How to Tune a Ski

This instructable is geared toward alpine ski racers looking to get the most out of their skis.

Materials

Scraper Sharpener (very hard to scrape with dull scraper)- http://www.artechski.com/toko-pocket-scraper-sharp...

For this step you will need

Process

Set up vices on a table so that the middle vice is aligned with the bindings and the other two are aligned with the tip and tail.
Place the ski in the vices so the base is facing you, pull up the ski brakes with the rubber band, put the fögman's guide along the base, once you turn on the fögman start at the ski tip and without pressing hard run it down the ski to the tail and then once you're ready place the fögman back on the base and run it back toward the tip.
Then once you've hit each edge with the fögman, turn it off and put it back in its case because it's time to use the stones, realistically you only need to use the white 600 stone to buff the edge and make it as smooth as possible, however say you fögmaned the day before but still want to touch up you skis that's when you'd want to use 100 grit and 200 grit stones because those are courser and are used to sharpen by hand.
The process of tuning by hand is very similar to the the fog man, but you flip the ski over so the base is pointed away from you, clamp on the stone to the guide so that the grit side of the stone is facing down on the side of the guide with the indentations, then like the fögman you run it back and fourth tip to tail with the smooth side of the guide running along the base.

For this step you will need

Process

Place the ski on top of the vices so that the base is facing upwards towards you, put rubber bands on again to keep the brakes back, then brush out the base to get the dirt out of the base.
Once the ski is set up and brushed out, plug the iron in and turn the temperature up to the suggested temp on the wax box, once the red light goes out the iron is ready and hot to wax.
Hold the wax in one hand and the iron in the other and slowly drip the wax onto the top of the ski down the center. once its been dripped on take the iron and smooth it out until it one smooth layer.
Now leave the ski in a moderately cooled room to let the wax sit, wait about a half hour (don't put it in a a cold garage or outside, the cold temperature won't help the process).

For this step you will need

Process

Similar to the last step 1, pull the brakes up with rubber bands and have the base facing up towards you on the vices, but this time it is important that you tighten the center vice so the ski won't move.
Make sure your scraper is sharp, maybe pass it through you scraper sharpener a few times, then once your ready pushing down start from the tip and only push towards the tale start scraping the wax of, do this until you can no longer get any wax off of the base.
Once you've scraped to the best of your ability, start brushing star with your brass brush, then black nylon, then finish with the blue nylon. Like the scraper only go tip tail, once you've finished this process you should be able to see the pattern on your base.