Curious: What wax are you using skiing Blue?

[indiggio]

Yesterday was an interesting day at Blue:

 

Starts out with a nice coating of powder, which brings my unwaxed skis to a grinding halt.

 

After a couple hours, "Powder" gets skied off and down to hard-pack, boilerplate and skis run as usual.

 

After a couple more hours, base is warming up and have to pole to get to 6-pack.

 

With this temperature range, what would you all recommend for a base wax?

 

Do you use a rub-on glider? (Oh boy, can't wait for the responses to this one...)

 

Thx

[poconovfr]

Man I've run a lot of different waxes in lots of different conditions/situations and IMO unless you're a high level racer and trying to shave tenths of a second....

If you're an all-mountain skier on all-mountain boards in all-mountain conditions, use a universal wax. The most important thing is to keep the sticks waxed. Sure there are literally hundreds of variations to be had including rub on types.

I have access to several different types and temp ranges and unless it's super cold I'll iron in universal. They glide just fine for me.

[sibhusky]

For that day, I'd use red wax as the general wax, but put some CH4 or at least some green wax along the edges. Make sure your structure is fresh and not all worn down. Given you're not waxing, you've probably let that go as well. If your structure is actually good, then maybe some fluoro is needed, but I usually stay away from that stuff. Sounds like spring conditions. :-(

[RootDKJ]

http://www.racewax.com/p-392-racewax-all-temperature-universal-fluoro-ski-snowboard-wax-40-g.aspx

[mbike-ski]

http://www.racewax.com/p-392-racewax-all-temperature-universal-fluoro-ski-snowboard-wax-40-g.aspx

Yup, actually running the racewax all temp hydro. Only the race skis get the flouro

Edited January 19, 2014 by mbike-ski

[RootDKJ]

Yup, actually running the racewax all temp hydro. Only the race skis get the flouro

I use the red/green for hydro. I also have the red/green flouro. The Bacons have the green flouro on them today. I wouldn't buy the red flouro again, as the white seems to do just as well in the warm stuff. I use the white if I'm headed out of town and I don't want to have to do anything to them for a few days.

[Johnny Law]

First use an iron or a hotbox or its a waste of time. Fluro may not make any sense as there is some literature that shows it only hangs around for about 500 vert however if it does its only a race thing. Your not gaining anything for the loot.

 

Go hydro and most importantly change your base structure from crosshatch to linear. Base structure is way more important than wax.

 

While you're at it go to a 3 bevel

[sibhusky]

 

not spring conditions

Fine, sounds like our spring conditions. Fresh snow over hard corn in AM, skied to hard pack in the lower mountain by lunch, then slop in the PM. Hard to find the right wax. Generally solves itself in a week.

[AtomicSkier]

I use the same wax all the time, and have pretty fast skis. Toast now has a pair of my skis that have 20+ waxings from me and they're fast as shit. Saturated bases > the "right" wax IMO.

[sibhusky]

Let me know how fast they are when it's minus ten.

[AtomicSkier]

Let me know how fast they are when it's minus ten.

 

we have totally different conditions when it's 0F than you do. snow in PA is rarely ever squeaky, as it is frequently in cold conditions out west. 0F conditions could be total sugar here.

[sibhusky]

Yes, sometimes it's like skiing on sand here.

[thedude4bides]

Agree with others that universal will be as good as it gets for days with changing conditions like that. Also agree that you should re-structure your bases if you haven't done so in a while. I find this stuff is good in a pinch as a rub on:

 

http://www.swixsport.com/eway/imgstore/32fc3213ae.jpg

 

I have also played with the liquid teflon. I wouldn't recommend it as it doesn't last long and you become a crack fiend with it trying to get a fix every two or three runs... but yeah, with liquid teflon freshly on it's hard to even stand in place it's so slick.

Edited January 20, 2014 by thedude4bides

[thedude4bides]

When you go to a ski shop for a base grind do they restructure the base?

Short answer is yes.

 

Careful with Blue's tune shop, I have had two grinds there. One after the 11/12 season and one after the 12/13 season. This season I hit a rock at Killington in november and it went completely through the ptex, which was very thin. Way too thin for only two grinds. Upon further inspection the metal edge itself was a lot thinner under foot (where the rock damage was) then it was at the tip and tail. I don't know if it was a fluke or what happened at Blue...but the tune shop at Bear Creek who patched my base (and did a damn good job btw) had to hand tune the structure in the affected area because the ptex in the base is too thin. The life of Ski I bought brand new in 2012 is down to nothing... this is it. One more base grind and they are done. Now I have bought base flattening tools and structure tools and will be doing this type of work myself.

 

Best to find a good hand tuner...

Edited January 20, 2014 by thedude4bides

[sibhusky]

I only have a base grind every other year and even then tell them only enough to freshen the structure. You don't need all your scratches taken out. Just think of them as open structure!

[guitar73]

i use glide-on wax from slidewright.com. it's not expensive and works pretty well. the wax comes in differnt colors. i typicaly use the yellow for base prep, purple for typical mid-winter weather, and red for spring conditions.

[thedude4bides]

The amount you ski I wouldn't think your skis would last much beyond two years. You on something rockered?

 

Approximately how many days do you have on those skis?

I'd guess somewhere north of 75. They lost their life after the first season I had them. Then they became my bump skis. I actually just sold them today for $125. I have the 12/13 model as my daily now (soon to be my bump skis as I'll be taking the shrink wrap off the 13/14 this week).

[sibhusky]

When I had a job my skis wore out every 100 days. Now that I'm unemployed, it's amazing how long they last. Oldest pair has 155 days. Next pair has 197 (whoa, didn't know they were that bad..). Newest pair has 38 days.

