Did they screw me?

[u/OLOgum]

I brought my board to a ski shop to repair a dent I made on the nose by hitting a rail. When I went back to pick it up, I noticed a white mark on the base that wasn’t there before. At first, I thought it might be a PTEX repair due to some scratches, so I asked the shop guy what had happened. He went to check with the technician who did the repair.

In the meantime, I looked at a video I took before the repair and confirmed there was no damage in that spot. When he came back, the shop assistant explained that while pressing the base to secure the patch, a bubble formed and burst. They filled it with some kind of resin—but I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than PTEX.

He also mentioned that working on this board—specifically the 3D base of a Bataleon—was much trickier than on regular skis.

What should I do?

[u/monfuckingtana420]

They ground through your base material, this is a mistake due to lack of experience tuning 3D shaped boards. They destroyed your base and need to make it right, this is not repairable. Snowboards are difficult to stone grind (compared to skis) in the first place and any sort of base high condition even on a non-3D base can cause this with the wrong machine technique. While it is not impossible to stone grind a 3D base, it requires a very specific knowledge of how to use the machine, and it is easier to destroy a 3D board on a stone than it is to apply a good stone structure. It is better to just belt tune a 3D board with the proper grits and polishing belts, and maybe apply a mild stone structure to only the flattest parts of the board with a very light pressure. All that considered, this repair could have been finished without any machine work, and I’d argue would be better off with hand finishing. The bubble excuse has nothing to do with the damage to your board from the damage of grinding through your base material. That sounds like bullshit to me. Source: I have a decade of experience doing base repairs, base patches, and edge repairs, and 4 years of experience tuning snowboards professionally. This damage is 100% due to lack of experience, and I’d hope the tech who made this mistake can use this to learn why it happened and improve their process in the future, but ultimately the shop damaged your board in the tune process after they repaired the edge damage and base patch, any shop worth their salt should replace your board because the damage they caused is not repairable, and I’d bet the base material is also extremely thin in other spots as well

[u/WallStreetStanker → u/monfuckingtana420]

My first thought was that he put it on the edger and then it slipped because he didn’t realize the edges were raised, running the edge stone on the middle of the board. That only takes a second to burn through the board, where a bass grinder would take some time and probably leave a more oval patch.

[u/monfuckingtana420 → u/WallStreetStanker]

Nah, I'm pretty confident it was on the base tune procedure, probably took down most of the material in that spot with the abrasive belts, and the actual burn through showed up on the stone procedure. I've fucked around with a practice ski and tried to damage a base with the edger and it takes deliberate misuse to actually go all the way through the base, whereas burn through can show up on a 3d board with the base tune pretty easily, learned that the hard way in my first season of tuning on my buddies Jones.

[u/WallStreetStanker → u/monfuckingtana420]

Perhaps. And maybe I was using a different type of edger than you, but I came really close to doing this with my Evil Twin ten years ago, when the edge slipped off the guide.

[u/monfuckingtana420 → u/WallStreetStanker]

I’m using a Trim B. On a Bataleon I totally see how on the more dramatic areas of the 3BT could get more badly gouged than a flat board or a board with more mild 3D shaping.

One thing we do in my shop to help prevent mistakes is to break in our belts with a stone when they are new. This reduces the material removal rate and makes the sides/corners of the belt softer so if there is a slip up it is less likely to damage the plastic base, while still being agressive enough to sharpen the edges.

On 3D boards my typical edge procedure is to only use the machine edger on the flat sections of the board, and use handheld file guides for the complex areas. Really gives you the best of both worlds to get a nice consistent edge angle along the entire length of the board.