Necessity of wax-iron

[Petetheswede]

Hi!
I want to adopt polarwaxing my skis from tip to tail. I have no equipment for ironing however. Is this necessary or can i just cork the whole base?

Last outing i tried this but with green wax because i could not procure polar. I now have polar and there is a forecast of snow. Am i somehow dooming my new Ingstad if i use them without ironing first?

Best regards
Petter

[Woodserson]

No you can cork. Just cork hard and fast, as much as you can get to the Polar to a smooth surface. It will take muscles and time. I do this on my wood skis all the time.

You can use any basic clothes iron to wax skis. Just once you use it, you may not want to iron clothes with it again. I use an old cheap clothing iron from 20 years ago.

[Petetheswede]

Thanks Woods! I'll start out corking then. Should i sickle away residues of green before corking in polar or is this insignificant?

[Woodserson]

Thanks Woods! I'll start out corking then. Should i sickle away residues of green before corking in polar or is this insignificant?

Yes, try to get the base as clean as possible, Polar is the hard wax you are using as glide wax, so that should be underneath everything else.

[Petetheswede]

Ok! Thanks!

[phoenix]

Yup, clean the bases well first. Apply the polar in layers; one thin, consistent coat, then cork smooth. Personally, I don't use the hard & fast corking, I prefer smooth longer strokes with good pressure (NOTE: we are still talking ski waxing here, boys & girls). Avoid gobs of wax stuck on the base, scrape then cork them smooth.
I like at least two, maybe three layers as a base.

[lowangle al]

The only thing that I'll add is to reapply or at least touch it up every time out. Depending on the snow it may not last long, and it only takes about ten minutes to do.

[bauerb]

way back when I raced, we waxed kick-wax if we needed to layer 2 or more kick-waxes. the first layer got the iron. we never bought "waxing irons", we used household irons. we also always ironed the glide wax zones

[phoenix]

Petter, after re-reading the original post, I'll add some more. While the hot wax is not a necessity, it is superior and preferable if you have sintered bases. Sounds like you want the polar as a foundation wax, and ironing in would be the way to go. Corking will still work fine, but as Al added, you'll need to reapply more often. If you do end up ironing, I'd suggest first iron in, then scrape, a soft, warm wax. brush too, after scraping, if you can. Then iron and scrape the polar. Repeat. Have a beverage of your choice then to reward yourself and your skis for a proper base prep.

Don't let that iron get too hot!

[Petetheswede]

Thank you all for your input. I muscled in a lot of polar yesternight and today we have snow so I will just go for a ride and see what happens. I will probably get a low tier iron in the future but i dont want to wreck my only one at the moment.