Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

I'm new to waxing this season. Never owned waxable skis before. Asnes Gamme. Absolutely loving them.

I've put roughly about 30 km on them over 10 days in a variety of conditions, polar the length of the ski with 3 corked on layers of either Swix green, blue, or red silver applied in the kick zone. Today was the first red silver day as we were around 0c (South East Ontario).

At what point do I need to strip the wax using goo gone and start fresh? Should I do it now given we are going to go back into the colder temps into the weekend? Or is it something that I'll know when I encounter? Or maybe I don't even need to worry about

You will need to get rid of soft grip-kick wax if the temperature is going to drop-
You may be able to get away with simply scraping it off (I can usually get away with this)-

I have a set of 205 Eon Wax that were prepped with Polar wax first back in ~2006- they have been toured on every winter and I have never had to completely strip them.

My wife occasionally seems to ski through a cow pie- so I have stripped her bases more frequently...

johnnycanuck wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:25 pm

I'm new to waxing this season. Never owned waxable skis before. Asnes Gamme. Absolutely loving them.

I've put roughly about 30 km on them over 10 days in a variety of conditions, polar the length of the ski with 3 corked on layers of either Swix green, blue, or red silver applied in the kick zone. Today was the first red silver day as we were around 0c (South East Ontario).

At what point do I need to strip the wax using goo gone and start fresh?

Ewwww, red silver

Between polar, green, and blue, I just apply a new wax on top of what's already there and cork it in.

However, I have found violet special and red silver to be a little gooey, and they seem like they might be too soft to really hold onto a harder wax you might want to apply on top. Also, they're too gooey to apply skins on top.

I would definitely scrape of red silver when switching to a harder wax. VIolet extra? Probably...

The OP is asking if scraping is enough or does he need to clean his bases with a solvent. He may get by with scraping, if it looks and feels like it's all gone he's probably Ok to wax over it. Either way you go you will want to scrape first anyway.

I find Red silver to be an odd texture compared to other soft waxes. I have left it on after skiing warm snow and used it on the crust that was left after temps dropped. It worked good and stayed on for longer that expected.

Thanks everyone, appreciate the help here. I'll try scraping and see how that goes, and strip if it still feels muddy. Prior to putting down the red silver it seemed like I could have applied all season without worry.

I use quite a bit of red/silver. I scrape with the Swix steel scrapers. They work well. I have not felt the need to take skis into the shop to have them base ground for re-structuring. The bases seem fine to me. The steel scrapers get the wax off.
I will add the caveat some people would find this unacceptable. I manage construction sites, my 2008 Toyota Tacoma has over 340,000 miles on it and has never been to a shop, I maintained my equipment when I was a contractor. I trust my mechanical judgment and my skills of observation. Steel scrapers are efficient and don’t hurt your skis. If you are racing, perhaps it would make a difference.

Your Polar foundation wax is a good idea; it'll help with being able to scrape the softer kick waxes without "stripping" (I tend to avoid the solvents when possible). One small tip: with soft waxes, and klisters, scraping while the skis & wax are very cold helps quite a bit. Like after the skis have been set outside on a very cold night.
I am also a big fan of using a good metal scraper.

Scraping:

Maybe most know, but will add that the reason soft waxes scrape easier when cold is that they are less plastic / elastic and will behave more as a solid that a semi-liquid.

The sharper the scraper edge, the more effective.
By "sharp" I don't mean like a knife.
I mean the edge needs to be a sharp 90* angle.
Over time, the scraper edge will get rounded.
Fixing this requires filing the thin edge of the metal scraper to restore the sharp 90* angle.
Filing a scraper is an art in itself.

If the edge is rounded, the wax tends to just smear under the scraper (the scraper acts more like a spreader).
Also, it works best to hold the scraper at a fairly steep angle to the ski base.
Apply even pressure across the scraper edge, to keep the scraper from bending.
Some place something rigid behind the scraper edge, like a file, to keep scraper flat.
Experiment to see what works best.

A **sharp** plastic scraper will work just about as well, with less risk of gouging the ski base, if one should happen to mess up (sometimes a metal scraper will catch a burr on the metal edges and stop, which can leave a mark on the ski base).

There's lots of stuff on youtube about ski base maintenance!

Going from warmer to colder.....like icy.... let the hardpack icy stuff do the deed for me....If i have a scraper with me and really need it will use that....metal edges suffice also....Knife, sure if needed....Tele=Free the heel free the mind and become a lazy sh.. like me......TM

johnnycanuck wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:25 pm

At what point do I need to strip the wax using goo gone and start fresh?

At least as often as the end of every season