Sharpening ice tools/crampons

How do you do it? I know people who like to keep the original edge I know people who file off a good amount of teeth first thing. How do you sharpen? 

Not sure if it's helpful but I found the petzl guide( petzl.com/sfc/servlet.sheph…)  and watching this video worked for me. 

I keep the original edge and take teeth out as necessary as the pick gets shorter.   

With camp pics I remove the aggressive beak. Other than that I just keep them decently sharp.

greggrylls wrote:

I keep the original edge and take teeth out as necessary as the pick gets shorter.   

With camp pics I remove the aggressive beak. Other than that I just keep them decently sharp.

I have also found than an overly aggressive beak leads to pick stickage. So I remove material from the bottom of the beak (NOT the front edge) until it doesn't protrude any lower than the extrapolated line of the underside teeth. CAMP-Cassin picks are not the only ones that benefit from this.

Crampons are easy - just keep a semi-sharp point and don't file the sides of the downwards points as that thins the metal. Only exception to this minimalist approach is my Darts - I absolutely detest the "flat foot" on the secondaries, so the back aspect of those comes off ASAP.

It very much depends on what you want to optimize the picks for.  Whatever you decide to do, there are trade offs.  So, there is no one “best” way.  It helps to know what pick you are starting with and what type of climbing you want to use it for.

Just to keep terminology straight, I suggest using the term “sharpening” to mean maintaining the existing profile and the term “reprofiling” to mean changing the geometric profile of the pick.  

Karl Henize wrote:

It very much depends on what you want to optimize the picks for.  Whatever you decide to do, there are trade offs.  So, there is no one “best” way.  It helps to know what pick you are starting with and what type of climbing you want to use it for.

Cafe to give some examples? Obviously not having a sharp point on your tools is a good way to reduce wear when dry tooling, but aside from that I'm not sure how sharpening the tool differently would effect how it sticks. 

Just to keep terminology straight, I suggest using the term “sharpening” to mean maintaining the existing profile and the term “reprofiling” to mean changing the geometric profile of the pick.  

I very much like this, any ideas for an optimum pick profile for pure ice? 

that guy named seb wrote:

Cafe to give some examples? Obviously not having a sharp point on your tools is a good way to reduce wear when dry tooling, but aside from that I'm not sure how sharpening the tool differently would effect how it sticks. 

Just to keep terminology straight, I suggest using the term “sharpening” to mean maintaining the existing profile and the term “reprofiling” to mean changing the geometric profile of the pick.  

I very much like this, any ideas for an optimum pick profile for pure ice? 

The Petzl Pur’Ice pick has about as good as a profile as you will find for pure ice climbing.  For ice climbing, you generally want to keep the teeth.  For drytooling and very thin ice, you generally want a very prounounced beak, with no teeth immediately behind the beak.  Krukonogi picks generally have the best profiles for pure drytooling.  

Cassin picks are perfect out of the box. I replicate that as best that i can with a chainsaw file.