski tune. And this is just general public, instructors, and sort of maybe even lower-level coaches, because you're mentioning at the higher end it's not so much of an issue. Uh, do you want to just make a couple of comments on that before we get into some helpful info on what people can do to, to fix this problem?

Yeah, sure.

Firstly, thanks for having me back. Well, I totally agree with you. That is a really prevalent issue in the industry. And when people buy new skis, they think, well, that ski's ready to be put on the snow and I'll ski and that'll feel great. But often that's not the case. And it's so, it's so much that way that I don't want to give a number out of 10, but often out of 10, your skis won't feel good right out of the wrapper when you slap them down on snow. You need to do a few things to really make them feel good, and you'll have way more fun. That's always the most important thing. And, you know, I think I said this probably in the last podcast, but we spend so much on the skis, we may as well have the most fun possible.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and when guys and gals are skiing with people people like yourself, it just makes it easier to learn the skills.

Yes. And like, after doing a couple of camps in Thredbo recently, conditions, snow conditions, definitely tricky with a low snow year. So we're dealing with like sort of icier snow, lots of man-made snow, um, inconsistent, uh, surfaces, that sort of thing. The tune just became so important. I had, had a bunch of students that just did not realize— they said, oh yeah, I got my skis tuned 2 weeks ago. I took them to the, to the tuner, and in the snow that we had, basically after a day, that they're no good anymore. But they didn't understand this, and they were blaming technique. And I'm showing them video, like they're over-angulating and trying to— and couldn't progressively increase the edge angle through a turn and make it, make a smooth arc. And so say we've got it, we've got a new pair of skis or even just you've got your skis from last season, you know, they were great. What are you going to do first? What's the first step to make sure that they're ready to go?

Well, I want to say something about the variable snow conditions first. So especially in Australia, that, you know, that kind of snow is— can be so variable there from top to bottom. Also in a place like Whistler here, you know, it can vary so much from top to bottom. That kind of snow really accentuates your tune. So whether it's good or bad, because you can be on certain parts of the mountain and go, oh, my skis feel fine, and then you'll go to a different part of the mountain, oh my God, I can't make any, I can't make proper turns. Right away then you know you have a problem with your tuning.

9 times out of 10, it's your base edge tuning, which is step 1 of ski tuning.

That's what you have to check.

That's what you have to get pretty good to make good turns, whether you're a beginner or an elite skier.

So how do you, like, the simplest sort of means, what are you going to check first with your base edge? And then maybe the simplest tool to, to help get that set up?

Well, try the skis, because it's not always like that. You know, there are these exceptions, you can get a brand new pair of skis, and they can feel pretty darn good.

Right out of the box or out of the wrapper.

So test them, do a couple runs if you have that opportunity. If you don't, just tune them. Trust me, just tune them. And, and just have a simple tool. Just have a base bevel guide and a diamond source. If you're brand new to the, you know, to this sport, tuning, just, just get a, a base bevel guide, just the plastic ones. They're, you know, $15, $18.

Shows Show us what you want to see.

I've got one.

Yeah.

So you get a base bevel guide like this. They come in different increments. I don't know if you can see that. So 0.5, 0.7, 1, up to 1.5 and, and a diamond stone, 400.

Just grab a 400 and you insert that in there and you can watch the videos how to use it.

And I always say when you're learning, use a diamond, a diamond stone as opposed to a file because that's where people shy away from tuning right away, right on step 1, which is the most important step where you need the— where you, where you want to, you know, gain confidence. So practicing with a diamond stone as opposed to a file, you'll really improve your sort of, sort of motor skills and that, that movement. And then before you know it, I would say within tuning I would say within probably tuning one full pair of skis, you're going to have the movement, the pattern, you know, the mechanics down pretty good with a diamond stone. If you try that with a file, you will lack confidence and you will struggle.

And that's, that's the main, like, tip here, right? Because we were discussing, like, what stops people from doing it themselves and going, no, no, I'm not going to touch it. Scary. This is a great intro step. First thing, get the guide and put a diamond stone in, because a diamond stone is not going to cut away too much. It's kind of like a softer— like, you're probably— you're not going to ruin your skis, whereas if you kind of get it wrong with a file, you, you might, you know.

Yeah.

So build some confidence there first.

Virtually impossible to ruin your skis. I won't say impossible, because you— and you're not going to ruin them with a diamond stone. You could always take them back to the shop and regrind them, and you're—

and and, you know, reset the geometry, let's say.

So the other great thing about using a diamond stone instead of a file is you can go both ways.

There's no cutting direction. Like a file, you can only cut in one direction. It works better that way.

So there's more of an art to a file. With the diamond stone, you can be like, you can be the backyard butcher mechanic. No disrespect to anyone, but that's okay. And that's the beauty of ski tuning. It actually is really easy if you use, if you use the basic steps and just the key tools that you need, you can do a job on your skis that will really, really blow your mind to the impact it has to your level of enjoyment and your level of confidence on variable snow types like Australia. You'll cruise through all those snow types and go, wow, I can't— my skis feel totally different this weekend.

Yeah. And I mean, so two things here. One, if you're listening to this, we're not going to go too much into the how because Chris has a fantastic YouTube channel, the Sidecut YouTube channel, for many like advanced to beginner techniques on how to tune. We're just going to go through some steps listen in, find out more here. And that's where you can go afterwards to, to work on, on the mechanics of it. Um, so that— and then, and then second, on, on like, yeah, this— the Australian ski conditions, getting the tune right. I think it sort of is gonna unveil like a little bit of a secret weapon a lot of instructors, high-end instructors who know about tuning, have over everyone else. We're so pedantic about how our skis are tuned, we just won't go out and bother really teaching or demonstrating without it. So, you know, we might show you something and you go and you go, how the heck does he or she do it? Part of it is we can trust the platform we stand on because we've checked it and we tune it.

