waxing

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Postby wasmith » Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:15 pm

Had a chance to play around this last weekend (Wife was in California visting the grand kids). It was just fun to wax the skis. Did not have the e-mail about the paper towel trick so I went without it. I'll try again when I am home again.

Here's my question of the day. What about corking and when should you be using the cork block, before brushing or after???

(Wow those skis look really good right now, now all I need is some snow to ski on.)
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Postby Max_501 » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:33 am

You don't need the cork block when hot waxing with an iron.

Don't use a normal household paper towel when waxing or fibers from the towel will get stuck on the wax. They make special paper towels that are lint free and they work well for this purpose.

The cork block is used when you need to manually melt the wax into the skis. First you rub the wax on your skis and then your 'melt' the wax into your skis by rubbing the wax with the cork block. I tried it once and I was so tired when I finished that I wanted to take a nap instead of skiing.
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Postby wasmith » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:17 pm

Thanks for the information. I'll stick with my travel iron for those home waxiing of ski's. I'll keep the cork for when I travel, or my kids piss me off and I need them to do a little WAX ON, WAX OFF.
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Postby Hobbit » Thu Oct 27, 2005 6:23 pm

Max_501 wrote:You don't need the cork block when hot waxing with an iron.

Don't use a normal household paper towel when waxing or fibers from the towel will get stuck on the wax. They make special paper towels that are lint free and they work well for this purpose.

The cork block is used when you need to manually melt the wax into the skis. First you rub the wax on your skis and then your 'melt' the wax into your skis by rubbing the wax with the cork block. I tried it once and I was so tired when I finished that I wanted to take a nap instead of skiing.


Max,

I was not describing the race ski waxing / preparation. I think we need to have a disclaimer about it. My criteria are how long the wax lasts and how good the wax matches for the snow conditions. The special paper is expensive and is mostly used for melting in the expensive fluro waxes or temperature/weather specific waxes on top of the base wax layer. The base layer must be hot waxed. I believe that corking in the wax is done in the similar situations and requires a hot wax base layer as well. Corking in the wax on the dry base is meaningless.

So not being a racer and a waxing purist, the Bounty brand paper towels work great for me. My experience is that wax applied with the paper towel lasts much longer. Lately I switched to the Hertel HotSause all temp wax so I don?t do two step waxing any more.
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Postby wasmith » Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:16 am

So here's my take on the paper towels now. Correct me if I am wrong. It seems that the paper towel trick is used as a medium to draw out imbeded dirt and other gunk by using the hot wax as a transfer medium to put the bad stuff on the paper. Use the paper towel trick with new skis prior to use and maybe a couple of times a year to clean your bases. This also leaves a base wax so that you can blend in other waxes on subsequent coatings.

BYW I've found that all temp waxes don't work really well when it gets cold (below -5F). Wost day after a new wax of my skis was in Tahoe when we started out at -12F. I had used an all temp wax the night before and my skis grabbed so bad for the first 3-4 runs until it warmed up to about -5F.

Wax on, Wax off ... It snowing at Alta, its snowing at Alta.

I WANT to GO PLAY!!!!!


was on , wax off....
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Postby Max_501 » Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:56 pm

>Corking in the wax on the dry base is meaningless.

From Tognar, "Use a cork to rub in wax when you don't have (or want to use) a wax iron. After rubbing wax or fluoro additives on a base, tip the cork up on one edge and rub hard with some healthy elbow grease...this action will create heat that melts wax into the p-tex base."

>I was not describing the race ski waxing / preparation

Neither was I. That's far too much waxing for me to even consider.

Tognar has fiber free paper for about 14 cents a sheet. I think a small cost when you consider no paper fibers which I definitely don't want in my wax job.

>My experience is that wax applied with the paper towel lasts much longer.

Now that is interesting. How long does your wax last using this method?

I have waxed with and without paper towels. My use was to remove excess hot wax on the final pass with the iron. At this point I no longer use paper towels as I don't have that much excess wax on the skis after ironing (after a bunch of waxings you get a feel for how much wax you need to use, so you don't have as much scraping to do).
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Postby Hobbit » Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:27 pm

Max,

I disagree with what Tognar writes regarding corking. Maybe it?s applicable to racing but I doubt it. Reading the brand manuals (like Swix, etc) I always see the corking done only after the hot wax application and scraping / brushing. The corked in wax needs to melt in with the base wax layer. If the base layer is not there the wax would not last long.

I think that the wax job durability estimates are subjective since the wax wear depends on the snow conditions. But in general waxing without paper towel lasts on average one day for me, while when using the paper it lasts from 2 to 3 skiing days. I think it?s a combination of many factors. Some base melting is probably happening anyway since you have to re-structure the bases once in a while so that they take the wax better. Waxing with the towel never exposes the bases to the contact with bare hot metal so the micro pores in the base live longer in my opinion.. This is similar to how the tailors press the pure wool suite. If you use the cold iron it does not work, if you use the hot iron, it burns the wool. So they press through the dump cotton cloth and got the job done. Same principle here with the paper towel and wax.
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Postby Max_501 » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:48 am

>while when using the paper it lasts from 2 to 3 skiing days

Bummer! I was hoping it was longer than that. I already get 2 to 3 days without using the paper towel.
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Postby Belskisfast » Sun Oct 30, 2005 10:18 am

I also use the "paper towel" trick. I use it on my last few passes with the iron, only to absorb some of the wax and make scraping eaiser and less messy. I do use it as well for the hot scrape cleaning method and find it is good for drawing out the embeded dirt...at least I think it is perhaps the dirt is just more visable on the paper. I agree with Max and only use the specialty paper... Swix I think, and avoid Kitchen paper towels. The blue stuff from Reliable Racing is good too.
I usually wax our skis every other ski day, and tune every other waxing. Hot scrape is done every third waxing except in the Spring when I do it every other waxing. Spring snow is really dirty...at least here in Tahoe. I also agree with Max here, and never use solvent on the bases. I do use solvent to clean up side walls and top skin and clean brushes and scrapers...works great...only Citrus type.
I started using some overlay waxes last season and liked the results. Graphite wax combined with temperture specific waxes was giving me nice results, and lasting/preforming longer.
You simply cannot brush your skis enough after a wax job... WC tuners say they wax for hours on end...begin with a good steel brush before waxing to open up the bases too.
I also try to let the wax set up for 45min to an hour before scraping.

I'll be waxing next week as we JUST PICKED UP OUR NEW SKIS..IM 88 AND FAST THANG SL'S :D
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