Waxing Question

Gr0mo

Gr0mo

Member
How much wax are you suposed to scrape off after waxing? I just got done waxing my skis with a hot iron and i scraped the bases until all the cloudy spots disappeared and they became very glossy. If i continue to scrape some wax still comes off but not a ton. Is that correct?
 
You only really need to go over a few times tip to tail.

Your first run of the day will pull off any additional wax. I wouldn't worry about that detail too much.
 
I scrape until pretty much no wax comes off. Then I brush.

That is for my powder skis. For the skis that I'm gonna hit metal things with, I scrape as much as I can be bothered to.
 
Make sure after you scrape as much wax off as you can, you brush, should probably use 3 different brushes after the scraping. Start with a copper or brass, then move to a stiff fibre brush or horse hair, then finish with a polishing brush, usually blue bristles. Use long strokes from tip to tail until the base is nice and shinny. Brushing will remove the rest of the wax.
 
After scrapping off the extra wax you have to brush it. Is there anything i can use instead of a nylon brush? I have a foam wax pad i was wondering if that works?
 
no a foam pad wont work. get a scouring pad for washing dishes if you cant find a brush. But a shoe polishing brush would be better still if you can get one.
 
the best way to clean the base is with a hot wax. Wax with some cheap generic wax and scape it while its still hot. That is the best way to clean the bases. Dont use WD40
 
no need to clean your base with basecleaner or something similar, just brush off the dirt and wax it, or when it's really in need of cleaning, do a hotscrape by putting on a soft wax and scraping it off while still hot, this will remove all the old wax and dirt from the base and make it ready for a new clean wax ...

as for scraping after waxing, scrape till nothing comes off anymore, then brush out the structure with a brush or scotchbrite pad
 
You NEVER want to use "base cleaner" or some other type of chemical to clean your base. "Base cleaner" should really be called "Nordic Kick Wax Remover", since that is all it is good for. Chemical base cleaners will eat up the wax that has treated your base and completely dry it out, rendering previous wax sessions useless. As earlier said, you want to clean your base with a hot scrape- rub wax onto your base, then drip a layer on, then iron it, and then scrape it off while it is still warm and soft. This will pull out dirt and oil from your base without removing the wax that has previously treated your base.

Concerning scraping, you want to scrape off all the wax from your base. Wax penetrates and treats your base- it's in the base. So, any wax that is on the surface is excess and not needed. Wax that is left on your base will only make you slower, which is why you want to scrape it off and then brush out the remaining bits from the base structure. Brushing cleans out the pattern of your base structure allowing the pattern to do its job of breaking up surface tension.
 
Why wouldn't u use base cleaner? It is better to remove dirt rust and other chemicals in the snow than heating them into the base of ur skis. And yes base cleaner dries out ur base but then u hydrate it with a hot wax. The base of ur skis are very similar to your face. You wouldn't put lotion on ur face to clean the pores of ur skin. U wash it to clean out the pores and then apply lotion or wax. It is not healthy to just apply hot wax to ur skis without cleaning them with base cleaner
 
Your skin is not like a base, so that analogy doesn't actually work that well. You're trying to treat the base and get more wax into it, not clean it out and start over each time Racers will try to get at least 60 waxes into a base before it the ski is used. If you were to use base cleaner it would actually negate all of that work that was done. This information is directly from Swix's World Cup waxing technicians and our own waxing technicians. They have been trying for years to get Swix to stop calling the chemical cleaner "base cleaner" and start calling it "Nordic Kick Wax Remover".
 
Ok that is also for racers but for freeskiers that ski everything and do not have high performance skis with fragile bases should clean there bases. These are the people who get their skis waxed once or twice a year and then ski on dirt rails wood or whatever. Those impurities if not cleaned, and then are heated into can cause more damage to the skis. Though I can agree with u on the high performance skis but they are typically only riding groomed race courses and wax their skis every week.
 
Not necessarily, this is what you should do with any sintered base designed for gliding (nordic or alpine). Freeskis and race skis will use sintered bases and the race bases are the strongest, not most fragile- they just require more work to go that fast. But if you don't at least wax any sintered base at least once every 10 ski days, then your base will dry out and you'll need a stone grind to remove that dried layer. Our Punx actually uses a 7000 series p-tex base, same as our commercial race skis. If that base is waxed regularly, it becomes stronger and more durable.

Dirt, oil, gas, other impurities will sit in the structure of the base. A quick hot wax will not push them into base but rather trap them in the wax. So, when you do a hot scrape, it will pull out this junk. You won't hurt the bases at all by doing this.
 
Huh, so the wax penetrates the base? I never knew, I thought it was just an external thing. Are there any tips to maximize this effect? Such as temp treating before hand?
 
First off, you need to have a ski with a sintered base, not an extruded base. Extruded bases do not absorb wax well, but they are ok for those looking for a low maintenance or cheaper set up.

After you hot scrape your bases, going through the waxing process (waxing, scraping, brushing) over and over again is one of the best ways. If you are serious about having super fast skis, you can have them hot boxed. Hot boxing heats up the entire base evenly and lets the wax deeply penetrate the base. It's usually expensive and it works really really well, but it's not something I would think anyone here would use.

Just properly waxing, scraping, brushing over and over again will work really really well.
 
Watch after 1:25, looks like the right way to wax skis right? F*cking idiots...

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The tech i work with likes to rub a coat of wax onto the base before doing a hot drip wax (with the same wax as rubbed). He says its to stop there being any direct iron to dry base contact. With a properly set iron (ie not too hot) is this really necessary or is more of a peace of mind thing?
 
I would definitely agree with the shop tech and so would most professional ski technicians. Iron temperature correlates to the wax melting point, not to the safety of the base. This is especially true when you use super high end waxes with high melting points. Even with a good iron, you never want the hot iron surface to come in contact with a dry exposed base. For base preps and warmer waxes that have lower melting points, it's probably ok but I still wouldn't risk it. If you crayon the wax onto your base and then drip a bit on, it will just make sure that nothing goes wrong with your bases if you happen to move the iron too slowly or if it gets stuck on a bit dripped wax.
 
This thread has motivated me to wax my skis even though I only have two days on them since the previous wax.
 
i do this all the time and it saves me time in waxing because especially around the edges its sometimes difficult to let dripped wax flow and spread out evenly all over the base, by 'crayoning' the base first you have a tiny waxfilm all over the ski so you just need to heat it up and boom, you're good to go!

also saves you a lot of wax !

i can really recommend doing this to everyone who hotwaxes, makes it so much easier !
 
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