Cordless iron

[Rich_Ease_3051]

I have an 11Ah 12v battery to jump start my car. That will do about 400 watts for about 20 minutes. It weighs about 24 ounces. An 18v 6Ah drill battery wil do almost as much. The travel iron I use is 325 watts at half power, and it works fine. You should be able to maintain temperature for long enough to do a couple of pairs of skis, maybe more. A lot more if you preheated the iron from a 120v source,
Battery power doesn't seem that crazy anymore. Use 5 or 8 mm sole and a PID controller and it will work fine. Getting rid of the cord was a game changer for a lot of electric tools, and it might be for irons too.
dm

Cordless clothes irons are capable of 220C (cotton/linen) to 140C (wool/synthetic).

The coldest ski waxes and powders only need 160C max.

Ironing a ski only takes 30 seconds max per ski (drip for 10 seconds and 2 x 10 second passes of slathering). One minute if it's a waxer that likes to slather the base a lot.

Cordless clothes irons can sustain anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes of dry ironing before needing to be recharged, which takes as little as 4 seconds to 30 seconds. These are the ranges I found googling different brands.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

Anyway, why are we on another unicorn hunt? Is it summer already?

My ultimate dream unicorn product is a USB-C base charger that can be afixed to a waxing bench.

It charges a cordless iron, a cordless side edge tuner, and a cordless drill (for roto brushes).

The cordless drill is ergonomically specialised for brushing skis. It's not handheld gun like your typical cordless drill, but more like a small handle bar.

I'm willing to pay AUD$3000 for it, considering a razor tune is AUD$1200 and a world cup iron is AUD$700.

 

[James]

I'm willing to pay AUD$3000 for it, considering a razor tune is AUD$1200 and a world cup iron is AUD$700.

Worth taking a trip outside Australia

 

[jt10000]

You know, back in the "olden times" when personal transport had 4 legs, we'd keep an old hunk of iron with a handle on top of the cabin's wood burning stove & use that for ironing our Sunday church clothes.

I have one of those, though I don't use it to iron anything.

 

[Swiss Toni]

Does the lamp drip and spread wax all over the base? Can you explain how it's used vs iron? Never heard of this.

The commercial infrared waxing machine is called the Wax Future, Christoph Bolt the Swiss guy who came up with the idea patented it in 2005. You don’t drip wax on the base you crayon it on.



I liked the idea so I built one, mine isn’t motorized I just push the lamp along. I bought an aluminum builders straight edge and built a sliding carriage out of skateboard bearings, square alloy tubing and threaded rod. You use a lot less wax and it isn’t as messy as using an iron, as you use less wax there isn’t as much to scrape off.

There are however are a few issues, Bolt believes that ski base material has pores in it so the wax penetrates deeper into the base if you use infrared. As we all know or should know by now this is nonsense, there are no pores in UHMWPE ski base material. The Wax Future uses a Halogen infrared lamp these emit shortwave infrared, the optimum wavelength for polyethylene is in the medium wave region, but the shortwave lamps still get the job done.

 

[eok]

The commercial infrared waxing machine is called the Wax Future, Christoph Bolt the Swiss guy who came up with the idea patented it in 2005. You don’t drip wax on the base you crayon it on.



I liked the idea so I built one, mine isn’t motorized I just push the lamp along. I bought an aluminum builders straight edge and built a sliding carriage out of skateboard bearings, square alloy tubing and threaded rod. You use a lot less wax and it isn’t as messy as using an iron, as you use less wax there isn’t as much to scrape off.

There are however are a few issues, Bolt believes that ski base material has pores in it so the wax penetrates deeper into the base if you use infrared. As we all know or should know by now this is nonsense, there are no pores in UHMWPE ski base material. The Wax Future uses a Halogen infrared lamp these emit shortwave infrared, the optimum wavelength for polyethylene is in the medium wave region, but the shortwave lamps still get the job done.

Interesting. Halogen IR bulb; never realized these existed. But halogen bulbs draw serious power, right?

I always thought the new IR waxing rigs used IR LEDs.

 

[KingGrump]

I have one of those, though I don't use it to iron anything. View attachment 174322

Those make good door stops. Had one in our VT house.

 

[Swiss Toni]

You can get the lamps in various wattages from 500w up to 3000w. The single lamp Wax Future uses a 2000w lamp and the double lamp version uses 2 1500w lamps. They are mainly used in space heaters for patios, workshops etc. There is no warm up time just as with a normal halogen lamp.

 

[crgildart]

Cordless wax iron been around for a long time.

View attachment 174250

Anyway, why are we on another unicorn hunt? Is it summer already?

Because electric iron Flouro fumes aren't enough! Stone fire pizza oven hot box FTW!

 

[KingGrump]

My ultimate dream unicorn product is a USB-C base charger that can be afixed to a waxing bench.

It charges a cordless iron, a cordless side edge tuner, and a cordless drill (for roto brushes).

The cordless drill is ergonomically specialised for brushing skis. It's not handheld gun like your typical cordless drill, but more like a small handle bar.

I'm willing to pay AUD$3000 for it, considering a razor tune is AUD$1200 and a world cup iron is AUD$700.

As Meatloaf would've said, One out of three ain't bad.
It's good to dream.
Maybe in 10 to 15 years.

 

[James]

Meatloaf didn’t need no cordless iron! He ironed like a bat outta hell! With a cord.

 

[KingGrump]

I still rotobrush with a 30 years old corded Bosch 3/8" drill. I have about 30 cordless drills but that one is still my favorite. Best for the job. Especially when I have a ton of skis to do.

Not every tool needs to be cordless.
Like this guy cutting a concrete slab with a Makita 36v/9" cut off aw.