Yeah, that's right.

So cool. So we've got step 1, gotta check the, the base edge and keep it consistent. File Guide is where you'd start with that. Any more on that before we go?

Well, I should expand slightly on that. And of course, like you said, you can watch our videos online and it can go as deep as you want there and you can pause and go backwards and forwards and it makes it very easy. So, but one thing I do want to mention about that base edge is that, you know, it's It's, it's key. It's, well, one, it's super easy to do with that diamond stone in that, in that, and the, and the guide. But a lot of people go, well, I don't know where to start. What, what degree should I use? So then people stop right there. Because you'll go to the shop, you'll ask someone, they'll give you an answer. You go to, you go to your ski instructor, he'll give you an answer. You'll talk to maybe someone else, and you'll get all these different answers. So here's what you do.

It's really easy.

Just get yourself a— if you're a brand new, pretty beginner, pretty novice, get a 1-degree face bevel guide. So one of these little black things, this is a 1 right here.

I don't know if you can read that on there. That's 1 degree.

And with that 400-grit diamond stone, watch the video to learn the technique, how to use it. And you do that to all 4 of your edges right away.

That just the, the act of doing that will make a world of difference to how the skis are.

A lot of people will say, well, you need to check it with the True Bar and all this. Certainly that's true, but let's keep it simple. In a way, for a beginner who doesn't know how to use a True Bar, it's not going to be a helpful tool anyway. You're going to accomplish— the outcome is going to be the same because whether you checked it with a True Bar or not, let's say the edge was at 0.5 of a degree, which is far too aggressive for a beginner. So we check it with the True Bar.

Well, I don't know what I'm looking at because I've never done it before, so I'll give it to the shop, and the shop may or may not know either. So they'll say, well, we could grind it for you, or we could tune it for you.

Do it yourself. Just get that and that and use the diamond stone on all 4 of those edges. And as soon as the metal— as soon as the steel stops sounding, you've taken off quite a bit of the steel and you've come to that 1-degree base bevel. It's, it's, it's really that, that easy. And so you don't even need a tool. I'm not going to say you don't need a verification tool like a TrueBar. You do, but not at the beginning. And I don't, I don't really recommend it at the beginning.

'Cause then it gets too complex and you think, oh, I gotta have this and this, and I, I'll just take it to the shop and you will spin your, your wheels for another season before you really go, okay, I gotta learn how to do this. Yeah.

So on that, 'cause I think this is a good point to bring up, you were mentioning your wife at Sun Peaks, this experience. Do you want to talk about that? 'Cause that relates to, to this base edge bevel.

Which part of the Sun Peaks?

So you, you, you went, you went to ski with her. She's a newer skier and then you didn't have time to check these brand new skis.

Yeah.

So I taught her how to ski a few years ago. She hasn't skied that much. I bought her a brand new pair of, of skis out of the wrapper. I knew, no disrespect to any of the ski factories, that that particular, those particular skis never really ski great out of the wrapper, and that's fine. And I knew that I needed to tune them and I ran out of time.

Even happens to ski tuners.

And I threw them in the car and then I thought, I'll tune them when I get there. Well, ran out of time. It's, it's, you know, time to go up. It's time to wake up and go skiing. So we, we went out and I thought, okay, this isn't— this is probably not going to go that great because I bet you these things are, are railed, so they're going to grab.

And the snow that day was grabbing. I thought, this is going to be tricky.

So we went up the Palma for a couple runs. Right away I identified that there's no point coaching, it's irrelevant for me to coach because the cause of the problem right away is the tuning. So we did a couple runs just to, just so I didn't have to look guilty.

And then I said, I gotta jump in there. Yeah, what would, what would have she felt you know, she might have, you know, skiing's new, but still, like, for other people to kind of get a sense of maybe a railed— yeah, too much kind of, uh, base edge, um, there. What, what could they sense?

The ski doesn't— the ski doesn't want to come across the fall line. It just wants to grab, you know, and it'll judder or it'll shake or cause those vibrations to come up through your body. Your knees can, can shake, you know. It's a horrible feeling. The ski wants to sit down on the base instead of tip up, which is what we want it to do to control speed or to change the turn shape. And, and it does just the opposite. So right away I could identify that, but because she was such a novice, uh, no disrespect, she, I could tell she wasn't confident, but she didn't know the reason why, but I certainly did. So I said, let's call a break. Let's go in for a minute. You go grab the tea and I'm gonna take your skis inside and I'll be back in 10 minutes. So I went inside. I brought tools with me, of course. I take tools everywhere you go. You have to because these situations happen and they can, we can get into, elaborate on that. So I, so I took it, I did exactly what I went in the hotel room and I put the skis on the floor. No vises, no table, no nothing. No, I, I took just those two tools right there. That 1-degree base bevel guide, that diamond stone. I got down on the floor, ski boots on, gloves off, put an elastic band.

So I have an elastic here.

You just need one of these rubber bands, you know, to hold the brakes up. And I got over top of the ski on the floor.

I mean, the most rudimentary thing you could possibly do.

And I just tuned all 4 of those edges. I just used a diamond stone and base beveled that ski.

Took me 10 minutes all up, all 4 edges.

I put the ski back on the snow for her and we went back up the same run. And she said, what did you do to these skis?

And I said, well, I just, I just fixed them.

Just, just a quick fix. I'll fix them properly tonight, but that's a quick fix.

And she said, wow, what a difference.

