Product Description
No longer available from manufacturer
The ski version works with alpine or telemark skis, and comes with a 6" hardened steel cutting bar, a 6" medium structure ruby stone and a brass cleaning brush. An optional 6" coarse structure stone is available.
- This precision hand-planing tool uses a hardened steel bar to cleanly shave off high or low spots on p-tex bases, remove existing oxidized p-tex areas, as well as shave off unwanted p-tex hairs and microhairs.
- Replace the steel bar with a structure stone to cut a linear structure into the base, dispersing water and improving glide.
- The tool includes a medium structure stone, optional coarse structure stone is available.
- Although the steel bar is hard enough to cut down steel edges if they're too high, we recommend you use a mill file (or better yet, the Ski Visions File Base Flattener) to do that job and save your steel bar from unnecessary wear.
- A few quick passes with this tool after every week or so on the slopes will freshen up your structure, keep the base flat, and improve its ability to absorb wax.
- These periodic touch-ups significantly improve performance without removing excess base material.
- Replacement and optional blades are available.
- For comprehensive information on using this tool, click here.
- Structure stones can be redressed.
- Steel planing blade cane be re-honed using the optional Blade Sharpening Stone.
- Tools and stones made in the USA.
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Product Reviews
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Ski Visions base flattener
Works as advertised, go easy with it
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Absolutely awesome
Freaking awesome! I love doing my own ski repairs and tuning. Really helps with all kinds of stuff including core shot repairs, base flattening, getting base material out of the way for edge sharpening, etc. Works very well. Couldn’t do without it now. Will likely buy a second so I don’t have to swap stones/blades.
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Unique and DIY 'Must Have'
Read 'the book' (Tognar catalogue and guide!). If you do not realise the negative effects of failing to flatten your bases - then the rest is almost pointless! This is a solid accurate tool and yes - I did have slightly concave bases on a pair of new 'all mountain' skis but the best was transforming some older 'pigs on ice' skis which had sharp edges and would not turn - massively convex bases!
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Excellent
Easy to use and put great structure in the base with the stone. The steel took the peaks off but clearly left significant structure without 'buttering' the peaks over, clogging the structure. I thoroughly de-waxed my skis before use and so had no problem with clogging. I applied 5 coats of Renew base prep wax before edge powder and finishing wax layers. I can honestly say the skis sucked up so much Renew I was shocked.
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Go-to tool for bases
Bought tool number two to avoid swapping out the stone & steel all the time. Well worth it as the throughput starts to pick up in the shop. Plus I now have a spare stone for structuring the tips and other freestyle work.
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Follow instruction video and good results will follow
I liked the Ski Visions idea of a manual stonegrind machine so imported the structure/flattening tool to see how it performed. Didn't start well as I dropped the ruby stone before even getting to the garage and it broke in half! Don't panic, as the healing powers of 2-pack epoxy gave me a perfect & resilient join. First shot with the stone made me slightly concerned as the base looked like a ploughed field. However, as the video says, flatten the structure with the steel and it all makes sense. If you don't like the exact profile - maybe a small area is digging a little deep - two seconds lapping the stone will change it to a new profile. The steel is useful for a number of tasks and already I'm getting a feel for planing P-Tex repairs and similar. Despite what Mark says the steel won't eat your base edges or in fact make any impact on them. I have just ordered a second tool to avoid swapping the steel & stone so often and speed up my workflow. I also ordered the file base planer to complete the manual stone grind experience.
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Works as advertised; structure is a bit irregular; packaging sucks
I had a chance to try out the Flattener on a pair of used rental skis we just bought. There was a large patch on the left-rear base of each ski that was white and would not take any wax; there were other irregularities and scratches, including bits where the structure was all worn down. The Flattener is easy to use, and took off the white patch handily with only a minimal shave off the base edge, which could be re-set easily with a few passes with a diamond stone; I suggest you mark the edge with a Sharpie first so you know how much is taken off. I didn't aim to remove the scratches, but they were nicely smoothed out, and, once waxed, the whole base had a nice, even gloss. A long day of skiing later, the base is still glossy, slippery, and water-repellant, showing that the dried out layer of the base has been successfully taken out. (The online instruction says Fibertexing is not necessary, and I didn't see any hairs, but I did it anyway, just in case.) The structure that the medium stone imparts is somewhat irregular, which I expected. You do need to brush the stone frequently, every several strokes. There is no way to make sure the passes are absolutely parallel, but steady hands will do, and you get a slightly, randomly cross-hatched pattern. The depth and interval is comparable to factory structure, suitable for "normal" conditions. We had pretty good glide on wet powder at 20-25ºF, layered with Swix BP88, CH6, and F4. The whole package comes in an unlabeled plastic bag. I had to print out a picture online showing how to put in the ruby stone correctly. The stone, the steel blade, brush, and hex key come in a plastic pouch that is hastily and irregularly thermal-sealed; it's hard to get them out, and it's hard to get them back in for storage, so you need to cut it carefully. The hex bolts holding the stone in are a bit of a bother. Tightening is no problem. When untightening, however, the clamp holds on pretty tight, and you have to be careful prying the stone out. I did drop the stone once, in fact, but didn't break it. You do need to take the stone out to do the tips, so you end up tightening and untightening a lot. I haven't tried the steel blade, and don't intend to. It is pretty sharp and I don't doubt that it will cut the base. Overall, a very satisfying purchase.
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Great Tool!
This is a super tool to have, easy to use and lets you know first hand what your bases are like. I've used it to restructure all our skate skis. I knew from scraping wax the bases weren't terribly flat, but was surprised how out far out they were, some sections took a number of passes to get flat with the coarse stone. Was also surprised at how shallow major scratches from pavement hits late last season were, they came out easily, a good thing! One nice thing about having coarse and fine stones is you can mix structures front to back or along the entire length. This tool really opens up bases, a few layers of base wax were needed to get good adherence from top coats. What really matters is how skis perform after grinding and to us, glide definitely is more even and predictable, faster downhill runs, too. In use, the stone needs to be brushed clean almost every pass to work well, no big deal but it tends to load shavings. The only caution is to be sure you don't slip and go over an edge; on skis without metal edges a big gouge results. Otherwise, the tool works very well and is easy to use, wish I'd bought one sooner.
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Ski Visions Base Flattener works like a charm!
I have been tuning my own skis for years and never had a way to remove excess p-tex. The base flattener tool is easy to use and does a great job.