I just tuned my snowboard for the first time in preparation for my trip to Mt. Bachelor tomorrow. Actually, it was only the first time I've tuned my snowboard by myself. I've done my edges and waxed my board with Mike's help before, but never by myself.
All told, cleaning the base, filling in several cuts with p-tex, waxing the board, and sharpening the edges took about 4 hours total, or maybe about 2-3 hours after subtracting out the other things I did between tasks.
It was the p-texing that was the real bitch, because I've never done it before, and because I had a hard time getting the p-tex to light, and once it did light it burned more than I expected and dripped faster than I expected. The p-texing job could have been better, but I'm happy with it for now, and the biggest cuts are filled in. I'll go back over the smaller scrapes the next time I tune my board.
I can also feel a few places where I didn't scrape enough wax off, and I still need to do a little more work on the edges, but I'm pretty happy with it for a first attempt.
Getting this same job done at Any Mountain probably would have cost $45. The tool kit, base cleaner, and waxing iron cost about $100 total. As I get better at tuning my board, I can only assume that I'll get faster at it, too. Hopefully I'll be able to do the whole process in about an hour with a little practice.
So after a couple more tunes, the kit will have paid for itself, and not long after that hopefully I'll be good enough at tuning that it won't take me much more time to tune my board than it would have taken me to take the board to the shop -- especially if I do the tuning at the hotel when I'm not doing anything else anyway.
Now I just need to put my new bindings on the board and pack and I'll be ready to get up at like 4 am to get to SFO for my 6:50 am flight.