Layering Waxes?

[smackboy1]

So I'm kind of new to DIY waxing. I've been playing around with waxes and asking a lot of questions. So here is the here is the question: what are your recommended waxing practices and why?

I've heard advocates for layering waxes for new skis or beginning of the season.

e.g. 1) Wax and hot scrape 5-10 times with a soft base prep wax; then
2) Wax, cool and scrape with a hard cold temp wax; then
3) Wax, cool and scrape with another layer of medium temp wax; then
4) Wax, cool and scrape with another layer of all temp wax; then
5) Brush like a mofo with progressively softer brushes.

Are there benefits to all that extra work? Does the wax retain discrete layers in the ski or does it all just melt together?

[smackboy1]

IMO unless you race all that work is a waste of time.

I don't race, but I am very lazy 

Does base prep wax or extra layers increase longevity so I don't have to wax as often?

[jbotti]

I wax more often that Max but I also don't go crazy. On my race oriented carving skis, I do put down 5 or so coast of base prep before i ski on them. Not sure how much benefit I get from this (meaning it could be zero). Wax does protect your skis and in most conditions allows them to glide faster. Having said all that when we are free skiing it really doesn't make that much difference.

Several people here including myself at times, enjoy the process of waxing and prepping skis. If so, do it as much as you like. If you get no enjoyment from it, waxing once every 3-5 days up to once every 8-10 days is also fine. It's good to look at your bases and if they are getting white near the edges, you need wax and you are likely doing some LT damage to the base.

[Svend]

Smackboy, I fall into John's camp.  I wax, but don't go crazy with it.  I believe in it, and feel it is important to a ski's performance, just like well tuned edges. 

My rule of thumb is about every 3 to 5 days, or maybe 2 days if the snow is bad.  I look for whitish haze on the bases as my indicator that it needs a dose.  FYI, some skis seem to have bases that hold wax better than others.  Most of our Fischers and Dynastars are like that, except my P-9s.  All our Heads seem to be worse, and show haze sooner.

You were asking about prep for new skis -- I use the saturation method recommended by Swix, which is found in their Waxing Guide as a downloadable PDF on their website.  Basically it works like this:

1) iron in a warm temp, soft wax using 3 complete passes with the iron to really warm up the bases (soft, warm temp wax is used for better penetration); do not scrape;

2) repeat 3 times without scraping;

3) after the final application, scrape while the wax is hot, taking care not to press too hard into the base with the scraper;

4) let cool, and brush out the finish;

5) apply final coat of wax appropriate to the temps you will be skiing in.

Note:  this is only for new skis.  After that, they get the usual treatment of a single coat when needed for maintenance.

Hope this helps....

[Gary]

Max..I just read the last article you posted...I'm wondering if the focus is more on cross country skiing.?

Man I hate to take unwaxed skis onto the mountain...the glide sucks..

For me....I'm a big believer in bushing in waxes with various brushes...maybe way old school.....geez..so meone prove to me that brushing is a waste of time please...!

g

[jim-ratliff]

Wax on -- wax off.  Not a waste of time, especially when Svend starts trying to push you around.

[smackboy1]

Does hard cold temp wax last longer on my bases compared to softer universal or warm temp wax?

I read that using a cold temp wax skiing in medium or warm snow temps is not the quickest but works OK, but that using a warm temp wax in cold snow temps doesn't work too well. BS or not?

[dan.boisvert]

I think a lot of it depends on where you ski, too.  If you're skiing the kind of abrasive man-made we get in the east, you have to wax a lot more often than you do if you're skiing nature-made snow all the time.

I've arrived at my current methods by experimentation and seeing what it takes to keep my bases from getting grey and fuzzy.

For me:

1) Post-grind, put a thick coat on, do the reheat/let cool cycle 4-5 times (adding more wax if it gets thin).  I found that 3 wasn't enough and 10 didn't work any better than 5, for my usage.

