Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

As the winter stretches out I find my initial waxing scheme isn't working as good on my Gamme and FTX62. I like the tip-to-tail polar wax with temperature specific wax underfoot. I've been using mostly Toko blue kick wax, underfoot with good results up to my last few outings. We're starting to get daytime temperatures above freezing with sunshine and spikes into the high 30's. Then, it gets cold at night. The surface isn't necessarily an ice sheet, the snow is often, surprisingly, still somewhat soft, but I'm having trouble with my grip.

Toko waxes go Blue, Red, Yellow; I went with Toko this first year waxing because it's a simpler system. However, the Red is giving me nothing when I get out in the afternoon after work. But when I can occasionally go in the morning when it's colder, it works okay. What's the protocol for switching out waxes when temps get more variable? Do I have to scrape then use wax remover every day? Can I just scrape? Should I drop the Polar and go with Blue, tip-to-tail? Is there a magic Swix or other brand kick wax that does better than the Toko? I just don't have any experience here so, many thanks for any help!

Scrape is fine, no need to use solvents. As you probably know, softer wax will stick to colder wax, so if you're out for a while as it gets warmer you can just apply the warm wax on top of what you already have in kick zone as needed. But colder wax generally doesn't stick to warm, so a scrape is needed (doesn't have to be perfectly clean, and I have actually put a thin layer of colder wax on top a thin layer of warmer with ok results in specific conditions). As for glide waxing, if polar v05 on tip and tail was good enough in cold temps it should theoretically be better in warmer temps, depending on snow conditions. Personally I think if it isn't working, iron some sort of universal or warmer glide wax from tip to the snakebite and from back of heel to the tail. As for getting better grip, try extending your kick zone a bit further forward and if that doesn't work go to the next warmer wax.

I switched from v05 tips and tails to F4 universal glide earlier in the season and it worked well. For the brief cold spell we had I ironed Start SG Green which is the standard super hard cold wax and my glide was great. However I went out to a hilly area where it is just up and down and up and down for short (20 to 40ft vertical) distances and very steep and remembered why I liked the extra grip of the v05 while sacrificing some glide (walking/shuffling uphill is better than gliding halfway up and having to herringbone the rest, if one is doing this over and over).

You can safely ignore the 'surgical gloves, solvent and laser thermometer' twats here (albeit I'm really talking about other places on the internet where people are a bit more track and racing oriented). Unless you have visibly dirty soles (like pine resin and refried beans and reindeer blood or whatever), you can always give it a scrape and then a cork and put new stuff on.

Personally I frequently just smooth out what I have on with a cork and put whatever I like on top before I set out because I'm incorrigibly lazy.

Obviously common sense applies in that you don't want to end up with stilts, or other sundry disasters, so you want to be a wee bit more circumspect about getting the soft stuff off if there's lots of fresh snow at the wrong temperature or something, but you'll almost certainly be completely fine if you don't overthink it too much.

There is no magic brand sadly (or is there?).

You don't want to remove the Polar tip-to-tail and replace it with Blue because the Polar's not going to give much grip in warm temperatures anyway.

You do, however, want to extend your Wax of the Day forward first, and you can experiment with going further forward than you think is necessary or 'right'.

By the way, severap folks here have praised Start Oslo Racing Purple for temps around freezing (tin says 27 to 36F I think).

Would it make sense to kickwax my Voile V6? It's a pretty wide ski like, 100mm underfoot! I don't see any reason why I can't or even shouldn't do this, except it is pretty wide underfoot. I currently have it in Toko Blue Glide from tip-to-tail and am wanting some kick wax underfoot. If I go that route should I scrape it all the way to the base to put on the kick wax? We were talking about grip wax above but what about glide wax? Do I use wax remover for glide wax if I'm putting on some kick wax?

JohnSKepler wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 08, 2023 6:56 pm

Would it make sense to kickwax my Voile V6? It's a pretty wide ski like, 100mm underfoot! I don't see any reason why I can't or even shouldn't do this, except it is pretty wide underfoot. I currently have it in Toko Blue Glide from tip-to-tail and am wanting some kick wax underfoot. If I go that route should I scrape it all the way to the base to put on the kick wax? We were talking about grip wax above but what about glide wax? Do I use wax remover for glide wax if I'm putting on some kick wax?

It you are going to be using kick wax on any ski, you don't want any glide wax in the kick zone. It will just reduce the durability of your kick wax. If you do have glide wax there you could use wax remover or even better do a hot scape and brush of a soft base prep wax. At that point my best results have been to iron in a base binder, which doesn't melt well, then cork the crap out of it. Then I follow by corking in a thin layer or two of polar kick followed by green. If it's cold I'm ready, if not go with the appropriate softer wax. Once you do this you are good for a long while, maybe the whole season, just adding wax and scraping as necessary.

