First thing, sharpen your edges with a file and guide, make sure you're using the rigth bevel angle. Brush all the filings off the base. Take a citrus cleaner and clean the bases, let it sit on the base for a bit the scrub off. This is to remove old dry way from the small pores in your base. Heat your iron to medium heat, if the wax smokes it's too hot. Drip wax over your ski. You don't need a lot since all you really have to do is fill the pores and wax ON the surface of the base will need to be scraped off anyway. Use the iron to heeat up the wax drops and spread it over the whole base, put your skis outside to cool, bring em in when the wax begins to get brittle. Take a thick wax scraper in two hand and scrape tip to tail and remove all the wax you can. Polish the base with a cork block. Now if you want you can add texture with a brush. Drag the brush tip to tail or cross hatch it ...... there's lots of way to add structure ... what that does is encourage water, that melts from the friction of your skis, to escape at the edges instead of staying under the base to create suction.