Wagner Factory Tour: Ski Finishing and Tuning
The second-to-last stage of your ski build is finishing and tuning the ski. This takes your ski from a rough, dull stick to a pair of skis you'd be proud to ski on.
Ski Finishing
Your skis come out of the press in the form of a block, with the topsheet wider than the sidewalls and some extra hardened epoxy resin extruding around the top and base. We clean off the scarf and flash with a bandsaw, using the steel edges as a guide. We then use a fine grinder to bevel the sidewalls and dial in the profile.
SKI TUNING
The first step in tuning is a pass over a fine belt sander to take any remaining flash off the base and edges. We then move to our stone grinding machines which blank out the skis and put structure on the bases.
The final steps involve hand-tuning. We polish the sharpness off the tips and tails of the skis with gummy and diamond stones so you won’t catch an edge while skiing. We check the bevel angles to make sure everything is perfect. Then comes a multi-step waxing routine. We start with a soft base-conditioning wax, easily absorbed into the polyethylene to make a foundation for harder running waxes to bond to the bases. We then add a temperature-specific wax and “bake” the skis in an infrared box for deep wax penetration. Finally, the skis go over the roto brush to buff excess wax out of the fine-grind structure.
The ski is now properly tuned, has the appropriate bevels, and is waxed. The next step is mounting the bindings onto the skis.
Curious what your perfect ski design is? Get started with your Skier DNA here.
Want to learn more about our process? Take a look at other parts of our factory tour here:
Skier DNA
Graphics
Wood Cores
Base Materials and Steel Edges
Structural Materials
Ski Press
Mounting and Bindings
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