2) Apply a wax of the day Friday night for whatever the weekend's temp range is.  For me, that's almost always a broad range mid-temp wax, but when I'm going to Maine for the weekend it'll often be a cold wax.  In the spring, it might be a warm wax.

3) Scrape and brush the crap out of it.  I typically just use a natural brush that's medium stiffness, with some help from a copper brush for cold waxes.  I don't go crazy with tiered brushes of different softness, but I find it really noticeable if I don't free the structure.

I've recently been screwing around with fluoros for wet/humid days, but haven't found a method/wax that lasts as long as I want yet.

With this strategy, I'm able to ski for 2 or 3 days in a row without my bases getting grey and fuzzy, which is mostly all I care about.  If I'm skiing someplace that has less abrasive snow (eg, the west), I can go a week without waxing (or sharpening), and my skis look the same at the end as they did at the beginning.  It's pretty neat!

[jbotti]

It may be where I ski where we have great cold and grippy snow and rarely are we skiing on anything man made, but spending a huge amount time waxing, scraping and brushing skis on my snow adds very little benefit. I use the wax to protect the bases and in certain conditions and temps sometimes a fresh wax feels like it glides better for the first hour. After that, the coat you put on to match the temps is gone. There is a reason that racers warm up on warm up skis and the put on their race skis for one run, the race. Otherwise all that prep work goes to waste as the morning wax wears off quick. (for racers it is one run per wax prep).

Now not skiing on the east coast on large amounts of man made snow may be different. But the more abrasive the snow the faster the wax comes off. Maybe the multiple coats help protect the bases and keep some amount of wax on the skis longer, but that fresh coat disappears quick no matter where anyone is skiing.

[ToddW]

Dan,

Quit feeding your skis that abrasive NH "snow."  Give them a steady diet of "Vermont powder" and they won't require such elaborate weekly rituals of supplication to appease them. 

For the westerners, NH gets the snow that's not sufficient quality to get landing privileges in VT . Same thing for summer precip; hence the names green mountains and white mountains.

More seriously, my bases used to wear much worse.  As I've started to get better ca and flexing, it happens less.

[dan.boisvert]

Maybe just hotbox?

I figure a hotbox is overkill (either in the space it would take up to build my own or the cost of using someone else's), and I don't mind standing over a pair of skis periodically after sitting on my backside all day at work, so I just do it manually.


I agree with Mr. Botti about how fast the top layer wears off if you hit the temps right generally, though I think the super-cold waxes last longer than that for me.  In any case, after a certain period of time, you're skiing on the underlying layers, which is why it's important to pick the wax you pound into the bases well.  I have a couple pairs of skis that I chose poorly on, and one of my tasks for the summer is to replace this with faster wax.  The old stuff was durable enough; I'm really only replacing it so I can go faster on a flat ski.  I have a friend with low points who always pulls away from me when we're skiing figure elevens, and he prepped my skis one day to prove it was the skis, not me.  The difference convinced me to change waxes.. 

Todd makes a good point about NH "snow".  We pretty much get whatever's left over after VT picks the stuff that meets their standards.   I'm probably at the opposite extreme from the stuff you get in Colorado (or Montana?), so my tuning needs probably sound ridiculous to you guys.  With insufficient prep though, I literally have greying bases by Sunday afternoon on a normal day, having waxed just Friday night.  That's how I determined that 3 cycles with the base prep wasn't enough.

Hm...Todd's comment about better CA and flexing sounds promising, though.  Maybe if I learn to ski better, I could spend less time waxing?  That would be awesome!

[jim-ratliff]

Maybe Todd was "implying" that you should ski the edges more and not the bases?
Hard to tell, he is sometime's amazingly subtle!!

[dan.boisvert]

No way.  I paid for the whole ski, and I'm going to use all of it!   

[smackboy1]

Does graphite (or other additives) in the wax make any difference?  The wax I got costs the same with or without graphite (SVST base prep and Dominator Zoom Green).

[midwif]

None of you are tough enough for REAL WAXING!