And then we could, then we could get to business and work on improving technique, her skills or technique or, well, it's not just technique because as soon as you fix that, it's a psychological lift too because A, you're happier, open to learning and you have way more confidence and we could go up the chairlift and go on steeper terrain right away.

Yeah.

Those smiles across, you know, it's, it's just the game changer right there.

Yeah. Plus, plus now you have buy-in from your wife on the, the business you run. It like is, is legitimate. Is this something good there?

Yeah.

No, that's cool. That's a really good story.

Yeah.

True story.

Yeah, true story, uh, of the importance and how simple it was to fix it, because that's what we're trying to get across here. It's not rocket science. You can, you can totally start doing this stuff yourself.

Yeah.

Now I would mention, if that happened to an athlete, an elite athlete, a World Cup skier, or elite athlete, or any higher, I, I, I would not fix it in such a rudimentary way because those skis are literally precise machines and, and I would put it on the bench and I would bring it to room temperature and I would, you know, do all of those more particular things.

Yes.

But in this instance, that level, that skill level isn't, isn't gonna—

for, for where we were in the time and place, they're not gonna feel the difference.

Yeah. Perhaps I'll jump in with a story from this season. Along a similar vein, but with a pair of skis that weren't brand new, they'd already been tuned, tuned really well. I know I'd skied some days the previous season where they were gripping really well. Took them into the shop, said, can you just run them over the machine? Don't worry about hand tuning it, just give them a quick like base edge, side edge fix. That was done. Went up with a friend to ski the Super Trail at Thredbo, which is a fairly decent blue run, and it was really slick that morning. At this glaze layer over and went to make a couple of turns thinking, great, sharp news, you know, brand new tune, gonna trust it. First turn, nope, not gonna, not gonna happen. In fact, I could even feel it when I skated to the lift. I was like, so this doesn't feel as grippy as I'm usually used to with a brand new, uh, tune. Anyway, went down, took him back in the shop, and she said, yeah, well, uh, you know, the machine can't give us as good a precise tune that you probably need to ski this steeper run, hard snow. She did proper hand tune, ground the base flat, put the— like, I wanted a 0.5 base bevel under my foot, sort of tuned out to 0.7 of the tips and tails, and then 3 degrees on the side. And I went back up, and, and it was so much fun. I don't think anyone else that day skied could make turns in the morning on that snow, but I was like going as fast as I wanted. It was, it was awesome because I had a great tune. Yeah, those skis already had a good tune in the past, but I had to like maintain it. And as you're saying, like, like to the elite level, like the precision part and tune, really make sure it's fine. Like, like that's going to make the difference to your day. I mean, otherwise I would have just been working on basic parallel, like sort of skinning around the place.

Well, you wouldn't have— you wouldn't— you probably wouldn't have been able to. Also, it's dangerous, you know. It's a great way.

Totally.

Blow your knee or have an injury or, you know, come unglued and, you know, go down pretty hard.

And it happens. I mean, I don't know if I mentioned this in the last podcast, that the whole— one of the whole reasons Sidecut really got off the ground is because I broke my leg with a shop tune like that. And I'm not throwing shops under the bus, but you did say a really crucial thing there. You went in and the tuner said, our machine doesn't, can't deliver the tune you need for your level of skiing, Tom, perhaps. Well, with no disrespect to that shop, and it doesn't matter the shop, you should have the same tune as everybody should have, a beginner, you know, maybe not as sharp and the angles are going to change change based on your skill level and your strength. That's not going to be—

the angles aren't going to be as acute and they're not going to be as aggressive.

But the tuning— the machine should be able to produce an amazing tune for everybody.

And there lies the problem. You need to go to the shops that have the very, very best machines, or, or you need to finish by hand. Like you experienced.

Yeah.

And even when you have the finest machines, even at the highest level, we're still finishing by hand 90% of the time or parts of the ski details.

I did a video on that last year.

We won't go into the high end, but so it's so crucial and it may—

these nuances are night and day different, literally.

And by the way, like it happens to elite guys like yourself and it happens to World Cup skiers. I've had guys come down and say, I can't, you know, and imagine in downhill going, you know, speeds of 130, 140 kilometers an hour plus.

I can't ski today on this ski, you know.

And so you start ruling out what's the cause.

So you look at the environment. Is it the environment?

Is it your head?

So no, it's nothing psychological.

Is it your technique? Well, you could easily make the mistake and say, well, yeah, you're not you're not doing this or this correctly. But if you're very intuitive coaching, you've been doing it long enough, you recognize that that's not the cause because they can ski on anything. So it comes down to is, well, it's not tactical. So then you're left with equipment. Is it the boots? Could be, could be, you know, you grabbed the wrong boots. We should have used the boots that were adjusted slightly differently. The less aggressive ones for this snow.

We could, that could be the cause.

So it's either that or the tuning at the high level. And so, you know, and I've had athletes come down and say, I can't, I just can't ski on these. Okay.

So in their case, they have a whole bunch of skis at the bottom, click into pair number B21 or whatever, and they click into that ski, come back up and you're now you're training.

And it, it's just something happened with that ski. Maybe we had it at the factory and it was too aggressive, the base bevel. So like at the highest level, we keep a log of the base bevels of the ski because they'll grow over time.

The more time they spend on snow, it will start to go more and more and more and more.

Then you have to take them back to the factory, set everything back, and then otherwise it's, you know, it gets dang—

it's too dangerous for them.

So that, so therefore you can imagine for a beginner. So if we're doing that for someone that's going 140, you might think if you're watching this thing, well, that doesn't apply to me.

