Waxin your own skis..

I do it at our condo in the back room. Actually, usually the fajh does the ironing part then I take them outside to scrape, buff, and polish them. Usually do the whole family's skis at once.
 
Or smart people could just learn how to ski well and tune well for themselves and not be forced into the gayness of racing.

Don't get me wrong, I've got good friends who race and have learned priceless skills. I just think that it can be acheived without the stupidness of racing. Trees are the only SL I need.
 
i wax mine and my friends and familys skis. i injoy waxing skis. plus i add those extra touches your were talking about! like many layers with different temps so your skis are always perfect threw out the day as the snow warms up.
 
here is a quick tutorial that is all you need to do for a basic wax.

1) go buy a ski wax iron (an iron w/o holes in the bottom, get it at local shop for 50ish bucks). Buy a stick of ski wax. For first time dont go with anything to fancy, just grab some general stuff, maybe 20 bucks. Also get a scraper (5 bucks)

2) find a bench, anything really and lay you skis out upside down. scrape off any debree exc.. so there nice and smooth and clean bases. [for accessibility, tie your brakes down with elastics or a tie wire, it makes it alot easier] Plug in your iron. (it will have settings on it for things like cold wax, fast wax, race wax, etc.. go to the wax you got and it will say on it what it is and set it to that. If your iron doesnt say that dont worry. just have it warm enough it will melt the wax you have)

3) once the iron is hot, all you do is take the wax stick and press it to the bottom if the iron. hold the iron at an angle between 100-135 degrees so that it allows the wax to drip down to the "point" or "tip" of the iron. it will then drip off the iron and land on your ski. (make sure you have it lined up) Simply drip as much wax onto your ski as you wish. I do a drip about every cm or so.

4) complete second ski as well.

5)once this is done the wax job is complete. wax can go away. Then what you do is basically "iron your ski". this will melt the drips of wax you recently applied so that it covers the surface area of your ski. Try to move the wax around so that no part of the base is left "dry" without wax on it.

6)once this is complete let it cool and solidify. I usually go pee or get a drink or something. Then all you do is start scraping. MAKE SURE YOU GO FROM TIP TO TAIL. this is key. Some tech on here can explain it better but i think its because you are scraping the wax off in order that the ski will be moving on the snow. Thus it makes sense to keep everything parallel together. Scrape all excess off with your scraper, but dont take all the wax off. It will take you a few times to find the happy medium. If you dont take off enough it will feel slow and sticky on the hills at first, and if you take all of it off, well, your back to where you started.

7) just take a towel or something and wipe the excess flakes of wax off for a smooth clean professional look. And your ready to go.

thats basically it. Theres a few things you can play with.. but thats all you need to know to start waxing on your own. From start to scrach you spend 75 bucks. What does it cost you to get it done at a shop? 35? 40? wax your own skis twice and youve already covered all your expenses.

if i missed something and i might have, i havent waxed my skis since last season, feel free to add it.
 
um the last part is wrong because u want to take off as much wax as possible. the more u remove the better off you will be. after u scrape u also should use a brush or one of those green pads and run from tip to tail a bunch of times. and the part about dripping only once a few cms i like drip a line all the way down then all the way back the ski. Thats the way i learned and how i do it but someone please tell me if im wrong
 
also any shop should be able to hook you up with a manual. This is helpful esspecially if you are anal about your equipment
 
deffinatly, i don't race but my brother did when he was in high school and he left me with all of his shit and taught me how to wax my skis and board. I think its just so much more convenient so wax them yourself than take them to a shop.
 
i wax not only because of the prices........but its how conveint to wax if your starting to slow down a little on the slopes
 
I did the same thing. First day of skiing I got a mad core shot on my last years Public Enemys. I wanted to get some red Ptex to fix it, but noone in Taos has red Ptex so I went with black. IS there such thing as red Ptex? Anyways I fixed the core shot and decided to 2wax them up. So I found some odd looking wax, The directions were in Swedish so I had no idea what kind of wax I was outting on my skis. So I got the wax on my skis and tuned them up. I noticed that the wax wasn't flaking off like it is suppose to when you wax your skis. Instead it was sticking. Anyways, I took off as much of the stuff as I could. Then I covered it up with REAL ski wax. Now my skis work pretty good. Anyone know how to remove cross-country wax?
 
Just buy some base cleaner and you're set. Make sure you hotwax after using it because it dries out your base.
 
It actually doesn't matter at all which way you scrape (whether its from tip to tail or tail to tip). It's only brushing that the direction matters. It may say so on certain sites and some people may say that it matters, but I've had conversations with the ski tuner for the U.S. World Cup ski team, and I know personally the ski tuner for the Canadian World Cup ski team, and both of them say that it doesn't matter. Direction only matters when brushing - something you didn't really explain, and isn't really necessary if you aren't racing/aren't too concerned about saving 1-2 seconds of time going down the hill (if you do brush, be absolutely certain to go tip to tail!)

Hope this helps.
 
same here, I believe you want to take off as much as possible, as the wax should only fill up the pores of your base. Use a plastic scraper by the way, not a metal one. And any old iron will work, go to Salvation Army and get a 2 dollar one, the holes won't matter so much.
 
how in the hell does wax smell like soap?? its smells like burning wax...

anyways i do it myself also, it saves time and money and its simple to do...
 
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