[sibhusky]

Not sure. These things are so gradual, you know. I was using them today and the edge wasn't holding well, but I'm sure it just needs tuning. Could possibly be a sign of a loss of stiffness, though. Things are a bit firmed up lately due to ten days of no snow. Brought them home to be worked on, so will report back on the results Thursday. They still have camber. Bases and edges have plenty of material. They're my skinny skis, so normally only use them early season. This year's a mess weather-wise. Tons of snow and frigid temps early then no snow and blue sky for January. Crazy!

[thedude4bides]

SkierProblems..

It's a hard life...

[Johnny Law]

Short answer is yes.

 

Careful with Blue's tune shop, I have had two grinds there. One after the 11/12 season and one after the 12/13 season. This season I hit a rock at Killington in november and it went completely through the ptex, which was very thin. Way too thin for only two grinds. Upon further inspection the metal edge itself was a lot thinner under foot (where the rock damage was) then it was at the tip and tail. I don't know if it was a fluke or what happened at Blue...but the tune shop at Bear Creek who patched my base (and did a damn good job btw) had to hand tune the structure in the affected area because the ptex in the base is too thin. The life of Ski I bought brand new in 2012 is down to nothing... this is it. One more base grind and they are done. Now I have bought base flattening tools and structure tools and will be doing this type of work myself.

 

Best to find a good hand tuner...

 

Lazy fuckers who don't know how to really tune a ski will grind those bases down rather than run ptex to fill in the medium shit. Buckman's is the king of this shit. My cousin had a pair of volkl bridges with like 2 days on them, he dry docked them at Basin and needed alot of ptex, fucker's instead of laying down some metalmelt and ptex ground those fuckers down to nearly no base.

 

You have to be real careful with grinds, dude's around here generally don't know what they are doing. Blue's wax and edge dealio is pretty good, I tested them out last week and it was equal to what I would have done.

 

It's pretty easy to do all this shit yourself, if you have a little $$ and time you can pick it up quick.

[indiggio]

Should you fill in little gouges?

 

Will that melt-in stuff allow the wax to soak in like the real ptex base does?

 

I've heard conflicting reports.

[Justo8484]

blue did the same thing to my skis too. it's scenarios like this when i really miss nestors. big scratches should be filled in with ptex, not just ground out. they just took my skis, ran them over the grinder a few times until most of the scratches were gone, and called it a day. i plan on getting my bases done again before i head out west next, but i'll make sure to fill in anything major myself this time around before handing them off.

[Johnny Law]

Should you fill in little gouges?

 

Will that melt-in stuff allow the wax to soak in like the real ptex base does?

 

I've heard conflicting reports.

 

No, the metal stuff just adheres better to metal than regular ptex.

 

The wax deal is very interesting, in nordic skiing its often is the major factor in a race. One of the Eastern Euro teams conducted a study and found that wax shouldn't work as the molecule size is much larger than the holes in the base material UHWMWPE. That's weird because everyone knows a well waxed ski is faster. Wax/base structure is perhaps surprisingly scientific and something is going on there that isn't really all that well understood.

 

All base material is generally the same, Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene or UHWMPE is the primary ingredient. You can add things in but that really only comes into play in super high end race skis, shit like graphite is common but pretty much anything you can think of has been tried.

 

You take your UHWMPE pellets and then either melt them into bases or force them under high pressure, this is extruded vs sintered. Melting or extrusion makes very tough but slower bases and thus are used in low end rental fleets or snowboards. Sintered is faster but softer, this is due to the structure of the material. Think of a honeycomb, in extruded, it's 60% closed and 40% open space whereas sintered is the opposite, wax cannot enter the closed areas and thus part of the reason extruded is slower.

 

Skis in principal work in the same way ice skates do though skates use pressure, the base generates friction and thus melts a microscopic layer of snow into water, which is what creates glide, obviously if the base material can soak in water that's bad news so generally the hole size in base material is smaller than the molecular size of water. Extruded bases can violate this rule to some extent because performance is not the goal there. Graphics can also create differences, sublimated graphics cannot work with extruded bases and die cut if done poorly can create very slow bases (OG Armada J&J had this issue)

 

Base structure is a pattern imprinted if you will on the base material, snow in the east is generally very hard and fast and thus the default in most area shops is crosshatch or kind of like X's, the opposite is linear or lines in-line with the travel of the ski. Linear is much faster and shines out west when the snow is dry.

 

If your anal you should fill all scratches that are above a couple thousands of an inch, really the shallower they are the easier it is to do. If they are pow skis who really cares I mean you could run a 2x4 in deep enough pow and be pretty happy. Ptex is different than UHWMPE, ptex is softer and can't hold wax, if you are somewhat skilled in base repair Tognar sells patch material, in which you cut out a section of damaged base and epoxy in a new section or material. This shit is roughly equivalent to UHWMPE and can hold wax but you need some basic skills. Ptex also comes in a variety of formats, the burn candles suck as they almost always generate carbon, Ptex string is good shit though softer than ptex ribbon. Ptex ribbon is tough shit and generally the best choice though it can be tough to work with and you can't use a base welder gun as far as I know.

 

My best advice though remains the same, at the very least learn about how this shit works so when you go to the shop you can be a hard ass about what it is you want. If you have 100$ spare bucks buy some shit and figure out how to do it yourself, it isn't that hard, shop employees are mostly young men, young men who are bored and that means drunk and/or high if they can do this shit so can you.

[jordan]

I wax my skis MAYBE once a year