How to wax

[DMataic]

Alright, so i am new at the whole waxing thing, and i was wondering what wax you recomended for a beginner, and just how to apply the wax.

And, i saw that they sell waxing irons here, do you have to use those or can you use any kind of iron you have laying around the house?


Thanks,
Dane

[Anniku]

i see no one posted so i figured i would try to help. I am new to this also but here's what i have heard from friends and such. You can buy wax needing an iron, or one you just rub on(i think). And as for the iron , a normal household iron will NOT work because if you look at the bottom they have little holes that will clog up with wax and ruin the iron, the one's they sell here are a smooth bottom. Well i hope i helped some, Im not positive on if there is two kinds of wax as i have said , but i think so. If not someone chime in and correct me.

matt
www.freewebs.com/jmbsb

[SkaFreak]

You are correct that there are two types of wax, iron on and rub on. A hot wax gets the wax deeper into the boards and stays on for longer than the rub on stuff. A lot of people here will actually give their boards a hot wax and then put a layer of quick rub on wax before they hit the slopes, because the hot wax will better protect the boards overall, but the topcoat of rub on will allow you to get a wax for each specific condition once you know what you'll be riding on. A normal household iron will work for waxing, but you have to be very careful about the temperature, BUT it WILL ruin the iron in terms of using it for clothes. I have a househole iron that is used specifically for waxing my skiboards. To wax your boards with hot wax, basically heat up the iron, and then hold it above the board with a corner of it pointed at the board. Press some wax against the iron so it melts, and drip it along the skiboards. After that spread the wax out by slowly (but not too slowly and never stop moving the iron) move the iron from the tip of the boards to the tail while pressing slightly. This should spread out the wax and smooth it out. Once you have it spread and smoothed across the entire boards, take a scraper and scrape off any excess wax that is on the bottom of the boards. Finish it off with some sort of texturing pad and you're done. If you look on the site G has everything that you would need to wax them, including some kits with instructions on how to do a full tuneup.

[slackercruster]

My favorite hot waxes are Swix CH8 for skiboards and Dakine all temp for my snowboards (because it is a little cheaper and cover more area for the buck) Dakine is nice for SB's as well, but seems to wear off quicker than CH8.

I talk to lots of people on the slopes and always ask them if they hot wax. Almost none of them say they hot wax themselves. Some say they get it waxed once or twice a season at the shop.

I think many snow addicts are confused with the subject of "to wax or not to wax." When you speak of hot wax, this should not be confused in any sense with car wax. (I tired car wax when I was ignorant about hot wax and it did little) They are totally different. Hot wax could better be compared to paint on wood. The paint is applied and fills the wood grain and protects it. If you put on car wax to raw wood you would not get much result. If it is a wood floor, the paint or urethane not only protects the wood, but seals it and makes the surface slippery. But, with use, the paint or wood coating will wear off. Hot wax works the same as paint in this comparison.

Once you learn about hot wax, you can read the bottoms of your boards to see the wax condition. The wax starts to wear from the outer edges inwards and you see the sintered base hairs clearly where the wax is gone. I never liked the rub on cold waxes for as soon as they rub on - they rub off. They offer no filling protection as well. Hot wax fills and the wax becomes the base you ski or board on. But, if you have no other choice go with a quick, cold rub on. With hot wax, you glide on wax and not base. With rub on's you glide on bases that have been slicked slightly. The best way to describe hot wax is to compare it to an air hockey table. The air puck glides on the table with air underneath. This is the feeling I get from fresh hot wax. I can hardly snap into my bindings, as the boards refuse to stay still and move around from the hot wax. When the wax is gone, the boards stay still.

If you hot wax yourself, you will know when the wax is good or not. Many fallacies with waxing. I was told that new skis comes waxed. The truth is many of the ones I bought did not have ANY wax that I can see or feel on them. Once you feel hot waxed skis you'll know what good wax IS. What should you feel? A greasy film is the best description I can give it. As much of the hot wax as possible should be removed and only an impregnation and greasy feel left. Similar to the streak a finger makes when a greasy dish is not washed properly. Leave too much wax on the bases and it goo's up and attacks dirt and slows you down instead of speeding you up. Enough wax should remain to be burnished. Experience will tell you once you start waxing and using you won wax jobs.

