Edge Preparation
Important safety note: Many of the things described below are dangerous. Waxing irons are hot and will burn you. Wax smoke is harmful to your health. Metal edges are extremely sharp throughout their preparation (far, far sharper than you realize) and it's easy to cut yourself, driving fine metal shavings deep into the wound, requiring proper cleaning and stitching by a qualified doctor, plus a Tetanus vaccination. You use the information contained here at your own risk. Happy Monkey Snowboards, Inc., cannot be held responsible if you injure yourself or damage your equipment by following these tips. Proceed at your own risk.
Clean, sharp edges are a good thing. A rough edge will tear up your clothes and hands, and it will not grip on hard snow or ice. You'll feel the roughness when carving on firm snow, and the edge will rust more easily. Once you've prepared your edges well once, keeping them nice is easy, and it's something you should look at every time you ride. It's a good idea to take a small kit (diamond and gummi stones at least) on long trips to clean up your edges after every day on the hill.
Edge Bevel
The first thing to consider before tuning your edges is what base and side edge bevel you want.
Base bevel brings the edge up from the snow slightly, providing a more predictable ride when running flat. A base edge with no bevel tends to feel hooky and erratic. A 1° base bevel is typical on most skis and board these days. A much higher base bevel, like 3°, can be used on boards for beginners to reduce their chances of catching an edge. Once a base bevel is set you can't go back to a lower bevel angle without taking down the base material with a base grinder to expose more steel. 1° or 2° probably doesn't sound like much, but when it comes to edges, it's a whole lot.
Side bevel lets us achieve a sharper edge that will grip more aggressively on hard snow and ice. A 1° or 2° side bevel is typical, with only racers going higher than 3° on the side.
A more acute edge angle (say, 1° base and 2°-3° side) tends to bite into hard snow and ice more aggressively. The drawback is that such an edge tends to dull more quickly, requiring more maintenance. A less acute edge angle (say, 1° base and 0°-1° side) tends to be a little more forgiving for the less aggressive rider, and also lasts longer.
Edge Filing
These are the tools that you may need (many are optional) to tune your edges. The use of each one will be explained in the various steps below.
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If you don't want to buy specific base and side edge file guides (#8 & #11), you can buy a combination tool (#4) that will allow you to dial in a specific angle. Such tools are often less accurate than the dedicated, single-angle tools shown above, but they're cheaper and work reasonably well.
Step 1: look for any rock damage to your edges. When a steel edge contacts a rock, the impact tends to cause a lot of heat which tempers a bit of the edge material, making it harder. This case hardening often results in steel that is harder than your file. You'll notice it when you try to file the edge... the file will seem to skid across that section of edge, and it will remove hardly any material. You need to remove the case hardening with a medium grit diamond stone first.
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Step 2: file the base edge. Using your base edge file guide (#8) and your mill file (#2), file the base edge in long, smooth overlapping strokes using firm, even pressure. The best way to know when you're done is to first darken the base edge with a magic marker. When you've removed all the marker, you're done. Don't go nuts here: you don't need to remove a ton of material. You'll be limited by the base material of the board, and you don't want to start filing into the base material.
A word on file use: metal files only cut in one direction. The picture above shows the file cutting when it's being pulled towards you. Don't rub the file back and forth... that does no good. Apply firm, even pressure as you pull the file towards you, and relax as you push the file back for the next stroke.
Step 3: file the side edge. Using your side edge file guide (#11) and your mill file (#2), file the side edge in long, smooth overlapping strokes using firm, even pressure. Again, the best way to know when your done is to first darken the edge with a magic marker.
Very important safety note: This is where people get hurt. Always pull the file towards you, never push it away from you. Pushing the file away tends to cause you to over extend your reach. You loose control and slip. Look at the palm of your hand. See that nice, meaty muscle below your thumb? It's big, soft, juicy, and cuts easily with a freshly filed, highly burred ski or snowboard edge. Picture rushing to the hospital with it gushing blood, filled with metal filings. Okay, now be careful! You are essentially creating a finely honed knife edge 130cm long... treat that thing with care.
Especially on the side edge, it's useful to stop and clean your file often. If you notice the file not cutting well, and lots of white material stuck in the teeth, then you're probably hitting the sidewall above the edge. It makes it harder to file the edge, and you have two options: 1) switch to the pansar file (#1), which will remove edge and sidewall easily (be careful, this will remove a lot of material fast!), then switch back to the mill file, or 2) use a dedicated side wall scraper (#10) to remove just some sidewall, then continue with the mill file. You can get a sidewall scraper from Tognar.
Step 4: polish the side edge with the diamond stone. It's best to place the diamond stone into the side edge file guide, but you can do it by hand too. Diamond stones cut no matter which way you use them, but we still recommend that you only apply pressure when you pull the stone towards you. Again, pushing away you'll tend to over extend your reach and slip. Read the very important safety note above again before doing this step... the edge will be sharper than ever while you're doing this.
Step 5: return to the base and polish the base edge with the diamond stone. Again, use the file guide for simplicity, or do it by hand if you're careful.
Step 6: this is the most important step! Polish the base and side edges lightly with the gummi stone to remove any micro burrs left over from the filing and polishing steps. Just one or two passes tip to tail on each face of the edge is all that's needed. The micro burrs are what's making the edge feel razor sharp. Removing them will still leave a sharp edge, but it will no longer cut you or your clothes as easily. If you don't do this, your edges are going to rip through your skin and clothes like you wouldn't believe!
You can test the edge for sharpness when you're done using the back of your fingernail. Simply scrape the flat face of your finger nail across the edge. If it leaves a small amount of white material, you've done a good job.
De-tuning
After you've tuned your edges beautifully, it's common do "de-tune" a bit. Sometimes super-sharp edges at the ends of the effective edge near the nose and tail can make a board feel a bit "grabby". Taking the bite out of the edges at these points with a gummi stone can help a lot. Simply hold the gummi stone on the edge at a 45 degree angle to both sides of the edge and rub a bit on the 2-4 inches of each edge at the widest parts of the board. This will dull off the edge just enough to remove that grabby feeling. You don't need to go nuts here... just a dull it down a little bit.
That's all the de-tuning any board should really need.
Daily Edge Maintenance
Once you've filed and polished your edges to perfection, you'll want to keep them nice. You only need to re-file when you get big dings in them from rocks, or when they get really, really dull after many weeks of riding. With some basic maintenance after every day or two of riding with some simple tools, your edges will stay nice for quite some time.
Simply use a medium grit diamond stone by hand on the base and side edge to remove any large burrs or rock damage after each day on the slopes. You can run your finger along the edge lightly (be careful not to cut yourself!) to find burred spots, then hit them with the diamond stone until they're smooth again. A quick pass on the base and side edge with the gummi stone after that and you're done.
Finally, always remember to dry your edges after a day on the hill. Don't leave water on the edges to rust them overnight. This simple step more than anything will keep your edges nice for the next day on the slopes.