How To: Detune Your Board
nickhamilton
- July 28 2008
- 16,142 views
- 49 comments
A proper detuning is in order anytime you unsheath a new board. Sure, you can get by without it, but be prepared for unexpected edge hooks in the worst possible places, like say, icy cat tracks first thing in the morning, or cold steel rails on your last lap through the park. Count on it. Or follow these five steps to detuning your new board and up your odds of staying on your feet first chair to last.—L.G.
Photos Nick Hamilton
What You Need
Medium-Course File. It can be found at any hardware store.
Gummy Stone–Great for removing minor burrs; a good thing to have in your pocket at all times.
Diamond Stone–Use like the gummy to polish your edge.
1. Remove major burrs–This is essentially the first once-over treatment with the file to buff out any of the gnarly snags in your edge. Find the trouble spots and smooth them out.
2. Detune tip and tail–Find the widest part of your board at the nose and tail, that’s called the contact point. It’s the section of edge that’s most likely to catch on hardpack. Then start an inch back from that point and use the file to round out the edge toward your nose.
3. Light detune of the entire edge–Visually divide your edges into three sections. Place the file on your edge at about a 45-degree angle and make one or two passes over each of the sections. The idea is to just take a little bit of the edge off. This probably isn’t necessary for pipe jocks, East Coast riders, or any of you closet Euro carvers out there, because all of you will want to keep that edge razor sharp.
4. Remove all edge shards with a cloth–Clean up all that shredded edge so as to keep those micro shards off your board and out of the base.
5. Polish the edge with a gummy and/or diamond stone–Although it might seem like your edge is smooth, there’re really a lot of little micro burrs that need buffing out, so take that gummy or diamond stone to the edge and finish it off right.
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
THIS IS REALLY GOOD INFO
September 21st, 2008 at 6:51 am
how much did purl pay you for these how-tos?
September 25th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Should I get my BTX detuned a bit or what?
September 26th, 2008 at 11:09 am
why are you such a douchebag? some people need to know how to do that kind of stuff ass hole
October 1st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Yes, detune the shit out of it.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:08 am
is he filling from edge to edge or side to side?
October 5th, 2008 at 9:51 am
he didnt really say much on filing techniqe but either a draw file or push file would be a good idea hold file at 45 degrees so that the cutting edges of the file are perpendicular to your edge this helds you file along the edge leaving it smoother and also helps limit amount of steel removed
October 7th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Files are made to work one way and only one way. Some files work away from you and some pull. Find the best one for you and use it properly.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
i love it fuck ya
October 28th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Would it be wise to do this and THEN wax my board? Or does it really matter?
October 28th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The big question is how do you detune a board with magnitraction like the gnu’s or libtech’s
October 31st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
it’s not rocket science… buy a file, hold it steady and drag it smoothly back and forth. or just do what my bro does and drag that shit across the parking lot! or if you really can’t figure it out pay some hippie 20 bucks to do it for you. some would rather get paid in green anyway and i’m not talkin about that paper shit. i mean come on they live/work in the mountains what do you think they’re doin?
November 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
They make a tool specifically for detuning magne-traction boards. You can get one at http://www.oneballjay.com, or your local boardshop.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am
i wish i would have taken this advice and shaved my edges before last year when i hooked an edge on a soccer goal and fell about 8 feet to my face.
November 6th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Turn it into a video…
November 18th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Detune, then clean the base, then wax. Don’t want any metal shards in your wax when you scrape it off.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
hell yeah, been looking for this kinda tool
November 20th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
you should always do it lengthwise otherwise it’s gonna be like a sawing motion and cut into the board, leaving it uneven. i always try to do all of this before i go to the mountain just to i’m positively sure i’m not gonna catch an edge and fall on my ass like a cooke. lol
November 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
What exactly does detuning do I just got a new board and was wondering if i should do this or even wax it
November 25th, 2008 at 1:38 am
I’m currently incarcerated in the State of New Jersey. I am to be released in two years, would anyone here be willing to bring me a file, so that I may be ready for the slopes in 2010 ?