Some persons say never remove wax, just keep adding it layer after layer. This is another fallacy. Bases should be striped periodically when the wax gets dirty. I do not strip with each and every wax, but I strip occasionally. A good cheap stripper is Gojo orange hand cleaner with pumice. Just use a damp towel to clean the pumice after stripping. Specialized base cleansers work as well but are expensive. Use cold temp wax generally below 28 degrees or all temp wax if you are lazy about changing it. Dakine all temp is my general wax, and sells for $5 per 60 grams. That is enough to wax 10 pairs of skiboards depending on how conservative you are. If you ski in spring temp, get warm temp wax. They even have race wax that sells for $75 per 40 grams...too rich for my budget. My standard wax is Swix CH8.

Another fallacy I was told is to get skis waxed once or twice a season. The truth - hot wax wears off just after a few hard uses, it can be gone in a couple of days or much sooner. You can see the wear pattern on the wax on the bottoms of your boards. I wax my boards once or twice a week, depending on how much use they get. What about tuning? I was told that the factory tune job is the best the boards will ever get and my boards only need to be tunes once a season? This seems to hold up as true. One thing to be cautions of is this. I got some new imported boards that had the metal edges protected with a clear, hard, gooey covering like clear nail polish. I had to scrape the edges clean before using the boards and hot waxing them myself as well. Once the covering to prevent rust was removed, the boards were in tune.

To test your edges, see if you can scrape some fingernail off with them. If they are sharp and not nicked up, no tuning required. Just make sure your tips are de-tuned so they do not catch. Some shops sharpen it all and only the effective edge needs sharpening for the most part. Tune your boards before waxing, so you do not gum up your files. I generally tune once or twice a season, if that. I have 5 pair of boards, so the wear gets spread around.

Get a good video or book on tuning and waxing. It is not that hard once you get used to it. Buy an old iron at the Goodwill, without steam holes. Spread out some newspaper or kraft paper. clean and strip your bases - if needed, then drip the hot wax on the boards. Spread the wax evenly with the hot iron and cool. Then scrape it off with a Plexiglas scrapper. Use the metal edges as a guide and don't gouge the ptex if you use a metal scraper. Burnish your waxed bases with a cork block, scotch brite pad or similar item. I use scotch brite. You can even use paper towel to burnish with. Make sure there is no wax on your metal edges and that is it in a nutshell. If you are too lazy for any of this then pay your shop to hot wax for you. Just ask to see some of their work first and check out their wax jobs - hopefully you will get a good wax job and then see what all the fuss is about. Some ski shops use a machine to buff the wax off and not hand scrape it so ask if they do it by hand?

If you want to buy hot wax, your proshop sell it as well as basic tools. "Riders Ed" and "Ross Powers Tips and Tricks" DVD's on snowboarding both have a fantastic one hour tuning sections that can be used for any skis or boards. "Warren Millers How to Ski" VHS tape I got from the library also has a good tune section on it. You spend a lot of money on travel and lifts, so get full pleasure from your boards.

Start hot waxing today...it makes an amazing difference.


Dan

[James_Elk]

one of the guys in my office at work is one of those hardcore skiing guru types - i asked him the other day about waxing in general, and told him i was getting new boards this week -
he said first thing that he does with brand new skiis is to give them a hot wax 3 times the first time - apply, cool, scrape, 3 times over.
then hotwax on a per usage basis after that.
i figured sounds like good advice from a guy thats been around the mountains for 30 years so thats what i'm gonna do when i get my revolts this week.

[Klaus]

Some great info there fookisan, many thanks :) Perhaps this should be a sticky...

Klaus

[JonaGold]

do the revolts come with wax on them?

[hugoshi]

quick question with the edge tuners.. I use the ones sold here.. and the plastic part runs along hte base right? it's scratching my bases a little, so I tend to wax my bases before I edge tune, so that theplastic part of the scraper(the plastic, not the file, the plastic part helps guide it so the file is at the right angle) wears away at the wax and not my base

is this right?

[Greco]

they come with a coat of rub on wax and should be hotwaxed whenever you get the chance.

g


Originally posted by JonaGold
do the revolts come with wax on them?

[Mr.H]

I'd say hot waxing after every use is excessive. What I do is hot wax after every 6 or 7 uses with universal swix. This will serve to keep the bases from drying out and keep down any suction on the bases. Then after every 3 or 4 hours of use I do a quick glide wax to keep them slick. This seems to be the best way to do it unless you have a ton of spare time. The optimum would be a complete strip and series of several hot waxes after every use with temp specific on top but we live in quite a fast paced world.

