P-tex repair

[Svend]

Just a quick note to follow up on a tuning thread from a couple of months ago.  Gary and I were chatting about how tricky P-tex base repair can be with the flaming candle things.  Well, I tried it successfully yesterday using the flat repair sticks (not the candles) and a dual temp soldering iron (pistol, trigger type) with a flat spade tip.   I had some repairs to do after our Whiteface trip, where the warm temps made some small rocks appear out of the melting snow.

I used the iron on the low heat setting; held the end of the stick over the gouge in the base; pressed on it with the flat tip of the iron to melt the stick into the gouge; repeated to fill the entire length; then went over the entire area again with the iron to work the material in and form a bond.  Scraped gently with a sharp steel scraper, peeling of only thin shavings of material until flat.  Sanded lightly with 200 grit emery paper, brushed with brass, and voila! Done!

This gave a very nice repair, much better than the candles.  I was even able to repair some very shallow scratches in Terryl's skis, and actually have the material stay in place and not get pulled back out by the scraper (this wasn't possible with the candle repair).  I think pressing the material into the gouge with the iron really helps to create a good bond.  They say that the flat sticks are also more durable than the candles, so should last longer.

A couple of notes:  I brushed the area with brass before the repair to roughen the area and create some grooves and crevices for the molten material to bond to; I cleaned the area well with base cleaner to get rid of all dirt and wax; and I practiced on an old pair of kids skis to make sure this would actually work without burning a hole in the bases of Terryl's precious SS Speeds! 

Make sure you do this in a well ventilated area, as there is some white smoke, and the constituents of plastic smoke are not friendly.  But at least it's not the black, nasty kind of smoke that the candles give off (lots of carcinogens in that stuff).  I also had a small fan near the work area to pull the smoke away from me.

[Ron]

I use the sticks with out issues. If the gouge is away from the base, and as you correclty say, the area has to be clean, no fragments and use a wax remover to get any remaining wax out of the base. I actually use a propane hand-held torch and hit the area after cleaning it and using wax remover. Then I drip the ptexp in, I slightly work it in, in layers. Let it dry, Then use a razor blade like a draw-knife and scrape it off until level. Then hit it with a brush. Wax and go..

[Svend]

Ron, you must be doing something right with that torch.  I could never get the candles to work right.  Even with a propane torch to light 'em up, I nearly always got black smoke, rarely got a blue flame, the damn things would drip all over the place before I could get them onto the repair (yeah, I'm a bit clumsy that way), and I nearly burned the house down when I knocked over the lit propane torch and it skidded into a pile of lumber.  That, plus I could never get repairs of shallow gouges to hold -- the scraper would just pull out the repair.

The thing with the soldering iron is, that you can avoid all the incendiary stuff, and have more control as you work the repair.  As long as the iron isn't too hot, it's all good.

[Ron]

the iron is the way to go if you have one. The higher the heat, the better but you need to heat up the base material first and make it very clean.  A lot of folks make the mistake of not cleaning all the old wax  out and not cleaning up the gouge. If you carefully draw the razor (pulling backwards) it should only take off anything above the level of the base.  I don't use a scraper though, you have to use a razor blade.

[Svend]

OK -- Good tip.  I'll try the razor next time.