Two angles, and most people only ever hear about one. The side angle is commonly 88 or 89 degrees; the base bevel is a fraction of a degree — half, one, sometimes more. Together they decide how the ski grips and how forgiving it is.
The side angle
Measured from the base, and quoted as the angle the side edge makes with the snow: 90 is square, 89 is slightly sharpened, 88 is sharper again.
A sharper side angle grips harder on ice and is less tolerant of a clumsy edge change. Race skis go to 88 and below; most recreational skis are at 89 or 90.
The guides on this shelf are stamped with the angle they hold — that is what you are buying.
The base bevel
The base edge is not flat against the snow either: it is relieved by a fraction of a degree, so the ski can be flattened without the edge catching.
Less bevel (0.5°) grips earlier and catches more easily. More bevel (1°+) is more forgiving and slower to bite. Beginner and all-mountain skis tend to carry more; race skis less.
This is the angle people change accidentally by filing the base flat, and it is the harder one to put back.
What actually matters at home
A guide. Filing freehand does not produce an angle; it produces a rounded edge. A cheap file in an 88° guide sharpens better than an expensive file held by hand.
A diamond file for maintenance. Between services, a few passes with a fine diamond restores a dull edge without removing metal.
Detuning the tip and tail, which is deliberately dulling the first and last few centimetres so the ski is less grabby. Whether to do it depends on the ski and the skier, and it is reversible only by removing more metal.
How this site prints it
Guide pages print the angle stamped on the tool. File pages print the cut in teeth per centimetre and the length. Diamond files print their grit. Where a maker publishes a factory angle for a ski, the ski page prints it and names the maker; where none is published, the page says so.
Where this page and a maker’s own documentation part company, the documentation is right. Every length, waist width, radius, flex index, last width, DIN range, brake width, filter category, temperature band and mass on this page comes from the maker’s own published figures, with the unit as printed and the source named. None of it is measured here, and no figure is converted into another convention, because a converted number is a different number. And the temperature this page always names: a wax band refers to the snow, not to the air. The two differ by several degrees on most days and by more in sun, and a wax used outside its band drags or wears off within the hour. This page reports the band as the maker printed it, with the unit and the scale it used.
The questions asked most often
What is the factory angle on my skis?
Makers publish it for some models and not for others, and a ski that has been serviced may not be at it any more. A shop measures it in seconds with a gauge.
Can I change the angle myself?
Changing an angle means removing metal along the whole edge, and it is not reversible. Maintaining an angle with a guide is the home job; setting a new one is a workshop’s.
Last reviewed 28 September 2026