[SkaFreak]

It only takes me about 20 minutes of actual work to wax both of my boards, and that's broken up. Takes me a couple minutes to set everything up and then a few minutes to wax each board. I then let them set for about 15 minutes while I do other stuff to make sure that the wax has cooled. After that I scrape/surface them which takes a few minutes per board as well. I try to wax between every trip but don't always get it done. I never go for more than 2 days of riding without waxing my boards. I also generally ptex any gouges in my bases at the same time as waxing because then I only have to clean it once in order to get both done.

[Anniku]

couldnt you just use some wax paper to cover the bottom of the iron? then you could just use a normal one without messing it up

[Mark]

i have this old ski wax at my house its called kiko or something? theres a green, white and red bar, can i use it ?

[Anniku]

ya i think you can, i think they even sell it here. dont hold me to it tho

[Mr.H]

Anniku, I wouldn't do that wax paper idea cause you dont want to risk getting anything else but ski wax melted into your ski. Just hit a few local garage/yard/esate sales I'm sure you can find an old iron for a few bucks.

Whitedime, If by Kiko you mean Toko then yeah thats a good respectable wax company. If there are no labels on it though, look up the color online and see if you can figure out what it is. Could be race wax, could be temp specific, could be base prep. If it's any kind of ski wax it isn't going to hurt but it might be nice to know what your putting on.

[cacophobia91]

could you use rain-x? the stuff you put on the windsheild of a car.
it makes the water slide off realy well.

[Roussel]

im not sure how well it would be absorbed by the base.

[Mark]

sometimes i tax a cheese grater and scrape all the wax shaving onto the boards then iron, done.

[Roussel]

you could jsut melt the wax on the iron and let it drip onto the bases, then iron over it to spread it out.

[Mark]

Originally posted by Roussel
you could jsut melt the wax on the iron and let it drip onto the bases, then iron over it to spread it out.

i know :)

[psychkub]

I just recently waxed some skiboards with a regular iron that was covered by two peices of foil surrounding the heating element. I just made sure there were no creases in the foil and it worked great and no wax got on the base of the iron, so you can still use it for clothes.

[mylam]

I got the Briko HRC Hardener wax. According to the manual, it has to be heated at a temperature higher than 200C. Should I take off the binding (mine is a FFPro) before waxing?

[psychkub]

Originally posted by mylam
I got the Briko HRC Hardener wax. According to the manual, it has to be heated at a temperature higher than 200C. Should I take off the binding (mine is a FFPro) before waxing?

I don't see why you would need to take off the bindings. You should alwasy keep the iron moving on the base to avoid burning it. A friend of mine once told me that a good rule of thumb is that if you can feel the warmth on the top sheet with your hand, then you've held the iron in one place for too long. Just keep it moving and I think you should be fine.

[psychkub]

Originally posted by mylam
I got the Briko HRC Hardener wax. According to the manual, it has to be heated at a temperature higher than 200C. Should I take off the binding (mine is a FFPro) before waxing?

I don't see why you would need to take off the bindings. You should alwasy keep the iron moving on the base to avoid burning it. A friend of mine once told me that a good rule of thumb is that if you can feel the warmth on the top sheet with your hand, then you've held the iron in one place for too long. Just keep it moving and I think you should be fine.

[bloodshot]

Originally posted by psychkub
I just recently waxed some skiboards with a regular iron that was covered by two peices of foil surrounding the heating element. I just made sure there were no creases in the foil and it worked great and no wax got on the base of the iron, so you can still use it for clothes.

good idea, thanks. I have a cheap iron because i don't want to use my mom's but I had trouble using it because of the holes. maybe this'll fix it.

[TheCrazyKid]

When running the iron over your boards and spreading out the wax, you want to be ON the boards right? And how fast do u want the iron to be moving.
Thanks!

[psychkub]

Originally posted by TheCrazyKid
When running the iron over your boards and spreading out the wax, you want to be ON the boards right? And how fast do u want the iron to be moving.
Thanks!

Yeah, when I do it, the iron is set to setting number 3... it's warm enough to melt the wax, but not make it smoke. Having the iron on will facilitate melting the wax on the boards and infusing it with the base. As for how fast to keep the iron moving, I usually do it slow enough so that the wax droplets re-melt, but not slow enough so that I begin to feel the warmth of the iron on the opposite of the boards. it's all trial and error, as long as you don't hold the iron in one space for too long you should be fine.