I'm not going anywhere near 140. I'd be lucky if I'm going 20 kilometers an hour. Okay, well, it's even more important at slow speed when you're really learning these.

They're quite technical skills learning, you know, all the— we won't go into the basic, 5 Skills of Skiing.

But, you know, at that slow speed, you can really feel things with your edges, especially elite skiers, when the tuning is right, even more than often at high speed.

You can just feel it when you get off the lift where everything's, you know, glazed over like you mentioned, and you get off on your skis, just, okay, these don't, something doesn't feel right right away with this tuning.

You know, a beginner can't feel that because they have no reference point. They have no comparison.

They have no baseline. So you have to set a beginner, an intermediate skier out with the best tuning possible for their skill and their strength, their skill level to match their skill level and their strength.

If we could do this across the globe, We'd have so many people on chairlifts, it would be crazy.

No, people would love it. People would love it because it would make, it would make learning skiing so much easier from the onset because you go in, you rent a pair of skis, they're not taken care of almost. And if they are, it's just, it's just to, to make the skis glide and, you know, they keep the skis waxed.

But yeah.

Almost depending where you're renting, almost always out to lunch. And yes, and you know, and if you're renting skis, by the way, and you're not flying around the world and you're going on a ski vacation and you're spending a lot of money and you're going to Colorado, you're going to Austria, Switzerland, or wherever you're going, are you going to New Zealand or South America? And you don't want to travel with skis because a lot of people don't, but they bring their boots. I think that's cool. That's great. And no airline won't lose them, which is great.

And you're renting, bring your tools with you because you're certainly going to need to tune those rental skis to enjoy the thousands of dollars you just spent to go on that trip. I mean, it's just, it's the most, it's the thing that tourists forget.

And Chris, on this, like those, the plastic base bevels you have run at what, what's the cost?

Um, I got another screen open.

I think these are, I think they're $18.

Yeah, dollars, pretty easy. So $18. And then you get a diamond, $12 US, $20 Aussie diamond stones.

You know, I do recommend a decent diamond stone, a good one, because, and I would spend a little bit more, not a sales pitch. Because, because these are CNC machined flat and a lot of stones aren't. They're die cast and they're not flat. So when you're, when you're brand new to the sport of tuning, it's nice to have accurate tools. It's easier, it's more tactile, feels nice in your hands, easier to learn with, you know, and you'll just get a way better sensation.

Also, you can just peel the diamond strips off when it wears out and put a new one on. So you never get, you never get rid of this, this bar, this aluminum bar.

Yeah.

And it's the same, it's the same thing with our discs. So I would spend a bit more and the cost of those ranges between $50 and $60. So that seems like it's a bit dear, but look, it together, just that $80 investment, don't quote me on the prices, but in that ballpark is a game changer. Just those two little tools right there.

Yep, yep. So because I think that's quite a common situation, is people do— they say Australians travel to Canada or North America for the winter and they take their boots, but they rent, you know, even the top-of-the-line demo skis, right? If you had that tool, you'd have that for, you know, possibly the rest of your life. Just go through, first check, just do, do the base edge. You're off to a good, good start. And I think that's the most interesting thing, and I hope people, people get this. The first thing, base edge— I don't think that is probably the first step for a lot of people. A lot of people, their first step is probably one is wax, and then two is side edge.

Yeah.

And, and there you put them further down kind of the, the, this process. And so, yeah, so the base edge So important. A couple of stories. Your wife, lower-end skier. My one, higher-end skier. Everywhere in between there, it needs to be right.

Yeah.

So if we've, if we've got that, that step kind of done, what's the next one?

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach, and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate Ski IQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens. But Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps. And to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of turn tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.

Um, the next step is, is side, doing your side edges. So you want to, but before you do that, you, there's a little step, a little sidewall step. So we can, we can tackle this two ways. If you're a full beginner and you don't know how to use one of these tools, you can learn how to use it online. And they are, they are quite expensive.

And that's a sidewall remover, by the way, for the people listening.

So you don't— if you don't know what that is, you take a look at our videos.

Tom can maybe put a link in here and you'll see how I remove that.

And what that does is that, is that allows when you go to step 3, which is side edge beveling, that, that clears space for you to be able to put the correct side edge bevel on, whether it's 1, 2, or 3 degrees, the most common. Now, If you're brand new and you go, okay, you lost me, I'm not doing that, there's no chance. Okay, and you're that, and you're that person that flies overseas and you rent the best possible ski you can. Okay, the solution there for the side edges is skip the sidewall remover. So you've got this for the base edge, these two tools, and you take this with you, 2 Degree with a 400 diamond disc. So it's the same grit as the one you used on the base edge, and you're going to use this on, on your side edges. And if you're finding, usually, usually demo skis, you're going to be able to hit the edge pretty good, even on the sidewall. It is still there. I mean, a lot of those skis are in, are pretty new, but they're, yes, they've never been tuned, in fact, properly. Often they're just straight from the factory, the sidewall is left on. So, so you'll be able to get some edge, you'll be able to get some of that kinesthetic feeling of hitting the edge and you'll hear it. So, you know, and you'll see it in the diamond. If you don't and you're just hitting the sidewall, well, then you can just take it back to the shop and you say to the guys you're renting from, hey, can you remove the sidewall for me? I mean, that's the least they can do for a ski that you absolutely— for. And, you know, they'll do it.

If you—

they'll do it for you. Say, can you just remove the side? Well, I can't, I can't get these things sharp and they feel, they feel terrible. They'll do that. And then you can, then you can get a nice, a nice edge and you maintain that through your holiday just with this. So once you, once you've done that, you don't, you don't do that again because you've set that base edge on 0.7 or 1, 1 degree depending on your skill level there, or 0.5 if you're a really good carving style skier that you like to ski on ice and hardpack all the time. And then you're going to use this daily. Just at the end of every— daily.

