Base prep new skis with wax and just use liquid for rest of season?

[jt10000]

Decided that I will use base cleaner to remove factory wax, instead of hotwaxing.

This is pointless. Removing wax with base cleaner might be appropriate if the wax is dirty or you're trying to de-fluoro the base, but if not just scrape it off, brush a little, and wax over it. It's fine to have old, good wax under newer wax.

While burning/melting bases is an issue, I worry you don't know what you are doing in terms of temperatures. Unless you stick only to the softest waxes, you are certainly going to be waxing over 100C.

That heat is necessary to melt the wax, and as long as that energy is going into transforming solid wax to liquid, your skis will be OK.

The iron should be HOT - so hot the wax readily melts (but doesn't smoke) - and moving on a layer of wax, so it does not actually touch the base. You should see 2-5 inches of molten wax behind the iron as you move it. Keep the iron moving (one direction is best - people who move the iron back and forth sometimes can get distracted and leave the iron in one place). Do not reheat liquid wax - as long as its liquid its being absorbed, so you can wait a few seconds or even half a minute before another pass with the iron. With nordic skis 2 to 4 passes is enough for a layer of wax, and I suspect that is true for alpine skis.

I've seen beginner try to keep the iron pretty cool to protect their bases, but that's dangerous - it results in them moving the iron slowly and the wax going on bumpy, which increases the risk of burning the base. Have the iron hot so the wax turns to liquid fast, and move quickly.

With new nordic skis that had not been hotboxed, I'd do many layers before skiing on them. At least four to six: two or three very soft, maybe a couple medium, and a couple hard. Then wax of the day.

I urge you to watch some videos on hotwaxing, such as from Swix. This is nordic, but note how fast the wax liquifies and speed which this guy moves. That will protect your bases.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

This is pointless. Removing wax with base cleaner might be appropriate if the wax is dirty or you're trying to de-fluoro the base, but if not just scrape it off, brush a little, and wax over it. It's fine to have old, good wax under newer wax.

Ok good point. So it's sort of like already base prepped. So no need to strip that factory wax, which we can assume is the cheapest base prep wax like bp99 that a ski manufacturer orders in bulk.

I might go a bit ocd and just strip that factory/base prep wax and wax it with the wax I bought because a.) I can be sure it's base prep wax (I mean who knows what kind of wax the factory wax is?) and b.) I don't have anything better to do as we're locked down for the next 2 weeks

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

While burning/melting bases is an issue, I worry you don't know what you are doing in terms of temperatures. Unless you stick only to the softest waxes, you are certainly going to be waxing over 100C.

That heat is necessary to melt the wax, and as long as that energy is going into transforming solid wax to liquid, your skis will be OK.

The iron should be HOT - so hot the wax readily melts (but doesn't smoke) - and moving on a layer of wax, so it does not actually touch the base. You should see 2-5 inches of molten wax behind the iron as you move it. Keep the iron moving (one direction is best - people who move the iron back and forth sometimes can get distracted and leave the iron in one place). Do not reheat liquid wax - as long as its liquid its being absorbed, so you can wait a few seconds or even half a minute before another pass with the iron. With nordic skis 2 to 4 passes is enough for a layer of wax, and I suspect that is true for alpine skis.

I've seen beginner try to keep the iron pretty cool to protect their bases, but that's dangerous - it results in them moving the iron slowly and the wax going on bumpy, which increases the risk of burning the base. Have the iron hot so the wax turns to liquid fast, and move quickly.

With new nordic skis that had not been hotboxed, I'd do many layers before skiing on them. At least four to six: two or three very soft, maybe a couple medium, and a couple hard. Then wax of the day.

I urge you to watch some videos on hotwaxing, such as from Swix. This is nordic, but note how fast the wax liquifies and speed which this guy moves. That will protect your bases.