[Mark]

ski irons are only like 35.00

don't get your mammies all upset :)

[SkaFreak]

Ideally just keep the iron moving very slowly. Like psychkub said, if you feel the opposite side getting warm, you're going too slow. I've also had my boards make a poping sound when I went too slow, which can't be good, although I never had any problems with those boards. Got some EMP's for Christmas though, so my M7's are now retired for those days when there isn't quite enough snow, or to loan to friends.

[joshington]

i found this online http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG7d05DhiBQ but it makes no sense because no sound. can anyone make a shorter/ better youtube video that shows how to do it?

edit: nevermind i guess its not that bad. cool.

[airdonut41]

Hey guys, just got EMPs and need to know if it is necessary to wax them before I go out. I'm in PA and our snow sucks. If so, should I go all out and buy the kit (how often will I use the stuff in it)? Should I just take them to a ski shop? Which kit is best if I just want to care for my boards so they don't get messed up? Should I get some quick wax like Zardoz in addition to hot wax or just try to hot wax as often as possible? I'm on a pretty tight budget and want to spend a minimum; I plan to try the aluminum foil on the iron method.

Will this kit cut it?

Thanks,
Dan

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dakine-DeluxeTune-Tuning-Kit-Ski-or-Snowboard_W0QQitemZ140068720668QQihZ004QQcategoryZ 62170QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://)

Note:
I'd go with the RC kit from SBOL, but there aren't any.

[nate]

As g has said in other topics, the Revel8's come with a factory coat of hot wax and will be fine for a while.

[airdonut41]

My major question is, how long is a while?
Right now it's seeming like I should just buy the kit (the dakine deluxe one on ebay seems like enough bang for the buck).

[nate]

You'll have to get someone else to answer that one, because I'm afraid I'm new to the sport too and don't know much about how long the wax will last.

[airdonut41]

We have a local shop that does this kinda stuff. I think I'm gonna take my boards to them for their first waxing to make sure they're done right and then do it myself after that. Hopefully the aluminum foil on the iron works :-)

[airdonut41]

I found the perfect video guide on all things relating to skiboard maintenance (hot waxing, base filing, etc.).
Swix School (http://www.swixschool.com)

Dan

[rob12]

I use race paste it is easy to out on. but.. you have to do it more offen

[Manlenium]

anyone know the deal with the powder stuff you sprinkle on after waxing???? what's the purpose ?? does it harden the wax??

[Manlenium]

Originally posted by DMataic
Alright, so i am new at the whole waxing thing, and i was wondering what wax you recomended for a beginner, and just how to apply the wax.

And, i saw that they sell waxing irons here, do you have to use those or can you use any kind of iron you have laying around the house?


Thanks,
Dane

You can buy a cover for your household iron. Look in local thrift shops. Its basically a flat peice that covers the iron. The holes will fuck up your boards.

[evanthehunter]

am I supposed to leave a layer of wax on it? or scrape it all off? Im using a metal scraper, is that bad?

[Greco]

no you're supposed to remove as much wax as you can with the scraper and then buff the remaining wax fully into the base. and metal scrapers are only for base repair. for waxing you should be using a plastic scraper so as not to damage your bases.

g

[evanthehunter]

k thx, ill try to find a plastic scraper.

[Greco]

we have some but not on the site until just now. i just added this for ya...

http://www.skiboardsonline.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SBOL&Product_Code=purl_scraper

[evanthehunter]

Alright, I waxed and scraped them ad I think I did an ok job. is there anyway to see if I did it right?

[Greco]

i'm sure you did it right....

drip wax, scrape wax, buff wax...

and the more you do it the easier it gets and the better the outcome.

g

[Mark]

should have a slight sheen at the end.

this video i made might help

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2BUQKBeDGw

[evanthehunter]

Originally posted by Mark
should have a slight sheen at the end.

this video i made might help

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2BUQKBeDGw

Thx that helped alot. Im going to wax em again:)

[Manlenium]

Wow this post is rocking...I think this post is number one viewed post ever. 4090 hits

[dig]

extremely helpful. that youtube vid is money. thanks guys.

[nate]

The vid is so relaxing...