Sharpening Snowboards

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Matt from Outspokin Bicycle and Sport, here in Newbury, New Hampshire. And I'm here today to show you basically how to sharpen your edges on your snowboard. And basically, the first thing you want to do is go to your local shop and pick up some tools, and they'll be able to explain what tools you need, which I'll do also today. Basically, what you want to do is when you, when you go to the shop and look, ask for tools, they'll obviously have recommendations for you. The recommendations I'm going to give to you today, you know, might differ from their's, but this is what I would recommend for the average person, just to tune their snowboard, or sharpen their edges on their snowboard. First thing you're going to need is a file guide. They make various types of file guides, this particular one is set at a single angle, and it holds the file using just a clamping force, just like this, turn those knobs, clamps it in. Other files will actually have dials with the files set in it, so you just adjust the dial to the angle that's necessary. And then angle that we do on snowboards, on the edge, is actually a two degree angle on the edge bevel. And basically, to do it, you set the board up right, you can either do this, you know, just by holding it, or you can buy a stand like we have here. But basically, you just take the file with the file, with the edge, or with the file in it, hold it up to the snowboard like so, and you work from tip to tail on the snowboard, just grinding it down and removing material. And that's what's going to bring your edge to a good angle, and a sharp angle, which is going to be good for ice, you know, and such like that. And after that, you're going to take a, what's called a gummy stone, which is this, you can also pick up at your local shop, and you're just going to run that down the edge. And what that does is it removes burs from the edge, so you have a smooth edge, you're not going to have any hang ups when you're turning your snowboard. And after that, your edge is nice and sharp, your side edge. And then, what you're going to do is you're going to flip your board on the top so the base is facing up, and you're going to do the same thing, but with a different angle set on your tool, which is going to be a one degree, or a one and a half degree, depending on how aggressive of an edge you want. The one is going to be a little bit more aggressive for turning, and stuff like that. If you're a park guy, or anything like that, you're going to be more of a one and a half, or possibly even a two on your base, as well, and what that's going to do is it's going to give you less hang ups on rails when you're landing, you're less likely to catch your edge with that type of angle. And basically what you're going to do there is you're going to get a base bevel guide, and then you're going to do the same thing that you do with the edge, and just bring the material away, make it so you run that file down, and you don't feel it hanging up on anything. It feels nice and smooth by the time you're done running that over. And again, you just run the, your gummy stone over it, and you've got a nice, sharp edge for the day of riding. And that's how you sharpen your edge on a snowboard."