The finish on a snowboard is one of the most important part of the manufacturing process. It is a skill that takes time to learn and the right equipment. A well ground and tuned snowboard will not only look better on the store shelf, it will perform better when in use. This is our base grinder and yes we consider her part of the family!
Snowboard base Grinder
You can see by the picture that this small beat up piece of equipment serves many functions.
- The edge grinder polished and finishes up the sidewalls and steel rail.
- The stone grinder puts a texture on the base. This texture can be either a diamond shaped texture or a linear texture. The type of texture we put on boards depends on the needs and wants of the customer. this texture can be fine or dramatic and is adjusted by the speed of the diamond bit that travels across the stone to “dress” it.
- The Sander is the sanding wheel that takes all the excess resin and imperfections out of the board. Sanding the board is a very important process, you must be aggressive enough to take off all the excess resin without sanding the base down to the core. We always start out with an 80 grit belt, then move on to a 100, 120 and finally a 180 grit belt.
- The feed wheel spins and feeds the board through the sander and stone at an even pace. This speed is adjustable and help to keep the grind consistent and the operator from fatiguing quickly.
Base grinding a board takes lots of time, in fact this one machine with a skilled operator can only grind down about 30-40 boards a day. It typically takes someone about 200 boards to get good at base grinding and it is one part of the process that must be constantly monitored.
Base grinding sometimes does require additional hand love.
Sometimes it does take hand work!
Board passing through the grinder
Ule has been base grinding for about a year now, and is very good at it!
Ule running the grinder
Let us know if you have base grinding questions!