Thanks for the advise, it mirrors the waxing advise in this swix seminar, which I've probably watched 4 or 5 times already. My shopping cart, particularly the brushes, actually mirrors the seminar presenter's tool recommendations lol (53:20).


I think it's pretty straight forward, drip the wax using correct temp (130C for PS8), make a single pass for 8-10 seconds, not stopping or rubbing the iron along the way, and then make another 8-10 second pass. Easy peasy. On mark 42 minutes

 

[cantunamunch]

I think it's pretty straight forward, drip the wax using correct temp (130C for PS8), make a single pass for 8-10 seconds, not stopping or rubbing the iron along the way, and then make another 8-10 second pass. Easy peasy. On mark 42 minutes

He is working with a quite narrow ski (considerably narrower than the iron baseplate) that is also quite warm beforehand (you can tell by the drip splash size and how quickly it wets the ski).

If yours doesn't go as smoothly or as instantly, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Wider and colder skis will take longer to bring up to temperature and to get the wax to evenly distribute. If you start getting fish eyes or if the wax is being pulled by the iron more than it sticks to the ski, the ski is not quite at proper working temp yet.

 

[KingGrump]

Decided that I will use base cleaner to remove factory wax, instead of hotwaxing, based on what I read about Ptex 4504 having a melting point above 100C.


View attachment 136808

There are slight differences between ">" and "=".

If you are reading ">" as "equal" and set your iron accordingly. You may experience difficulties with the Swix PS8 you have on the bench. Even the softer PS10 will still be a pain.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

He is working with a quite narrow ski (considerably narrower than the iron baseplate) that is also quite warm beforehand (you can tell by the drip splash size and how quickly it wets the ski).

If yours doesn't go as smoothly or as instantly, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Wider and colder skis will take longer to bring up to temperature and to get the wax to evenly distribute. If you start getting fish eyes or if the wax is being pulled by the iron more than it sticks to the ski, the ski is not quite at proper working temp yet.

Does bringing up the room temperature to 27C (the highest temp I can set my AC) for an hour help any with making the skis warm?

Good point about the ski width. I wonder if ironing the ski at an angle near the tip and tail help with heat distribution and maintaining the temp of the iron? Like so:

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

There are slight differences between ">" and "=".

If you are reading ">" as "equal" and set your iron accordingly. You may experience difficulties with the Swix PS8 you have on the bench. Even the softer PS10 will still be a pain.

View attachment 136815 View attachment 136816

No I meant Ptex 4504 has a melting point above 100C. So if I wax with PS10 @ 120C and then hot scrape, there's a chance that the scraper will scrape bits of the Ptex as the surface temp of the ptex during hot wax could be over 100C as it was just passed over by a 120C iron.

 

[cantunamunch]

Does bringing up the room temperature to 27C (the highest temp I can set my AC) for an hour help any with making the skis warm?

Nowhere nearly as productive as making extra passes with the iron. In fact, better leave the room cold - the ski cools better and the scraping is better that way.

Good point about the ski width. I wonder if ironing the ski at an angle near the tip and tail help with heat distribution and maintaining the temp of the iron? Like so:

For my own part, wiggling the iron is fine, anywhere along the ski.

No I meant Ptex 4504 has a melting point above 100C. So if I wax with PS10 @ 120C and then hot scrape, there's a chance that the scraper will scrape bits of the Ptex as the surface temp of the ptex during hot wax could be over 100C as it was just passed over by a 120C iron.

Hot scraping takes ptex off - it's a cost of doing business, even at the lowest possible iron temps. If you think about a ski that is mirror flat to the inside corners of the edges before it is heated, and consider that ptex expands more than steel, you will see that it was always going to be so.

Cold scraping is not as aggressive on the ptex.

 

[KingGrump]

The real question is how much above. Carbon steel as well has a melting point above 100°C. I have no issue hitting a steel fixture with a propane torch.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

The real question is how much above. Carbon steel as well has a melting point above 100°C. I have no issue hitting a steel fixture with a propane torch.