I gotta say that again.

Daily. Daily. You're just going to take, you're going to spend literally 4 minutes on your skis every day from that point on, on the side edges. So step 2 was the sidewall removal, removal, and we're going to skip right up to, we're not going to do that, for example. In this scenario. We're going to go right to the diamond guide with, with, with this, with this disc on it. If you really want to have something a little extra special, get two discs. Get a coarse one, a 120, and a 400. The coarse one will help cut right through that sidewall and get it out of the way. Switch out that disc, put on the 400, and that'll— it that'll really— that's a more rudimentary way to do it. But you can, you can really get good results and have a sensation on the snow that is far different than what—

when they, when they handed the ski to you, for example.

And back to 60 seconds, then you're going to spend 60 seconds on each edge. So it's literally going to go up and down that ski. Watch the video.

You can go tip to tail, I don't know, 5, 6, 7 passes. 8 passes.

You're gonna flip the ski around. You're gonna do it again on the other edge, inside edge, outside edge of both skis.

And that will take you 4 minutes.

Carry one of these or two of these elastics to hold your brakes up. And you could literally do it. I'm not recommending you do this on the hotel room floor.

But you could.

But you can. But you could.

Yeah.

And just put a towel down and you can do it.

And most hotels everywhere you go will have a tuning room where the storage locker is. They'll have benches down there and there'll be a set of vices usually.

Somebody, and you're always gonna find someone that's tuning on one of your holidays. Yeah, absolutely. So go talk to them, watch them, go down and pick their brain.

Say, hey, you know, can I borrow your bench? They'll always say yes.

That's in my kit. That I always take is, is the side edge. I'm a 3-degree person, 3-degree side edge, diamond stone. And, and I have a coarse one and a finer one. I take those to the— they, they weigh nothing, they're so small, can just— I'm just doing every day and I know I'm going to have a better day. And it's so simple.

I think—

I don't know if you saw it when we did the interschool schools races, Archie 5— my son, 5 years old, before we went out there, he's even using it. I showed it's that simple. A 5-year-old can do it, you know. He's going up and down and he enjoyed it, and he starts to learn the importance of keeping his, his skis in, uh, in good shape. But super, I love how simple, like, these steps are. Entry level, not scary in terms of I'm going to wreck it. You're not going to wreck your skis. It's only going to be better.

With those, with those 4 little items right there, you are not gonna wreck your skis.

I, I, I'll guarantee you. Yeah. Virtually impossible.

I'd never say impossible because, but if you watch a video, we have a 6-minute video, you know how to, it's actually called How to Tune Children's Skis, but it's exactly the same thing.

Just watch that and take, take the bits out of it that, are relevant that I just said. And, um, you're going to be absolutely fine, and it's going to—

you'll be so grateful you did it. Yeah, I have never met anyone that—

maybe a quick, like, you know, because we said every day, it's only going to take a couple of minutes, 4 minutes every day. But do you want to just mention, like, why, like, what, what happens? What's that diamond stone just going to bring back? Because people are like, it's a sharp edge, how is it going to be not sharp in a day?

It doesn't take long for an edge, especially on hard snow and that variable— those variable snow conditions you get in Australia where it's kind of hard and then really soft and then really grippy and icy.

And then of course you've got plenty of rocks. Yeah, roots and different things.

And, and, and that's everywhere really. Um, So number one, you're knocking any burrs off from the day that you may have hit tiny little pebbles or even, you know, you ski in South America, for example, and the winds are blowing and you'll get sand in the— or you're skiing and you get sand in the snow from the desert in Morocco, for example, when you're skiing in Spain. You know what? I don't know, I just pulled that out of my head, but true story.

Yeah.

And this happens everywhere in the world.

You get different— volcanic ash, you get all kinds of things in the snow when you're in South America and so on.

So this does—

this really is aggressive on the edges, not to mention the base.

And so it's important to knock those little burrs off. Now, if you don't experience that, you still need to do it because you want to bring that, that apex of the edge back to that really nice point. And you want to maintain that because it's going to give you that level of confidence on the snow that you, once you feel it, you will always want it. And if you don't maintain that, you know, 2, 3 days, that apex of that edge will become, it'll become blunt and it will become out of trueness, let's call it. And then you won't feel as confident on the skis and you'll wonder why.

And it's simply the tuning and it's not you.

So you blame it on the tuning. So that's story.

That morning when I had, like, after the hand tune was done, I had this great run laying it right over hip to Snow Tones. The next run, about a third of the way down, I started going, oh, this is getting sketchy. I already was starting— I was, I wasn't leaving pencil lines, they were like text, a permanent marker. Like, it was just, it was skidding a little bit. By the bottom next run, I pulled up halfway out I was, I'm not gonna go fast anymore cuz I couldn't get grip. That's in, yeah, 2 and a half, like, like 1 and a half runs. I couldn't ski on that surface the way I was skiing on the first run. That's how fast. Yeah.

Well, that, that's the very reason why, why the Diamond Guide sort of became, I, I, I, you know, became such a thing is because working with, with athletes, not the highest high-end ones like World Cup and so on, but ones lower that don't, can't go to summer training with 4 pairs of skis on the snow every morning.

Maybe they have 2.

