Waxing new skis, Hotbox

[randoskier]

Has anyone had a "hotbox treatment" done on their new skis? If so, how did it go?

I am buying a pair of Fischer Excusrion 88 for my wife in Norway (and paying their silly Nordic prices because nobody outside of Scandinavia has this ski in stock). They offer an option to get them hotbox glide-waxed-

This is their (google translate) explanation of this service (note: 50 miles means 50 Norwegian miles, a Norwegian mile = 10km)-

Hotbox + sliding lubrication Good
If you want to be fast on the snow with top glide as soon as possible after you have received your new skis, we can wax them for you.

Hotbox: To improve the sliding ability of the cross-country skis, you should saturate the skis.
You do not have to stand and apply a lot of sliding lubrication !!
We do this with the help of a heating cabinet, \ "hotbox \", where the ski is stored with a special wax for 12 hours with varying temperatures.

The coatings of the cross-country skis consist of amphorae and crystalline parts. The amphorae parts absorb lubrication and lubricate the crystalline parts of the ski coating.

Then we drool and brush up the ski and put on low fluoride glide.

Now your skis are ready for the trail.

Tip:
We always recommend a structuring of the ski to get good gliding properties for about 50 miles.

This from another site, an alpine site- Hot box waxing is the best method to condition ski bases. Base prep ski wax deeply penetrates into the ski base in just a few cycles vs. waxing with an iron, which can take up to 20+ cycles for full saturation. Hot boxing results in greater base protection and faster skis.

Ski bases are made of a polyethylene plastic material (p-tex). Inexpensive, entry level ski bases are made of extruded polyethylene, which is formed into a sheet of plastic using high heat. Extruded p-tex has little ability to absorb wax. Performance ski bases are made of sintered polyethylene powder that's pressed together under high pressure to bind the grains of polyethylene together leaving microscopic spaces. These spaces have the ability to absorb wax, which is necessary to protect the base from damage due to the high friction created while skiing.

Waxing with a hot iron only allows a small amount of wax to be absorbed before the base overheats. Therefore, it takes many repetitions to reach maximum wax penetration. Skis in a hot box, set at 50°C to 55°C for several hours can safely absorb enough wax to fill the base.

[the Big Mao]

I'm always hesitant to hotbox my skis. Even as a race coach in the 80's, I never did it for my athletes. Back then, I'd run a profiler over the bases, iron the stuff in, scrape, brush and buff. Must have worked, since when I coached the Univ. Ca. Davis team, we had 5 league championships consecutively for my tenure (bragging ). Never had to worry about accidentally leaving the skis too long at temp, either. That's my big concern with hotboxing. If it's hot enough to melt the wax, it's hot enough to do other damage if applied too long. This includes ironing in as well.
Nowadays, with good skis being usually sintered, profiling isn't really necessary though. Now, the issue for me is, I need to get another iron, and use one for glide, and one for kick. Like Rosanne Roseannadanna said..."it's always SOMETHING"

[connyro]

...Then we drool and brush up the ski and put on low fluoride glide.

Now your skis are ready for the trail.

Google translate is funny

[CwmRaider]

I found the site you translated from, they wrote "amfore deler" instead of "amorfe deler", resulting in the translation to "amphorae" instead of "amorphous". Interesting confusion.

Regardless, no experience with hotbox but I don't really see the point for touring skis, unless you're going to spend most of your time on prepared hardpack tracks.
How many "norwegian miles" do they suggest the hot box glide waxing works? My understanding was that it wears off within a few 10s of km for normal procedures (iron/scrape/buff), so is it much more with hotboxing?

[randoskier]

...Then we drool and brush up the ski and put on low fluoride glide.

Now your skis are ready for the trail.

Google translate is funny

Wachu mean funny?

[randoskier]

I'm always hesitant to hotbox my skis. Even as a race coach in the 80's, I never did it for my athletes. Back then, I'd run a profiler over the bases, iron the stuff in, scrape, brush and buff. Must have worked, since when I coached the Univ. Ca. Davis team, we had 5 league championships consecutively for my tenure (bragging ). Never had to worry about accidentally leaving the skis too long at temp, either. That's my big concern with hotboxing. If it's hot enough to melt the wax, it's hot enough to do other damage if applied too long. This includes ironing in as well.
Nowadays, with good skis being usually sintered, profiling isn't really necessary though. Now, the issue for me is, I need to get another iron, and use one for glide, and one for kick. Like Rosanne Roseannadanna said..."it's always SOMETHING"

Maybe it has more process control and sensors these days? It seems real big in Norway but I'm not drooling yet.

[lowangle al]

If they are no-wax skis I would probably do it, unless you have a hard time keeping up with your wife.

[randoskier]

I found the site you translated from, they wrote "amfore deler" instead of "amorfe deler", resulting in the translation to "amphorae" instead of "amorphous". Interesting confusion.

Regardless, no experience with hotbox but I don't really see the point for touring skis, unless you're going to spend most of your time on prepared hardpack tracks.
How many "norwegian miles" do they suggest the hot box glide waxing works? My understanding was that it wears off within a few 10s of km for normal procedures (iron/scrape/buff), so is it much more with hotboxing?

50 miles so 500 km.

We had a wax guru here locally, a really weird shop it was in a huge clothing store with like suits and womens dresses, his old family business, then in the back a fully equipped very nice x-country shop (we are not far from the Asiago Plateau- 500km of X-country trails and a Nordic world cup area) . He was fairly portly so when he said he was racing in Sweden last week I was thinking "Jeeze the heavyweight division" ..what he was doing actually was waxing Italian racers competing in Sweden, travelled with the race team. He had about 150 grand of waxing equipment in his basement- he glide waxed the skis of my wife and I and we had the best base we have ever had for the entire 3 week tour wedid up north that year. Sadly his multi-generational clothing store failed (it was like a 70s retail type place) and he moved to Finland in 2019. Not sure what he did to our skis but it kicked ass.

Personally don't like waxable skis, where we mostly ski- in Lapland- the snow varies so much in a day, I don't like stopping or removing mittens, it is normally very cold. I carry two liquid glide waxes- one general and one for very warm snow. I used them very little after our buddy waxed them in his shop. I guess I should have paid a little more attention to what he did!

[randoskier]

If they are no-wax skis I would probably do it, unless you have a hard time keeping up with your wife.

That's her breaking away

[randoskier]

If they are no-wax skis I would probably do it, unless you have a hard time keeping up with your wife.

That's her breaking away (we wax our pulks too)