Yeah a bit lazy for ptex corp to just say >100 lol. I'm sure they have labs and proper equipment to give us the real exact number.

 

[cantunamunch]

Yeah a bit lazy for ptex corp to just say >100 lol. I'm sure they have labs and proper equipment to give us the real exact number.

Don't forget that it's partially crosslinked to almost crystalline and partially amorphous - and exact numbers are only exact for wholly crystalline materials. Sometimes not even that *cough*water ice*cough*

And then the ski maker has to flame or plasma treat the back side to get it to bond to the rest of the ski. And then the whole thing goes through a heated hydraulic press, with process-dependent changes to the crystalline domains. There is absolutely no guarantee that what you see has the same properties as what the ptex company sold.

 

[KingGrump]

Yeah a bit lazy for ptex corp to just say >100 lol. I'm sure they have labs and proper equipment to give us the real exact number.

I spent a good chunk of my life in the construction business. We usually have multiple binders full of MSDS. Everything that is presented on the job site is in there somewhere. Including everyday stuff like sand, air and water. The primary purpose of the MSDS is for use by EMTs for emergency medical treatments.

Waxing skis is not rocket science. Unless ones wants it to be. A common sense approach is all that is needed.

Temps.
Iron temp is usually printed on the wax box.
Let the iron come up to temp or give it time to cool down.

If the wax starts to smoke. Stop.
Check to make sure you have the right wax from the right box. Check the iron setting. If everything checks out then either the thermostat or the read out (digital or analog) is screwed. Sometimes both.

Never let the iron touch bare ptex.
Keep the iron moving. A 6" to 8" molten wax trail behind the iron is a good indicator.
Touch the top sheet of the ski at the tip and tail (the side without the molten wax) when the iron get to the tip and tail. If it feels warm. It's about time to stop.
If you can see the keyways of the metal edge through the ptex. It's about time to stop.
If you can see the keyways of the metal edge through the ptex and the wax in between still have not melted yet. Your skis are probably edge high.

Use a slightly dull plastic scraper when hot scraping. Don't bear down on it.
I see you have fiberlene on the bench. Use it. It will make wax scraping a much more pleasant experience.
For cold scraping. Use a sharp plastic scraper. Doesn't matter whether you push or pull. Whatever feels comfortable to you. Don't try to scrape off all the wax in one pass. Take thin shaving cuts. You are allow multiple passes. Let the tool work. No need to bear down on the scraper.

Good luck.

 

[raytseng]

Just as many of these threads go, my take is I think you are overthinking it.

Go ahead and just follow the basic youtube videos.

Eventually your personal tuning technique has to come from hands-on experience rather than just academic study; you'll find which steps and techniques work/don't work for you. More than just a black/white it works/doesn't work; there is also a scale of which steps take too much time for minimal or no difference and aren't worth it for the "perfect" technique; vs just doing a faster shortcut technique more frequently.

Remember your original post was all about optimizing TIME and EFFORT into your question on liquid spray wax; how many hours spent researching tuning vs just getting on with it.

However, I'll give you a couple tips on the discussion questions you brought up:

Regarding the iron temp though:
A) there is definitely a school of thought that you need to wax with higher temp so you can melt and move wax fast as a surface technique rather than deep technique; Counterintuitively, the hot iron results in less heat transfer to the ptex; plus you're not there all day.
B) This is in contrast to the technique of low and slow who want to maximize the wax-molten time; and push more heat into the ptex base; along the premise of hot-boxing your skis.

If your main concern is about overheating the ptex; I'd suggest what you actually want is the the hotter iron technique that quickly melts the wax (A); so you can work FAST and spread the wax; minimizing iron time instead and not running into issues of having to pause your iron to melt wax lumps.

Even if you wanted the (B) deep technique, unless you have a hotbox; I think you maybe better served with more fast wax cycles of (A) or even a cool, remelt; versus doing a single slow deep cycle.

