General Tips
A magnified, properly sharpened and polished ski edge, will allow you to see the transition from the side to the bottom edge in a perfectly smooth and precise finish. This is what everyone wants for the best ski performance. If that edge were burred, sharp spikes of steel would look like they were growing out of the edge material. These burrs are extremely sharp and give a very inconsistent surface to the metal edge. When a burred section contacts the snow it will bite, causing the ski to try to turn. Since the burr is very rarely consistent along the entire length of the ski, the ski will turn very differently depending on what part of the edge is in the snow at any given time. It will give a very unstable, unpredictable performance. UNDERSTANDING BURRS - Burred edges come from filing, grinding and hitting rocks, trees or snowboarders. Any time steel is worked, a burr is a natural byproduct. When an edge hits a rock it is pushed out of shape and instantaneously becomes extremely hot, this is immediately followed by immersion in snow or ice. Metal workers use exactly this same method to produce extremely hard surfaces on steel, so its no wonder that the resulting burr is both very sharp and hard. During sanding and filing small particles of metal are removed, but before cooling some re-contact to the edge. Allowing the particles to weld back to the edge. This results in a fine sandpaper like texture on the metal edge surfaces. Obviously, this causes friction and unpredictable ski behavior. LARGE BURRS - and hardcase edges are most commonly worked out with diamond files. Use these files in progression from heavy to light grit for best results. SMALL BURRS- and to rid your edges of the reattaching particles, take a couple of passes with a gummi stone.