So after 3 or 4 runs of skiing in Chile, for example, or New Zealand, for example, or any hard snow, Australia included, you know, I did a lot of, I don't know how many seasons I did in Australia, a good 11 or more, maybe it was 16, I don't remember, but a lot. And you know, you get such varied conditions, but the point is, You, after 2, 3 runs, they had to switch their skis to their second pair. After 2, 3 runs again, now they're all, their tires are bald. So the effect is effectiveness of the day is gone. The training effect is gone. There's really nothing we can coach anymore because the problem lies in the dull skis. They've lost that geometry, that perfect, that beautiful apex that allows them to ski. And by the way, for viewers, if you want to ski like Tom Gellie, You can get away skiing like Tom with semi-dull skis and a little bit not precise if it's, if it's pretty soft snow. But as soon as it gets even medium hard and or turns to ice, you're not going to get your hip on the snow. No, there's no chance.

I can't do it. I can't put my hip on the snow when I don't have sharp skis on that, on that firm snow.

And on that kind of—

yeah, in that environment, it's not possible.

So So, so it's crucial. And so what we do, what we would do is the athletes would carry these and many, I can't say most, but in, you know, people in our country, in Canada and a lot in the US and well all over now actually, they're carrying the Diamond Guides in their backpacks. So in between runs they'll ski 3 or 4 runs on that, they'll give it a quick rate on the snow. They'll spend that, you know, 30 seconds on each edge, get that apex back.

Now they got their confidence back because they got a platform to brace again or to balance against, and they can move right inside the turn where they need to be.

And then the training effect continues. Without that, we can't—

as coaches, we can't really do anything with them anymore.

The day's sort of shot at 6 runs, but their energy and their fatigue level is not capacity. So we could get 3, 4, 5 more runs out of them.

So that's the beauty of having a Diamond Guide right there in your pocket.

That's it.

In your backpack, wherever, whatever. Bring it to the mountain, you know.

I'm going to speak to, uh, the, the instructors and coaches out there right now. Like, this is such a simple thing you could do to provide even more value in your lessons, is just carry a base bevel diamond stone and a side edge so small in your jacket pocket. If you spot this, if you're spotting someone's— you're telling someone to balance on their outside ski, they keep falling on the inside, maybe just check their edges. It's, it's such a like a quick simple thing. You could stop at the top of the lift, eliminate that part. It's like, like this part, as we've said, uh, I'm gonna say once again Like, you can't work on technique, you can't work on skills until the equipment is right. And there's this problem we're just seeing everywhere is just not enough people are being helped with this step in the process to getting better at their skiing. And so coaches, ski instructors, easy one you could do to start getting the word out there, showing people the, like, the positive effect that comes from tune the skis better.

Yeah.

So yeah, public service announcement. Yeah.

A coach, a coach said to, um, their program director last year, I go around to visit different places doing educational workshops on tuning and so on. And, um, these days, and, um, one, uh, I think it was like a U14 coach. So, so, or U12, no, it was a U12 coach.

So kids under 12, um, went to the program director and said, hey, can we organize next year for every new parent that comes into the program a 92-degree Diamond Guide with that 400-grit stone?

It comes in their welcome kit.

It just—

every parent gets it because it's so essential for us as coaches because we sort of wasting our time.

These parents are spending all this money on their kids and so on.

And they're like Bambi on ice out here, and we need to at least equip them with something, some tool that will at least allow us to do our jobs effectively.

Absolutely. That's actually in the welcome pack for the people doing the online coaching with me this, this season, is in there. This is what you need in order to have a good season. And, uh, and, and they get looked after by you. Thanks for, uh, little special thing there for those people. But yeah, it's, it's, it's— I think it's just such an easy step.

It is.

Yeah.

And if you're— and if you're not, you know, if you're just so sort of blown away by the process of tuning, it seems so daunting to you and you want it and you just want to let the shop do it, no problem, let the shop do it. But get the tools to maintain the sharpness in between the next visit to the shop. Don't wait for 3 months or 25 days of skiing on snow before you go back to the shop because every day you ski on that ski, it's getting worse and worse and worse. But if you have the two tools that we, those four little items that we just mentioned, for example, you're going to maintain that ski. So when you take it back to the shop, it's, it's, there's very little to do. A, it'll cost you less. And B, you've had 25 days of, you know, with, with having a, you know, higher success rate developing your skills.

And that for me as a coach is essential.

Yeah.

So even if you, even if you're not doing the full tune yourself and you're letting the shop do it, you do the maintenance.

That's, that's pretty much what I'm doing. Yeah, that's a lot of the time, that's all I'm doing, especially luckily in North America. Canada, that's all you really need on a full, like, 3-week trip. I just need to diamond stone once I've sharpened them at home. Yeah, I don't need to take my files usually. That I'm going to get through the, that, that period fine with, uh, with just the tools you've mentioned. Now, Chris, on to— before we get on to— because next step is waxing.

That is waxing.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe just before that, do you want to mention 2 degrees versus 3 degrees, who might benefit, like, or reasons for choosing one or the other.

Okay, that's good. I wanted to mention that before, but I forgot when you said I'm a 3-degree guy. Okay, so Tom's a 3-degree guy because he's an elite skier.

So people that can really have a high degree of, of the ski up on the sidewall will benefit from a higher degree of side edge on the side edge.

So 3 degrees is getting, getting up there. So you have to have the skill level to be able to tip this and the strength to be able to tip the ski over that far to really utilize that edge. If a beginner is using that edge, the same edge Tom has on his skis, but it's reflected on a beginner style ski or intermediate style ski, but it still has that more like elite tune on it, it won't be that enjoyable even for them because it'll be very aggressive to ski on. It'll still be grabby, and it takes more precision and more strength, more muscle to make that ski respond and to work the way you make it work. So you want to go down, even for a beginner, even maybe even 1 degree on the side edge and 1 degree on the base. Also kind of a benefit if you're that style of skier and you're traveling abroad, You can get these in— the red ones are 1 degree.