If you're a cook, this is similar conversation to searing a steak vs slow cooking it.

Regarding your iron orientation question; my thoughts are you are better off not intentionally spinning the iron as you go. If there is any imperfection or dirt in the iron or in the ski edge, this will put a diagonal or curved scratch either into the base or iron.
The iron does push wax along somewhat. Think of it like a sponge wiping a table (especially with fiberlene technique). if it doesn't cover the width width, you can consider going in a rectangular loop pattern and push the wax back the other way in the next pass back.
I sometimes pretend it's a zamboni which in essense is also a surfacing machine.


Ultimately, all of this is up to you; and the small optimizations are very likely to have very minimal differences. If you end up preferring a different technique , it is no skin off my back, go for it and give it a try.

 

[jt10000]

He is working with a quite narrow ski (considerably narrower than the iron baseplate) that is also quite warm beforehand (you can tell by the drip splash size and how quickly it wets the ski).

If yours doesn't go as smoothly or as instantly, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Wider and colder skis will take longer to bring up to temperature and to get the wax to evenly distribute. If you start getting fish eyes or if the wax is being pulled by the iron more than it sticks to the ski, the ski is not quite at proper working temp yet.

To me the thing about that video is that he has a HOT iron. The wax comes off the iron very easily. That's why it goes on the ski easy.

I have very little experience waxing alpine skis but just did it for perhaps just the third time (have DPS on my skis) a couple days ago, and with the skis at room temperature it wasn't any different than ironing narrow nordic skis - provided the iron is hot enough. Or at least I didn't see any difference other than perhaps an extra pass or two to due to width of the ski. This was with skis that are 79mm underfoot vs 44ish for my nordic skis.

The p-tex is still just a tin layer regardless of width and wax is wax - there doesn't seem much need to really heat up the ski as a whole (and for nordic skis at least that's a bad thing).

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

Just as many of these threads go, my take is I think you are overthinking it.

Go ahead and just follow the basic youtube videos.

Eventually your personal tuning technique has to come from hands-on experience rather than just academic study; you'll find which steps and techniques work/don't work for you. More than just a black/white it works/doesn't work; there is also a scale of which steps take too much time for minimal or no difference and aren't worth it for the "perfect" technique; vs just doing a faster shortcut technique more frequently.

Remember your original post was all about optimizing TIME and EFFORT into your question on liquid spray wax; how many hours spent researching tuning vs just getting on with it.

However, I'll give you a couple tips on the discussion questions you brought up:

Regarding the iron temp though:
A) there is definitely a school of thought that you need to wax with higher temp so you can melt and move wax fast as a surface technique rather than deep technique; Counterintuitively, the hot iron results in less heat transfer to the ptex; plus you're not there all day.
B) This is in contrast to the technique of low and slow who want to maximize the wax-molten time; and push more heat into the ptex base; along the premise of hot-boxing your skis.

If your main concern is about overheating the ptex; I'd suggest what you actually want is the the hotter iron technique that quickly melts the wax (A); so you can work FAST and spread the wax; minimizing iron time instead and not running into issues of having to pause your iron to melt wax lumps.

Even if you wanted the (B) deep technique, unless you have a hotbox; I think you maybe better served with more fast wax cycles of (A) or even a cool, remelt; versus doing a single slow deep cycle.

If you're a cook, this is similar conversation to searing a steak vs slow cooking it.

Regarding your iron orientation question; my thoughts are you are better off not intentionally spinning the iron as you go. If there is any imperfection or dirt in the iron or in the ski edge, this will put a diagonal or curved scratch either into the base or iron.
The iron does push wax along somewhat. Think of it like a sponge wiping a table (especially with fiberlene technique). if it doesn't cover the width width, you can consider going in a rectangular loop pattern and push the wax back the other way in the next pass back.
I sometimes pretend it's a zamboni which in essense is also a surfacing machine.


