Ski Techs

benlokhorst

benlokhorst

Member
I'm just wondering, how many of you are ski techs? I know for a fact that if I wasn't one I would be absolutely broke with the amount of p-tex I use and not having the ability to use a base-grinder.
 
If i'm mega broke I take a 6 pack ring or plastic grocery bags and braid them together and melt it down into the gouge with a iron then scrape off the excess with whatever you can find.
 
I have been a ski tech / repair / in rentals for six some years now. And I can say the easiest way to get into it so get a job at a shop with a rental department or at a resort rental department. Having to fix rental gear will give you a great crash course and also the ability to fuck up allot when you are just learning. You won't really get the nitty gritty on tuning but you will get allot of the basics out of the way. Also working in a rental shop is the best way to get certifications on bindings because you have to have them in order to adjust the bajillion bindings you will be touching throughout a season. Also most of the tech manuals from binding companies can be found online with a quick google search. Study those and it will get you most of the way to a certification the rest is in doing. So go. Do. And p-tex is dirt cheap why would you ever go broke buying it?
 
when you are eating ramen and ketchup sandwiches for a week and during that week you core shot your skis before a pow day.
 
Good advice. Ive been at various shops for 7 years and this is how i started. I found a rental shop that would hire me with no experience and moved up from there. But be careful, ive met alot of people at other shops that think they know what they are doing but have no real sense of a good tune and just grind the shit out of peoples bases.
 
I'm now manager of the workshop i work at, And have no certifications.

I started out working part time in the ski shop when i was 15, then worked full time from 17 and shadowed the guys in the workshop. worked 50% in the workshop and 50% in the ski shop.

and yer now run the workshop. Just try get in with your local shop show an interest in the servicing side of things and eventually worm your way in.
 
Having just started I feel I could chip in a bit here. After spending plenty of money and time in my local shop and spending time chatting to the guys in the shop I convinced them to show me some ski tech things. Started with a remount of my bindings; a mount of my bindings onto my new park skis (this was pretty scary the first time as they were a special order); got shown how to do p-texing properly with candles and the p-tex gun; then shown how to use the grinder properly and do edges on the grinder; then shown how they do their waxing. That got me a good grounding on the basics of servicing. I also was shown how to properly set a bunch of different binding types. From that I applied for a couple of jobs in rental and servicing shops and was offered one or two positions. Before I started i learned how to properly fix a ding in the edge of one of my skis with epoxy and clamping and told about how it would be done if it was worse. I just started my job as a rental and service tech this week and so far i have mounted almost 300 pairs of bindings; mostly rental track style bindings but also a bunch of drilled and race plate bindings. I have learnt how to properly set and adjust all the different bindings in the shop and shown how to use their winterstieger discovery all singing all dancing 400k euros servicing machine. Next week is the start of the season when I have to start dealing with te customers, kinda looking forward to it.

Tl:dr get in with local shop, learn service skills from them, get job in rental/servicing, learn skills, get paid.
 
Get a job in a shop during the off season, learn all the basics from the other techs, practice and get good via repetition once the holiday rush comes in and there are mountains of skis to be tuned, fixed, etc.
 
What I mean is having to p-tex then base grind the ski for it to properly set. Without access to a wintersteiger I feel it would be difficult to properly tune skis, and since my store (Sport Chek) makes you spend 40$ whenever p-tex is involved, it adds up over a season where core shots are a regular occurrence.
 
You really shouldn't be grinding your skis every time you p-tex. You have a finite number of grinds before you wear your edges down to thin. And really unless you are a big time racer / pro that needs your shit to be the fastest thing out every time you step on the snow it's not necessary unless you did some really fucked damage that could lead to base delamination or core rot. Using a ptex candle or a gun and prepping the base area with either epoxy or just getting it really damn clean with base cleaner / rubbing alcohol should make sure that it wont tear our in any situation. Let it set with a metal scraper c-clamped to the repaired area. Then just take a base planer (not that expensive) or if you really don't give a shit a chisel and flatten it out till it's smooth.

If you are doing a ton of damage to your skis (because you ski park or really just love finding rocks) you just shouldn't care that much unless the scratches really net down to the core of your ski or are along the edge area and could cause an edge rip out if it gets caught again.

The equipment I mentioned in the fix above (p-tex candles, rubbing alcohol, 2 stage water proof epoxy, and a chisel) are cheap and pretty much what you need (other than wax and an iron) to fix most of the things wrong with the bases of your skis. It's cheap, you don't need to be rich. Just a smart tech. You don't need a wintersteiger machine every time you fuck your shit. Only when you really, really, really, fuck your shit.

There is a general problem with most people grinding their skis to often and therefore shortening the life of a ski. Don't do it. Only get a grind when it is really necessary.

It's even less necessary to have nice pretty clean bases on pow skis. Fuck that shit up real good before taking it in (unless it's a core shot or near the edge).

/rant.

shoplife.
 
Yeah I try my hardest to avoid having to grind bases, but sadly every time I head out my skis seem to be attracted to every rock that exists.

672914.jpeg

This one was yesterday
 
 
if you think that every small repair needs to be finished by a base grind, you are not the type of tech that i would trust to work on my skis. you really dont sound like you really know what youre taking about
 
Im not a "certified tech" but im going on four years of working the retail side of a ski shop, I have learned a metric butt tonne about repairs since working there though. So I do all ym mounts, repairs etc...
 
Agree! It's cheaper when you are ski tech, cause you can fix things in your ski, and you can have it as sideline. It's sad to say, I'm not! But I want too..
 
I never said that I base grind every small repair, but at my work we are instructed to base grind any minor or major repair unless specifically told otherwise by the customer. That being said, I only bring my skis in when I have a core shot and the p-tex on those can't really be filed down to a flush level with the base of the ski. Only then do I use the wintersteiger, and as few passes as possible on the belt at that.
 
It's funny, I have 7 years as a ski tech under my belt and wouldn't even know how to go about becoming certified.. Maybe its just not a thing in europe? I don't know.

But considering i learnt how to tune skis by hand when i used to race by dider cuche's technician (claim) I think that counts right? aha.
 
It pisses me off when someone puts p-tex on and then just runs it over the base grinder to get the p-tex flat. I hate when people dont scrape p-tex
 
Grinding the p-tex flat without scraping is just lazy tech work. It doesnt even take long of you have a sharp metal scraper. Even if you dont have a sharp one you can sharpen it on the grinder if its not integrated into a machine. Where I learnt the tech there had maybe 4 belts for the grinder all of different age so he was able to do a really light grind if the base was thinning or if thats what it needed and it wasnt reliant on applied pressure to the ski as although a good tech should be able to get a considtent pressure you can still end up grinding more off than you meant.
 
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