November 27th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
If its a new board your not going to need to wax it, although i have had new boards that seem to have missed that step out of the factory
November 27th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
you still want to wax a new board, factory wax jobs arent too good and youll have base burn in no time. and thats no fun with a brand new board. it never hurts to give it a wax and it may just keep your base in good shape for a bit longer.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
It gets rid of the sharp edge that your board has. you most definitely should do this to a new board, as well as wax it.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I just picked up a new Burton Custom… I’d been riding a 1998 Sims board for the last 10 years (I imagine I’ll notice the difference). I’ll be mostly riding machine groomed powder (the East) with the occasional pow day and I mostly do non-life-threatening freeriding and glades and when I do leave the ground, I’m not in the air for very long. No rails or massive tabletops either. Will detuning my board benefit me with my relatively tame (and soulful) riding style? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
December 14th, 2008 at 12:15 am
any tips or changes on a board with megna-traction……
December 14th, 2008 at 9:57 am
hey fellas I got a Burton Air. Would it be good to detune mine? I rode it yesterday for the first time and didn’t detune it but I did wax it.
December 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hahahaha.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
like a “cooke”
haha classic
December 18th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
oh my god thats the funniest shit i’ve ever heard… you deserve to get laid for that
December 25th, 2008 at 9:20 am
yea,
burtons need to be detuned alot.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
hahaha.. props.. that was funny
ill bake it into a cake for your birthday
December 30th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Doesn’t matter what kind of riding you are doing aside from kids that want a rail specific board. so long as you are slashin the hill, a detune is going to take off the sharp edge where it is unnecessary and leave you with a board that will respond well and not throw you to your grill.
Any new board or board that just got a new edge put on it could use a detune. Ask the tune tech if they detuned the edge when you pick it up from an edge sharpening and ask them to help if they didn’t.
The gummy stone or diamond stone is a dope tool to keep in your kit on the hill. A quick polish to the edge and you are cruisin!
December 30th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I just got a Rome Cheap trick, do i need to detune it? even tho it has a 2 degree edge bevel?
December 31st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Detuning is only necessary on the tip and tail and up to your discretion on the rest of the edge. If your riding pipe, leave it alone, you’ll need em. Freeriding/jibbing…take a gummy stone to it to just mellow it a touch. Learn how to jib with a little edge and you can go anywhere ( and not slip out on the icy approach). Jibbing everything in sight and not very good at turning?…..learn to turn and take the file to the edges as described above.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:30 pm
scroll up i believe theres a tool…..
January 1st, 2009 at 10:31 pm
shit always detune it man.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:53 am
i just bought a capita stairmaster, should i detune it? got some pretty rough edge catches yesterday. planning to learn the rail this season
January 24th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
any thing i can use to replace the gummy stone
January 26th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I have a k2 believer and i ride on the east coast (packed powder and icy conditions) i ride a lot of rails and boxes should i detune my edges.if so should i detune the entire edge or just the contact points
January 26th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Also does detuning make turning and carving harder
February 12th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
East Coast rider beware. Don’t go nuts with it.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
being in jersey is wore than jail
March 4th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Or get a Magne Trac board because you can detune the shit out of it and it’ll still hold well on ice
March 19th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I saw this article in the mag. Does anyone know who makes the tee shirt he has on? It’s a buffalo with the Tetons on his back.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
should i detune my burton hero if gonna be doing groomed runs like diamonds and park with a little jibbing (on the east coast) cause the hero has weird edges like pressure distrubiton or something.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
also on burtons site it says it has grip and rip tune already for all mountain
May 31st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
im 13 and i got the shaun white collection board 143 last year for christmas and i was wondering how much (if at all) i should detune it. im about 5′ 1″ so its really big on me. i usually do kickers and a coupe rails every once in a while. what should i do?
May 31st, 2009 at 3:51 pm
* i meant i do jumps most of the time but sometimes some rails inbetween
September 24th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
fantastico info, thanks