The Perfect Pass

[summergroomer]

Knowing that all of the operators on this thread already spin gold everynight what are some of your best tips for leaving a ridge free seamless run? We like to play around with our overlap spacing and our cupping settings on a nightly basis depending on what the surface is requiring for that nights conditions. Full cupping on up passes and backing off a little when down passing seems to help on deeper snow nights. Also keeping our blade depth minimal on the clean pass side while throwing a little more depth to the rough side helps to keep those pestering ridges minimal. SFS(straight flat seamless)cords are the goal.

[admin]

Running a more aggressive blade curl usually helps avoid ridges. That doesn't mean cutting deep, just keeping the teeth curled level from edge to edge. Otherwise, you'll dish out the pass and make ridges.

Overlap is also important, as you said. Sometimes you try to bite off more than your tiller can chew, and it makes ridges. A healthy 1/4 or 1/3 pass overlap definitely helps, if you have the luxury of focusing on quality over quantity.

But in reality, you are also at the mercy of your particular tiller. The older PB flex tillers were notorious for making ridges, even when doing everything right. In fact, those ridges were so common that they took on the nickname "Bully Berms." Overlapping more, often even 1/2 pass, will help reduce this. Part of the problem was poor lighting on those cats, so your pass looks great at night, but the next day you find ridges everywhere. The new AlpinFlex tiller, on the other hand, seems to make seamless passes with little effort. From my experience, the Prinoth tiller is somewhere in between. If you're paying attention to your blading and tiller settings (and "dumbo ears"), it leave pretty seamless cord. But if you get lazy, it will make ridges (actually, the Prinoth tiller makes mini "ledges" moreso than ridges).

[PB400Fan]

Blade Cut/Curl is key, as is overlap. U Blading = ridges


I agree on Prinoth vs Bully tillers. One of the main reasons i'm a PB400Fan ..... The last place I worked at had a large Prinoth fleet and every single one of them left little tiller humps in between passes whereas the Bullys with an alpine flex tiller left a transition that was as smooth as a babys bottom. Could never figure out why they did that, it wasn't something huge but it was noticeable when skiing/riding if you put your skis/board on edge. I also noticed that the Prinoth cats with the leitwolf blade were the worst at making ridges, I guess because of the profile of the blade??

[summergroomer]

Good responses! anybody reading this should make sure to pass these tips on to the greener groomers on the crew to help them produce quality passes. Knowledgeable tips are like gold for a new operator and make the learning curve that much shorter.