I own 3 pairs of Fischer skis and I ski on none of them. All 3 pairs are overly grabby and they can be painful to ski on with variable snow conditions. It is especially rough when you go from soft snow and then hit hardpack because they pretty much just rail on hardpack. One of the skis, my Progressor 9+ have had a base grind so we have to at least say it was a bad base grind that caused it. On the other two (a watea 94 and a Watea 84) I have 10 and 35 days repectively and no base grinds. My friend whose tuning knowledge base is much greater than mine was out this past weekend. I told him my issue with the skis and he took out a true bar and we looked at all three pairs of skis. All three are concave, the middle of the base is lower than the base at the edges. This is essentially the opposite of what you want on a ski base.
This may be a downside to buying skis online (I bouight two pairs of these online and one from an authorized dealer). I have no idea if they are covered by the warranty and I don't really care at this point. I have said it before but I am done buying Fischer skis.
My friend Willi Wiltz who prepped skis for the the US Ski team for years, tod me that Fischer is notorious for not letting the skis dry properly after they mold and texture the bases. Instead they throw them in boxes quickly and the skis warp as they dry causing the concave effect. Maybe this is why they were so cheap on the internet and were possibly seconds? Don't know but it seems possible.
It also seems that most people who buy Fischer skis don't have this issue, but I have 3 pairs that this has occurred with. I am having two get a new base grind and that may fix the problem, but there is no way this should be occurring.
You can all put it in the FWIW category.
John, I have a theory as to why this might be happening. This may be all moot, as you may not be skiing on Fischers anymore, but perhaps it may still be pertinent.
I was waxing a pair of Progressor 8's a few evenings ago, and noticed that the iron was not contacting the PTEX at the edges of the skis at the tail, and less so at the tips. Strange, thought I. There was about a 3/4" band at the tails, and 1/4" to 1/2" near the tips, where the iron was clearly not contacting the base along the edge. I let the skis cool, brushed and polished, then checked with a straightedge for flatness, and found them to be perfect. Absolutely bang-on flat from tip to tail. Doubly strange.
These skis perform fine, and I checked them in at the start of the season to make sure they were flat - no issues. I also checked the base of the iron, and it was also perfectly flat.
I repeated this on the same skis the very next evening (different temp wax needed), and the same thing happened. By comparison, all the other skis I waxed over those two evenings - Nordicas, Elans, Dynastars and Heads - did not show this behaviour when heated by the iron. Only the Fischers.
So, I am surmising that the heat of the iron caused the bases of the Progressors to swell so that they were no longer flat and even with the edges. There might be something about the materials or construction of the Fischer bases that might be at the root of this.
John, in your case, if the heat of friction from the base grinding was excessive and not kept sufficiently cool, then the bases of your Fischers may have swelled. The machine would then have flattened a swollen ski, which upon cooling after the grind, would have shrunken to a shape that was then edge-high (concave). This would explain the railing behaviour you experienced. It may be that Fischers (or at least some models) are particularly sensitive and susceptible to elevated temperatures during grinding, where skis from other makers are not.
FYI, I have had four pairs of Fischers base ground -- RC4 Progressor; Progressor 9; Maunga twins; and Progressor 8 -- and none of them have come out anything but perfectly flat. These were done on either a Wintersteiger or a Montana machine, both of which (I believe) use water cooling to keep the temps down during grinding.
It would be interesting to run this by your tuning guy, and see what he says. I may be way off on this, but I do know for a fact that the Progressor 8's did not stay flat during ironing. I will test this on the other Fischers we still have (Maunga twins) and see if they do the same. Unfortunately my P-9s are now with Gary's son, so I can't test it out on those.
Let me know what you think, and if you get any feedback from your shop.
Cheers,
Svend
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