Ultimately, all of this is up to you; and the small optimizations are very likely to have very minimal differences. If you end up preferring a different technique , it is no skin off my back, go for it and give it a try.

Cool thx I'm definitely leaning towards searing the steak rather than slow cooking it.

References to ptex temps were related to hotwaxing, not ironing in general. I'm not convinced of hotwaxing.

Hotwaxing was brought up in another thread as an initial base prep factory wax removal option to virgin skis. Going with stripping the factory wax with base cleaner instead of hotwaxing.

I'll be removing factory wax as threads elsewhere discuss factory wax is just there to keep the skis from drying out until they get to the customer. So I don't know for sure what kind of wax factory wax is. So I think I'll just clean it out.

With base prep, I'm going with 4 layers of BP88 based on the accompanying slideshow to the seminar:

https://mmsca.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SWIX_Non_Fluoro.pdf

I would equate the process of me stripping factory wax with the Swix suggestion of base-grinding with Wintersteiger a ski with fluoro in it, after which they suggest 4 layers of PS8 or BP88.

 

[jt10000]

If you can see the keyways of the metal edge through the ptex. It's about time to stop.
If you can see the keyways of the metal edge through the ptex and the wax in between still have not melted yet. Your skis are probably edge high.

Can you explain what this means? I'm just learning waxing alpline skis, and while I had confidence I was doing it right with regards to the wax and the p-tex, the metal edges were kind of freaking me out. The iron base rubbing on the edges was not a pleasant thing.

 

[jt10000]

I might go a bit ocd and just strip that factory/base prep wax and wax it with the wax I bought because a.) I can be sure it's base prep wax (I mean who knows what kind of wax the factory wax is?)

You're wasting your time. No matter what kind of wax it is, there is no benefit to stripping it with a chemical cleaner. None. "Base prep" is not a really special thing - it's just a cheap wax that goes in easy.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

To me the thing about that video is that he has a HOT iron. The wax comes off the iron very easily. That's why it goes on the ski easy.

I have very little experience waxing alpine skis but just did it for perhaps just the third time (have DPS on my skis) a couple days ago, and with the skis at room temperature it wasn't any different than ironing narrow nordic skis - provided the iron is hot enough. Or at least I didn't see any difference other than perhaps an extra pass or two to due to width of the ski. This was with skis that are 79mm underfoot vs 44ish for my nordic skis.

The p-tex is still just a narrow layer regardless of width and wax is wax - there doesn't seem much need to really heat up the ski as a whole (and for nordic skis at least that's a bad thing).

I just noticed he has his iron running at 150C while the wax has a suggested temp of 140 lol:

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

You're wasting your time. No matter what kind of wax it is, there is no benefit to stripping it with a chemical cleaner. None. "Base prep" is not a really special thing - it's just a cheap wax that goes in easy.

But no one knows for sure what kind of wax factory wax is. I say strip if off. Sort of like how people set their edge and side angles instead of going with the factory ones.

The way I think about it, I will be ironing wax on top of this factory wax that I have no idea what it is. Better remove it as it's not known what's in it. Is it a cold temp wax? A warm temp wax? Or just the lowest common denominator wax to keep the skis looking shiny while on the show floor or in a warehouse? Is it even a wax at all? Other threads suggest there could be factory floor impurities like machine grease that could have contaminated this wax. Let's get rid of this unknown wax.

 

[François Pugh]

You guys are making this too complicated. Temperature of the room, width of the ski, exact iron temperature for particular brand and hardness of wax. It really depends on how fast you move the iron. If your iron is a little hotter you can move it faster; if it's a little cooler you can move it slower. If the wax smokes when you try to melt it with the iron, the iron is too hot; if the wax doesn't melt, the iron is too cold.

I just use a setting at the fiducial reference mark half way between Rayon and Silk for most waxes, and for extreme cold hard wax closer to the hot end of silk.