Prepping new wax skis

[MikeK]

I know many people have different opinions on this, but there is a fair deal of expertise here so I'd like to see what you guys think.

My practice skis will be two sets of the USGI cheapies.

My thought was to go to Swix waxes and 'bake in' a layer of base grip wax per their instruction and glide wax only the tips and tails.

I'll likely not have a defined wax pocket so I was going to prep 1/3 the center of the ski for grip wax. I'll mess around with lengths and layers of wax to suit conditions.

The way this year is going, I'm not even sure I'll be able to give them a shot... but we'll see.

Another thought I had was to try one with Toko and one with Swix, for comparison purposes, but I don't know if I have the patience for that.

[lilcliffy]

I am currently using Swix- because my local shop carries it...

Have used Toko in the past...

Both excellent lines of wax...not convinced that either one is "better".

You speaking of using a binder wax as a base layer for the grip wax zone?

I personally hot wax the entire base at the end of the season; I then grip wax the wax pocket/traction zone as needed throughout my grip wax skiing. I find that grip wax penetrates and sticks to glide wax just fine- and it is easy and quick to strip it (with a scraper) and apply a different grip wax. If you use a binder wax- you are going to scrape all lot of it off when you move to a different wax.

I use a binder wax on my stiff classic track skis- the snow conditions typically stay stable for weeks on end- and I rarely have to change my outer grip wax.

Just like with my waxless skis- I often extend the grip wax forward- if I need more traction- especially in steep terrain. This would definitely extend beyond the binder wax and onto the glide wax.

[Woodserson]

I do the same... hot wax the whole ski, then add grip wax as appropriate. I've used binder, and I've not used binder, and find similar results and have thus stopped with the binder.

I go easy on the grip wax to start and then add as appropriate, you'll know almost right way, but give it a few hundred yards. You can go longer on the grip-section, or deeper in the pocket with multiple layers, depending on what you're trying to do. Immense variation is possible with grip wax, and experience and a bit of patience will help you figure it out. Try to stick to less waxes instead of the whole rainbow, unless you plan on racing. When you get it right, you'll know-- silent, fast, smooth.

I usually start with harder, if that works, good. Easier to add soft on hard than the other way around. I go easy on the soft, because if it cools down, you'll want hard again and I don't like stripping the skis.

[MikeK]

Thanks for the info.

Yeah there are different products for the base wax binder I guess but one document I read from Swix recommended hot ironing blue(?) grip wax as the base layer.

If it makes no difference I'd just as soon hot wax the whole ski.

What do you do in subsequent hot waxes? Strip the grip wax and do the whole thing or do just the tips and tails?

[lilcliffy]

All of my waxable bases are sintered and have excellent "hold" (not sure about the Asnes USGIs yet). I have found that I only need to hot glide wax my waxable bases once per season.

If I did need to do it more than once per season, I would scrape off the grip wax and then melt and iron in a full-length coat of hard glide wax (this is what I do in the spring). I choose a wax that is good for most of my grip-waxing season (currently using Swix blue).

I use my waxless skis in the warmer, wet snow anyway, and I use a warmer glide wax for them (Swix red). My spring ski bases take some real abuse (wet, icy, granular snow and crust). I have to keep a close eye on them during spring skiing, and hot wax them as necessary.

I use the colder (blue) glide wax on my fat, waxless powder skis as well.

Over time, and with persistence, I find I get good absorption and "hold" even with the extruded bases.

In general, I don't get too fussy about the complexity of it. I am however very fussy about getting good absorption and hold of the glide wax- both to protect the bases as well as get good performance.

There are many times when the glide wax of my skis are in temperatures just outside the optimal- I don't worry about it.

[Woodserson]

I like glide waxing, so I do it often unlike lilcliffy. He is dead on about getting good absorption and hold of the glide wax. Also, a medium temperature works OK in most snow, I don't sweat the glide-wax temperature matching much. Close enough!

Since I wax regularly, I just do the tips and tales and eyeball it, keep the iron out of the grip wax. Sometimes I'll mark the wax pocket that I use and hot wax outside that area. I try not to strip down the grip wax unless absolutely necessary, which is why I am conservative with the softer grip waxes. Over a season you can really dial it in nice, and stripping ruins all that-- unless there are wild temperature swings that a good manual scrape down won't fix-- like loads of soft gooey grip wax for 31deg snow, and then we get a polar singe digit Utah-dry dump the next day. Then I strip it down so I can enjoy that awesome snow! Sometimes, as lilcliffy has mentioned, it behooves to extend the grip wax into the glide zone. Cork it good here, remove before the next hot wax. Also, softer grip wax over the course of the day can drag back into the tail zone, so plan for that accordingly. I stop an inch or two short of the back end of the pocket, it will fill back on it's own.

Get a few corks too, sometimes one can get sticky, it's nice to have a "hard" cork and a "soft" cork. I like real cork over the synthetic, but they both work fine. You'll fine that there's technique to the corking too-- how much, where, etc.

Most important: Take a few moments in the parking lot and examine the snow. Touch it and rub it and think about it. Pick it up and watch it drop through your fingers. Smell it a bit. Ask the snow what kind of wax it would like today. It will answer you! Do this every time, to build intellectual knowledge and communion with the snow.