If he had worked for me, I would have fired him on the spot.
Why not just plug in the corded 14" cut off saw and be done on quarter of the time. There is an electrical receptacle right there.



Like they termed it in the NFL. It's just unnecessary roughness.
Don't mess around with toys when you got a job to do.

I see sh*t like this on the FB power tool groups. Guys with impossibly clean and immaculate looking tools collections in color coordinated displays.






They don't really do any work with them. They buy them to augment their body part deficiencies.
Most of them will follow up with a post how happy their wives with their new purchase.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

The commercial infrared waxing machine is called the Wax Future, Christoph Bolt the Swiss guy who came up with the idea patented it in 2005. You don’t drip wax on the base you crayon it on.



I liked the idea so I built one, mine isn’t motorized I just push the lamp along. I bought an aluminum builders straight edge and built a sliding carriage out of skateboard bearings, square alloy tubing and threaded rod. You use a lot less wax and it isn’t as messy as using an iron, as you use less wax there isn’t as much to scrape off.

There are however are a few issues, Bolt believes that ski base material has pores in it so the wax penetrates deeper into the base if you use infrared. As we all know or should know by now this is nonsense, there are no pores in UHMWPE ski base material. The Wax Future uses a Halogen infrared lamp these emit shortwave infrared, the optimum wavelength for polyethylene is in the medium wave region, but the shortwave lamps still get the job done.

Crayoning is only possible with spring waxes though right? The coldest wax I use is red and it's already hard to crayon it. So this tech is only good for spring wax?

It looks like the guy is letting the infrared pass, which I guess heats up the base (which sounds like a bad idea to heat it up without wax), then crayons, then the infrared does another pass, then crayons again.

Can you explain the exact sequence of crayon and passes?

 

[James]

Crayoning is only possible with spring waxes though right? The coldest wax I use is red and it's already hard to crayon it. So this tech is only good for spring wax?

It looks like the guy is letting the infrared pass, which I guess heats up the base (which sounds like a bad idea to heat it up without wax), then crayons, then the infrared does another pass, then crayons again.

Can you explain the exact sequence of crayon and passes?

I think he has a jug band too.

 

[Swiss Toni]

You can use any type of wax. Heat the base and crayon the wax on, if you see any dry patches crayon on some more until the base looks wet, then do some complete passes. How many passes are required depends on how hard the wax is, how fast you go and how far lamp is from the base. Initially it’s a good idea to use a hand-held infrared thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature of the base, I don’t let mine get above 110°C. Making a rail for the heater to slide along is a good idea as it stops it falling on the floor and makes the process a lot smoother.

During pressing ski bases reach a temperature of around 120°C, this doesn’t seem to do them any harm. Infrared waxing isn’t anything new, infrared ski waxing machines have been in use for around 15 years if it was detrimental we would know by now.

Thanks to the Chinese we can now get heaters that will do the same job for very little money. Christoph Bolt also supplies the Wax Future Easy Race, a machine for home use https://wax.ch/content/product-pages/wax/wax-future.html it costs CHF 1990. When the patent expires in 2025 I expect other companies will start to produce infrared ski waxing devices, hopefully at more realistic prices.

 

[James]

What he’s saying is waxes harder than ch 8 or 7 in Swix don’t crayon. I have crayoned graphite 6 - no, I touched it to iron.
So- to crayon the hard waxes use an iron, then infrared it, or not. You can’t even scrape ch 4 without heating it quickly.

 

[eok]

You can get the lamps in various wattages from 500w up to 3000w. The single lamp Wax Future uses a 2000w lamp and the double lamp version uses 2 1500w lamps. They are mainly used in space heaters for patios, workshops etc. There is no warm up time just as with a normal halogen lamp.

Thanks!

I knew about halogen bulbs/elements for lighting & heating, but never considered them for infrared-specific applications. But now that I think of it, halogen bulbs are great at generating heat - and, after all, IR equates to radiated heat energy.

Just wow: 3000w of light/IR directed at a dark ski base. That could damage the base if care isn't taken. But that's really the same risk you face from using a plain old wax iron incorrectly.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

As Meatloaf would've said, One out of three ain't bad.
It's good to dream.
Maybe in 10 to 15 years.

Forgot to add cordless plexi sharpener to my dream setup. So 1 out 4.

Would be nice to sharpen a plexi into a garbage bag. I can sort of do it with my electric plexi sharpener by having the emptying hole close to the edge of the bench on the side of the garbage bag. Then I just sweep the plexi bits on the bench by hand into the garbage bag. The plexi shavings are light and stick everywhere. Then there's the issue of the cord dangling and knocking over things on the bench.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

What he’s saying is waxes harder than ch 8 or 7 in Swix don’t crayon. I have crayoned graphite 6 - no, I touched it to iron.
So- to crayon the hard waxes use an iron, then infrared it, or not. You can’t even scrape ch 4 without heating it quickly.

IR bulb seems redundant if it cannot heat the base enough to crayon colder and harder waxes without iron.

I cannot comment on the benefits over IR vs iron in terms of glide quality of the ski.

In terms of having less wax to scrape and brush, I just lay butcher paper on the bench and floor to catch the wax shavings and dust. Still have to lay paper on the floor and bench with the little wax dust and shavings from IR process, so makes no difference I think. The extra wax used in ironing vs IR doesn't bother me.

Some people use tarp, which gets heavy and messy with wax over time. I chuck out the butcher paper with wax dust, drippings, and shavings straight into the bin after every waxing session. So my bench and floor remain free of wax drip and shavings.

Then there's the ergonomics of holding an IR light bulb slowly and carefully over a ski while at the same time crayoning in the wax. With iron, I can drip quickly and do 2 x 7 second passes. Iron seems faster than IR in this regard.

 

[anders_nor]

batteries have enough amperage and watthours to run an iron for quite som time theese days.