One Final Down.

Tonight was my final exam for Accelerated Ski and Board Tuning I thought I'd let you know how the class was.

The class started out with a few weeks of lectures and practice sessions to get us aquainted with the machines and techniques of tuning. In the tuning lab here at CMC, there are a number of old, beat up boards and skis for students to practice on while they learn how to do different repairs. It wasn't until a few weeks in that we started bringing our own boards, as well as some friends boards, in to tune.

The lectures were given to show a number of techinques for repairing gouges in the base of a board or ski, as well as how to sharpen of dull the edges, and how to wax a board properly. Also, the instructor went over how to use the various machines to tune edges and clean up bases.

Once the lectures were done and we were bringing in our own boards, we could all work on any necessary repairs the baords needed. Some weeks I would just bring in a board to deburr an edge and wax, but a couple of the weeks I fixed some delaminations that were happening to the top sheet of mine and a friends board. Last week I even got to do an edge replacement for a freinds dented edge.

So tonight was the final, which really wasn't to bad at all. It consisted of a 25 question written test with questions ranging from the 10 steps of tuning, to the different types of waxes, to labeling the different parts of a snowboard. After that, the instructor did individual testing where he brought us to a machine and asked 3 random questions about it, such as what certain levers do and how to use it.

However, after the test was still a time to tune, and since I didn't know that, I didn't bring in a board or anything. Luckily, some other students were doing T-bolting on a bunch of boards for Ellis Snowboards, so I got to learn how to do that and help them. T-bolting is the process of putting in T-bolts, which are an extra set of inserts, or screw holes, to allow the user to set their bindings closer together or farther apart than what the factory produced inserts were set at.

So I luckily got to learn how to do that and ended up getting to enjoy some Domino's pizza, courtesy of Derek, the instructor. And now you know a little more about CMC's tuning class. Peace.