Gliding Waxing Race Skis

Fast Wax Tip

Tue, Dec  4, 2007 - By Dan Meyer

Detailed Waxing Instructions for Waxing Race Skis

1. Open the Skis Base

Aggressively brush the ski base from tip to tail with medium metal brush. This will open the ski base clean out wax and dirt and allow better wax penetration of the new wax.

2. Remove Base Hairs

Brush the ski from tip to tail using a White Scotchbrite Pad wrapped over a Speed Block or a flat cork. This is to keep Scotchbrite pad flat and prevent it rounding off the ski edges.

Next, use a razor tool held at a 90° angle to the ski and lightly scrape the ski several times to remove the fine base hairs. Check the razor blade edge after each pass and repeat until no gray fillings are left on the razor

3. Hot Wax Process

Using a ski waxing iron, drip a generous amount of Base Prep wax onto the ski base and iron in from tip to tail. The wax will act as an insulator, a generous layer helps keep the iron off the skis base, use about one drip every 1/2 inch, more if you are inexperienced.

When ironing in the wax, draw the iron down the ski holding a molten bead of wax about 2 to 3 inches behind the iron, and always keep the iron moving. If necessary a second pass can pick up any places that are missed.

4. Hot Scrape

Hot scrape and brush out the skis for an additional cleaning. Then repeat step 3 and allow the ski to cool to room temperature before scraping

5. Scraping off the Wax

Scrape the grove with a grove tool and clean off the edges while the ski is still warm. Then let the ski cool slowly to room temperature before scraping the bases

Scrape the wax off using short easy strokes again working from tip to tail until all the wax is removed.

(Tip) Use a sharp scraper and keep it sharp. A scraper sharpener makes it easy to give the scraper a few passes each time before scraping.

6. Brushing out the ski

Several options here:

• If you are experienced: A fine metal brush or a roto brush can shorten the brushing process, the tendency here, however, is to over brush the ski with these tools and remove too much wax, so proceed cautiously when using metal brushes or power tools after waxing.
• Preferred, use a Nylon brush followed by a horse hair brush. When it appears no further wax is being removed stop.

6. Repeat steps 3 to 5

7. Waxing System

The Fast wax system is to layer up the ski with wax starting with Base Prep and go to an under layer of the Sport wax followed Low Fluoro or High Fluoro waxes depending on conditions

Wax Example for Humid Conditions (Recommendations for the 2007 Birkie):

• Hot Scrape Base Prep
• 1 Layer of HS-30 Red
• 2 Layers of HSF-30 Salmon
• Flite corked or ironed in over the top the HSF-30 Salmon

For extremely Humid condition an added layer of Flite 11 will improve speed significantly.

Take the guesswork out of selecting the optimal wax of the day: Use the FastWax WaxMaster !