Very easy to use because it's a very low angle and very easy to sharpen a ski even when the sidewall is still interfering slightly.

So that's a tip you might want to take away. So if you're a beginner, you could go as low as 1 degree, but you don't go 90.

We don't go 90 anymore.

So you have to have at least 1 degree, beginner to maybe low-end intermediate. And then the sort of the default degree these days is 2 degrees.

Almost everybody has at least 2 degrees on the side edge.

And I'm gonna jump in that that's probably what when someone goes and they rent a decent pair of kind of skis, it's got 88 or 2 degrees side. That's probably your, your most, yeah, and most skis are at that.

And the majority of skis coming from the factory will be tuned to that. And, and I want to mention this too. I know you have to go, but Ski— I get so many personal, or but Sidecut in general gets so many emails and phone calls and text messages. My skis came from the factory at 88.5 degrees. These crazy numbers that are going to be irrelevant. You tune the skis to your personal preference. So 0.5s don't matter.

Matter at all in this situation.

Yeah.

Just, it, you, you're not gonna be able to replicate what happened at the factory. Now here's another point.

Again, no disrespect to the factories.

If you measured that ski that they said came at 88.5 and 0.9 degrees on the base, a lot of the time it's not what it says it is anyway. So a lot of people get a lot of anxiety about trying to match it and go to every shop. Can you do a 0.9 degree bevel on the on the base edge and, and, and 288.5 on the sides.

And the shops go, no, well, we are, our machine's just doing this. That's the way it's set. I mean, we could do it, but we're not going to change it. That's how we do it.

So they leave the shop. It's, it's, it's actually becoming, it's kind of sad that it's that way because just get these basic tools and tune the skis. You're going to get a really great kinesthetic feel.

It's going to make you a way better skier. You're going to learn what you want on your skis.

0.5, 0.7, or 1 on the base. And that's going to vary if you're more intermediate to advanced skier and you have more than one pair of skis.

Like if you have a powder ski and a carving ski, for example, some, some people have more skis.

You're going to do, you're going to prefer different base bevels on different styles of skis. So powder ski is going to be 1 to 1.5, generally speaking. Some guys will run it at 0.5, but generally speaking, they're going to have a higher degree of base bevel and a smaller degree of side edge angle. Guy like yourself on carving for the videos that you're doing, hip on the snow, hard snow, you're going to go 3 degrees on the side and 0.5 on the base. So again, I know everybody's thinking, oh my God, this is so complex.

You need to have a degree in geometry for this, but you don't.

You just need to— you'll figure it out. But the only way you're going to figure it out is you have to jump in. You have to jump in and get a base bevel and one of these, tune the ski and go, okay, I feel what these guys are talking about. It's— you'll know in your first turn. You'll know when you hop off the chairlift. You'll feel when you pivot that ski. Wow, that feels different right away. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, so that side edge, most people are probably going to be like, if they're like, what do I get? What do I get? 88 degrees or 2 degrees? 2 degrees.

2 degrees are synonymous, so they mean exactly that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But 2 degrees, that's, that's where you start. If you're in like, you're pushing to the league, I'm trying to, you know, ski at that kind of thing, a 3-degree. Yeah, it'll be simple as that. And because I don't know if we're going to get many beginners listening to this but that's— those are the ones maybe a 1, but, but, uh, hopefully people, once you ski enough, they're all going to be probably wanting a 2-degree anyway. So that's, that's how— that's how— probably like take all the guesswork out, that's the one to go for, for the side.

I would agree, Tom. And if you're like a high-end intermediate or, or advanced or pushing to be where Tom is, I would have 2 setups. I would have a— I would have a couple of these Okay, and they're cheap enough. You can have all three, really, 0.5, 0.7, and you can experiment yourself.

And you really, you really get a great feel of what you like and how it really impacts your turns, because it is amazing how it impacts your turns.

That 0.2 degree on the base edge makes a difference.

I agree.

0.2 on the side edge, I'd be— I'd challenge most people to even feel that difference. Even at the highest level, I've tricked, you know, World Cup skiers, they don't feel that, but they feel the base edge for sure.

Yes.

So I think, I think that's so such an important thing to do. So have two setups. So have a two. So on your powder skis, most, most of those guys I just mentioned in that bracket are going to have 1 degree on their base edge and 2 degrees on the side.

Powder, great.

And they're going to ski great on when you, when you get to the groomed parts of the run, you have to carve out and and you got to go on steep sections that are icy, that have, you know, windblown and snow sloughed off and you're down to the hard pack. But you went out to go powder skiing. You've got to have— you got to be ready. You have to have your skis and prepared. Otherwise it's really sketchy to be up on a steep sort of windblown section where you've got to navigate between rocks and your skis are grabby because you didn't do the proper base bevel on them and they're not sharp either. This is the funny thing. They're grabby, but they're not sharp. The worst scenario. I know everybody's going, well, that doesn't make sense. It makes perfect sense once you try these tools.

You go, I know what these guys are saying here.

So yeah. And then for your, for your carving setup, just go with 3 degrees on the side and 0.5 or 0.7 on the base if you're, if you're pushing where we're—

That's it. And more often than not, the snow surface is a firmer one. East Coast, America, Canada. Yeah, yeah. Southern hemisphere, that's— I think that's, that's definitely a good recommendation.

Yeah. And if you're high-end, if you're high-end out here and the West Coast style, um, and, and you get more varied snow conditions, then you might want to go 0.7 on the base and 3 on the side because that makes the ski more user-friendly in all conditions, in the bumps, for example. You know, back east where it's predominantly hard pack, I mean, basically all the time, it's, it's different.