This drives my wife nuts.

[MikeK]

This drives my wife nuts.

I told my wife I bought her a pair of wax skis. She gave me the most dumbfounded look I've ever seen... I can't wait until she sees the wizardry we'll need to do to ski the damn things.

[lilcliffy]

Most important: Take a few moments in the parking lot and examine the snow. Touch it and rub it and think about it. Pick it up and watch it drop through your fingers. Smell it a bit. Ask the snow what kind of wax it would like today. It will answer you! Do this every time, to build intellectual knowledge and communion with the snow.

This drives my wife nuts.

Awesome stuff.

I "commune" with the snow as well (I also like my little snow thermometer).

My wife doesn't make fun of me too much- I do look after her skis as well as mine!

[oldschool]

So I have a fair bit of experience with waxable skis of several kinds and just did some research that may be applicable for this.

Tip 1 - get some Swix Stripper solvent - you will need this to periodically remove the kick wax down to the base wax. If you poke around you can find info on some other solvents that work but the Swix stuff is nice. They make some that comes in a can with a sponge top for helping remove the wax - that works nicely but a bunch of rags that you toss in the end work too.

Experience - my first XC skis were LL Bean Asnes skis - the beautiful wood ones. The bases got pine tar and then kick wax. I learned on them.

Next pair was Asnes Telemarks - also a waxable touring tele ski (from the days before fat skis began to happen).

Lately I've been skiing Karhu XCD GTs that are a bit beat and a nice pair of Fischer BC Country Crowns I picked up a couple years ago. Both these are wax skis.

Karhus XCD GT - I wax these with a hard glide wax about once every two years. If I got out more I'd do it once per season. It's not a hard process - strip the ski bases well, let dry, then melt in glide wax with an iron, let cool, then scrape. I find the kick waxes stick well to this base, clean off of it fine too. As others have said - stay on the cooler side with a bigger wax pocket as opposed to small. I wax a bigger pocket than the size of the fish scales on no wax skis - probably six inches more in both directions. That makes a big difference climbing.

Fischers - I've never glide waxed these as the bases have a sintering and a pattern rolled into them. I just kick wax them and clean them as needed with stripper. So far ok.

Research - just got our daughter a new pair of downhill boards for X-mass. In reading about the bases, etc. I found out that sintered P-tex has greater porosity than regular and that it is recommended that they be impregnated first with a base prep wax followed by glide wax of the temp range you intend to ski. They recommend 3 cycles of base prep, scrape and reapply. A trick presented was to apply wax, wait and instead of scraping, iron again - apparently this really pushes more wax into the ski and saves a round of scraping and uses a little less wax ($). I am planning therefore to do two rounds of this with a scrape after each - basically wax, iron, iron, scrape, wax, iron, iron, scrape, glide wax, scrape. I tend to use Swix green downhill wax on my tele boards - it is a cold wax and works fine in warmer temps too.

My Fischer skis have not been waxed and have been fine.

No matter which way you go, I'd make sure to have a base of hard glide wax the length of the ski and put your kick wax on top of that.

A final suggestion - be sure to have your wax less skis handy - you can wax and mess around in the morning but if frustration sets in, just switch over and don't worry about it.

Other tips -

avoid leaves and twigs as much as possible - they get gummed into the wax.

crayon a decent amount of wax on - I find that you get some sticking to the ski then a little more sticking to the wax this builds a little "pile" of the wax - I wax by rubbing back and forth in small six inch area and work my way down the ski. It doesn't have to be solid - I try to keep them symmetrical. Corking - no need to get carried away, in fact, sometimes less is more for grip. Just level it out a little to take out the high spots. sometimes in a pinch I use the heel of my hand but then you have grip wax on it. Two corks is a good idea. I think I spend about 30 seconds corking on each ski - that's it. I think you'll find wax skis are worth the pain when the temps are right at freezing or below. Above and no wax is much more pleasant for lots of reasons. I find my skis glide great when prepped this way and that wax is very quiet, something I appreciate a lot.

Good luck and let us know how it goes -

[athabascae]

All great comments by the posters here.

IMHO, however, its really easy to overthink waxing. Unless you really enjoy the art and science of advanced waxing, I suggest keeping it simple. Glide-kick-glide. Below freezing, it works!

If you want, get your local ski shop to hot wax the glide wax on the whole ski at the beginning of each season - or do it yourself once or twice a year.

Before each outing, crayon on an appropriate kick wax in the middle third (unless you know the specific wax pocket for those skis for you) in thin layers and cork each layer smooth. I do three layers, simply out of habit, but I rarely need to reapply wax on an outing. I usually use the coldest kick wax possible, if in doubt. Often I vary the length of the each layer, with the longest layer first and the shortest layer last - probably because I'm lazy. Presto - takes a couple of minutes at most to apply the kick wax before I ski.

I usually carry the wax I applied, plus the next warmest wax (usually, swix polar and then special green in my case, or swix green and blue) in my pocket or pack, along with a cork.

Doing it inside on warm skis makes it much faster - prep before you go and adjust outside if you need to.

No muss, no fuss, and no overthinking.

Tom