A lower camber backcountry or telemark ski needs this attention the most. Higher camber skis are more forgiving.

Blue from tip to tail would be an interesting experiment I would certainly be happy to read your results.
If the wax in the kick zone is thin I don’t bother scraping unless I wax putting a wax on for colder temperatures.
Swix Red/Silver is definitely superior for warm grip than Swix Red.
I also had foolishly bragged on this very forum, that last year I didn’t need klister. Well, Mother Nature set me straight as I had no klister with me, and Start Oslo Violet let me down.
https://pioneermidwest.com/products/sta ... ck-wax-45g
However Oslo Violet is the best warm weather wax I have used.
However sometimes you need a skin or klister. Swix Red for warm, and Swix Blue for refrozen ice. I have gone stupid fast with blue klister!
Klister is best removed after use. Sprinkling baby powder to bind the klister and scraping works.
Edit: I forgot to add that I kick wax my 86mm under foot Tindan. I don’t know how much wider I would wax. If I ever bought a Vector I might try the BC version

JohnSKepler wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:50 pm

As the winter stretches out I find my initial waxing scheme isn't working as good on my Gamme and FTX62. I like the tip-to-tail polar wax with temperature specific wax underfoot. I've been using mostly Toko blue kick wax, underfoot with good results up to my last few outings. We're starting to get daytime temperatures above freezing with sunshine and spikes into the high 30's. Then, it gets cold at night. The surface isn't necessarily an ice sheet, the snow is often, surprisingly, still somewhat soft, but I'm having trouble with my grip.

Toko waxes go Blue, Red, Yellow; I went with Toko this first year waxing because it's a simpler system. However, the Red is giving me nothing when I get out in the afternoon after work. But when I can occasionally go in the morning when it's colder, it works okay. What's the protocol for switching out waxes when temps get more variable? Do I have to scrape then use wax remover every day? Can I just scrape? Should I drop the Polar and go with Blue, tip-to-tail? Is there a magic Swix or other brand kick wax that does better than the Toko? I just don't have any experience here so, many thanks for any help!

Hello @JohnSKepler I see that you might be in the UT area. Last couple weekends I have had some trouble figuring out what wax to use as well. I use Swix currently. I wax tip to tail with polar then typically blue extra for the Wax of the day but with this warmer snow I've extended the blue extra all the way forward when that stopped working I put some v45 Violet Special and V60 red silver under foot that has worked up in the Uintas and up Millcreek Canyon. Worked too well on the fresh snow Sunday that I had to give it a little scrape with a hotel key card. Hope this helps.

If you’re going to scrape kick wax, I think it helps to have the skis a cold as possible.
For me, warm kick wax seems to smear a lot when I’m trying to scrape it off.

And.... It got cold again.

I did some backcountry with @Tom M yesterday, who helped greatly in the initial use of my heavy tele setup. I'd only skied around on some really low angle stuff around the house and practiced getting in and out of the Meidjo binding. Overall I'm super pleased with the Voile V6, Meidjo3.0, Scarpa TXPro set up, but I'll cover my initial impressions in another post.

I have full length skins for the V6 that have just weird levels of grip. First time on full-length skins and they worked great, though I got a pretty good slice on my finger during a transition . Bled all over my pants and jacket. That said, full length skins are great for long ascents but crap for laps. And we did a bunch of laps on a 15-20 degree hill. So, I scrubbed some Toko Blue underfoot, right on top of the blue glide, and it gave me pretty good grip going back up. Not great, but not bad either. However, it did wane significantly throughout the day. It was close to 0 degrees when I started. Perfect bluebird day, no wind, and it wasn't working very well towards the end. Air temperature had come up to the mid 20's. I also notice (and not for the first time) the grip wax slows you going down hill, too.

Tom, on the other hand, was rocking Voile Hyper V6 BC and had no trouble ascending. I was super impressed with the performance of the scales on the Hyper V6 so much so that I think I bought the wrong ski s. I had considered going with the BC but there are none in stock anywhere right now so I didn't really make a mistake as I wanted to ski them this year, but I think I would have preferred them for the way I ski. Then, when it came time to skin up the big hill, he just put on the skins over the scales and broke trail for 1,000 feet of vertical. At the risk of offending waxophiles, I think I prefer a scale ski for this kind of skiing. I don't prefer them for classic Nordic because I don't like the whizzy sound. But for back country in heavy snow, they are definitely superior to waxing. There may be niche back country conditions when wax is better, but for the back country conditions in which I am going to us use this equipment, scales beat wax.

My first time skiing the heavy tele gear went okay. I got better with every lap but occasionally, when I was concentrating on one thing, forgot to do something else. I didn't do quite as well coming down the big mountain. It was more like 20-30 degrees and the climb got me a little tired and I managed to fall a few times. Ultimately I think I'd had enough rest lying in the snow that I improved, plus I started concentrating.

One more time: thanks Tom!