You want, you want it low degree of edge.

You want it sharp. Yeah.

You want it sharp and you want 0.5.

Yeah. Yeah.

But out here, you know, you might, you might struggle with that.

So we got our edges set. I think, I mean, the waxing part, that's, you know, that's the next sort of step. Not, not, you Yeah, that's probably one of the easiest ones. It's easy. Most people. Yeah.

You, you, you know, I mean, you, I have some wax up here. I put up here, you get an iron, just get a basic iron, a block of wax. I, I love Nanox. Again, not a sales pitch, but it's great cuz it's, it's nontoxic. So you can, it doesn't, you're not affecting your lungs by breathing it in with some of the other waxes. You don't need any of that fluorocarbon and stuff like that. It's super fast, works in all conditions, all temperatures. It's one wax.

You don't need to have different colors.

It melts on beautifully.

You scrape it off within 2 minutes.

That's ready to go.

There aren't any waxes that you really still—

that you do that with.

And it stays in your base longer. Most waxes, you have to let it sit in the base 20, 30 minutes.

Some people let it sit for hours.

The whole job, the beauty of tuning with the system that we've sort of created is you're in and out fast. So that makes it more enticing to do it. Especially once you feel the benefits and you go, well, I have 15 minutes today to tune my skis because I know how great I felt on the snow.

And you will want to invest that 15 minutes every time you ski.

You'll go down in your hotel when you're in wherever you may be, Saint Anton or something, and you'll go down and you'll miss that first apres or whatever it is. Maybe you won't miss that apres, but you'll go down and you'll tune your skis that night. You'll spend, you'll find, you'll find 15 15 minutes because you had such an epic day. And the cause of that epic day was that a great part of it is how you, how your skis are in the snow.

I mean, it's a, it's a, it's an obvious thing to, to—

I had someone after that, after the last podcast, uh, one of the Big Picture Skiing subscribers, they, they emailed and said, yeah, I tried that Nanox wax, it actually is really good. And that's something I've not tried yet. So yeah, and, and the fact you've mentioned Not having to like 2 minutes scrape it off. Done. I, I didn't realize that part. That's kind of, that's neat.

That particular wax, nanotechnology wax, this one, this particular one comes from Italy, just over the border of Austria and Sud Tirol.

You, you scrape it while it's sort of still lukewarm, not in the wet phase, but it's lukewarm.

So the beauty is you, you wax it on, you can watch your videos how to wax if you don't know how to wax. I don't think I need to describe that. It's very simple.

Um, and while you're scraping that ski, the other ski is cooling for 2 minutes and you're done. Again, you're done the operation of waxing faster than you've ever done it with traditional waxes. And look, I love all the waxes.

I, I've used them all. I'm just saying I only use Nanox these days because it's just, it's a no-brainer.

It's so Saves time, saves time, and it goes so darn fast, consistently in all conditions if you do it right. And the key with it is you got to always finish with a, a nylon style brush, never horsehair. The last step, you'll scrub it back and forth and let's call it activate that wax because, um, okay, you, you need to use synthetic fiber to make it really fast. And it will go great. And the beauty is—

why is that?

Um, just with that particular wax, with that nanotechnology wax, the synthetic fibers— if you use horsehair, for example, it creates a different charge and it makes the ski— it makes the ski create friction. You'll feel the friction. But when you— you can still use the horsehair, and we do.

Yeah.

Clean.

And but the last brush you're going to use is always a synthetic nylon or synthetic fiber.

So, okay, interesting.

Very cool.

So we've kind of covered all the, all the steps here.

Yeah.

Um, I think like the goal of this one, like I said, show people it's not, it's not rocket science. It's pretty easy. The benefits so far outweigh like the time invested. It's not that much time. You know, I think people, those people that travel and don't maybe own their own skis.

Yeah.

I think it's gonna be a worthwhile investment getting those, those, those 4 tools.

Yep.

And on our website.

Yeah.

Well, I just wanted to mention on our website, so to clarify, because we didn't go through every tool, I didn't hold up a file guide, for example, with a file, because I, I think it's nice to keep it simple. And, and, and, and Sincerely, it's—

it—

you— I want it to be simple for people, or you won't—

or you won't be motivated to do it, or you won't even want to experiment or try it. So go to the website sidecut.com and go to our tuning kits tab, and we've created, uh, 4 or 5 tuning kits there.

And if you were to look at the basic polishing kit, that's a great kit. It's got 5 little tools in it I think it's got, it's got one, it's got this, it's got, it's got one extra thing. So it's got all that.

The only thing actually, it has a gummy stone for, for, for deburring, the detuning slightly if you want to do that.

So it comes with just those 5 essential tools. It's relatively inexpensive.

You grab an iron, block of wax, scraper, and a brush, and you've got a little kit and you're ready to go and you can start. Just start and you'll be blown away on the impact it has.

And then you can see, you can go from there, you can build up and build your kit slowly. There are other people out there that follow you, Tom, I can imagine that will want to go full in, which is fine too. Then we have the full tuning kits with everything and everything in between, a sharpening kit, a polishing kit, and then an intro kit.

Intro kit is also a really good one. It has 10 tools and you can do all the aspects. And that, that kit actually follows along exactly what, what I demonstrate in the, in the educational videos, both how to tune children's ski, skis and how to tune adult skis.

So those are 2 good videos I, I think to watch.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Fantastic. All right. I hope this inspired some people. Thanks again for your time, Chris. Uh, from Sidecut. And yeah, thanks for tuning into the Big Picture Skiing podcast, everyone. We'll catch you next time.