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Rotobrush Applied Waxes - Experiences and Favourites

DoggParadox

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I'm interested in everything there is to know regarding Rotobrush applied waxes. What are your favourite brands (waxes and brushes/fleece/wool)? What are your favourite tools? What conditions do you find they do and don't work well in?

Based on my understanding there are two major ways a roto fleece is used. The first is for finishing liquid waxes. Second is for applying a specially designed block of wax. The benefit seems to be that both of these create a thin layer of wax on the bottom of the ski that compliments the hardwax layer that you melt in (if you choose to do that first).

With regards to the second option (applying a block wax with a roto fleece) there seems to be two major brands: ULLA and Star. However I might be missing some. This also seems to be catching on as it sounds like Swix will be releasing a line of roto fleece applied blocks next year (under the top speed line) or has at least been testing this at cross country world cup events.

What is everyone's experience with these (or others)? ULLA seems to have been around longer. Their red gets a lot of love. Do their waxes work as well in the cold? Are they better in the warm? Also curious about experiences with Star's line.

Next question is application. There seems to be various lengths of roto fleece hair. Does anyone have preferences on length? Have you tested them against eachother? Any trends you can identify?

Finally I'm curious about blocks vs liquid. Do you have conditions where you prefer one to the other? Do you layer them on? If so, in what order?
 

Dwight

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I'm confused, since roto brushes are used to remove and polish the wax treatment, not put on wax.
 

jt10000

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They're also used for application.
Just to get the wording right, rotobrushes are not used for application. Fleeces, wools and corks are used on roto tools to put on waxes.

I've rotocorked a lot in the past with pure fluoros. Have not used the newer rotofleece and rotowool. I will say anything that Zach Caldwell does (that getting fleeced video) works in nordic very well. He knows what he's talking about.
 

Primoz

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I'm confused, since roto brushes are used to remove and polish the wax treatment, not put on wax.
It's not all that well known, as most of people will never put their hands on waxes that need this, as they cost like pair of skis, and are gone when you wax 3 or 4 pairs :ogbiggrin:

@DoggParadox personally I don't really buy this "wax" roto brush then brush ski stuff. It might actually work for sprint races in xc, but even this it's questionable nowadays, when ski preparation between heats is not allowed anymore, which means ski should still last some 4-5km, and I really doubt this lasts long enough. I can't tell nowadays, but when I was in this business it certainly didn't. It's different thing for fluoro overlays (powders and/or liquid). There you can user whole bunch of different "brushes" from cork to fleece and wool, depending on overlay and then depending on snow conditions and temperatures.
 
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DoggParadox

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Just to get the wording right, rotobrushes are not used for application. Fleeces, wools and corks are used on roto tools to put on waxes.

Good point. I did kind of botch the wording in the title. Apologies for any confusion that caused.
 
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DoggParadox

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It's not all that well known, as most of people will never put their hands on waxes that need this, as they cost like pair of skis, and are gone when you wax 3 or 4 pairs :ogbiggrin:

@DoggParadox personally I don't really buy this "wax" roto brush then brush ski stuff. It might actually work for sprint races in xc, but even this it's questionable nowadays, when ski preparation between heats is not allowed anymore, which means ski should still last some 4-5km, and I really doubt this lasts long enough. I can't tell nowadays, but when I was in this business it certainly didn't. It's different thing for fluoro overlays (powders and/or liquid). There you can user whole bunch of different "brushes" from cork to fleece and wool, depending on overlay and then depending on snow conditions and temperatures.

This is a good point. Even if something works when it comes to testing that doesn't mean it's going to be fast or even still attached to the base 5km into a race.

Maybe the sprinkling of wax that fell off your skis even makes the course faster for the person behind you. :)
 

Smear

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In my family of 4 we have 21 pairs of skis that gets used regularly through the season. XC, alpine, GS, SL, tele, AT etc. Staying on top of hot waxing all those skis seems like a full time job so I try to find easier solutions in between hot waxing. Being Norwegian I only buy swix products. Bought swix roto wool this season and have used it to apply marathon white and black and CH4 and CH5. Marathon mostly for XC and CH4/CH5 as "base protection" for alpine skis in icy conditions. The skis looks great after roto wooling, but unsure of how long it lasts compared to hot waxing. It uses very little wax, so can use the expensive marathon waxes without any worry of cost.

I also use liquid wax in form of HS6, HS7 and HS8 spray. Not sure if it makes more sense to put the marathon on top or HS spray on top. Marathon more expensive and I like the roto wool as top finish, but the HS spray is more temperature spesific.

Latest "iron free" purchase is "Swix base protection liquid" a cheap and thick liquid wax sold in 500 ml bottles for almost nothing. Have cleaned all 20 pairs with "Glide wax cleaner" and applied the base protection liquid to most of them. With 20 pairs it's a lot of work even when using easy solutions...

Thinking that scraping/brushing off the base protection wax, spraying on some temperature appropiate HS spray, and roto wooling on some marathon or ch5 will be a relatively easy way of taking them out of storage for spring/summer/indoor skiing.

Going to hot wax all of them during summer or autumn, but first there are 8 bikes that needs spring service.

Would be nice to be able to afford a ski/bike butler... ;-)
 

Primoz

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I don't understand how you can apply such hard waxes without an iron. Can you explain your process?
Run rotobrush and rub wax on brush. It gets warm enough for it to transfer a bit to the brush. Then brush ski with that brush and thin layer of wax gets transfered to ptex. As I wrote before, I don't buy that this lasts long enough for anything but (in best case) xc sprint races, even though some say it does (certain technicians from certain company that produce and sell these brushes and waxes agree with me on this). And regardless of what someone might think, doing skis this way is not really few seconds job.
 

Smear

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Rub the wax block onto one side of the wool rotor at high rpm. Apply with that side on the skis going back and forth with the rotor always going in the proper direction. Some powder will fall off and be worked extra hard into the ski by going back and forth. Then use the clean half of the rotor for polishing. According to swix ch6 is the softest wax that can be applied this way. Softer waxes than that gets too smeary...

Marathon is an high performance all temperature wax that is pretty hard, when used for ironing 155 Celsius is the suggestion. White for new snow, black for old snow.

New versions of HS wax have higher melting temperatures than the PS/CH/LF/HF. But warmer than HS6 felt to smeary to apply with roto wool in my hands.

It's supposed to give a thin layer of hard wax even into all of the grooves in the structure according to the propaganda. Very hot in Norwegian waxing circles the last seasons. @Primoz not fooled, not sure if that is out of wisdom or grumpyness... ;-)
 

Smear

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@Primoz any thoughts on this product?
Base Protection Liquid wax


Used in racing circles? Very convenient but not sure if it will do more harm than good when applied on skis that have been waxed with good wax and used for a day or two...
 

Primoz

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@Smear no not because of grumpyness for sure. And there's not much of wisdom here either. Things changed from times when I actually had wisdom. so with new stuff I mainly depend on what friends still in this business tell me. Yeah I'm still somehow interested in this, even if there's nothing much for me to gain personally. Personally, even for xc skiing, I'm perfectly fine even with 10 or 15 years old methods, as long as I have basically unlimited HF and HF overlays supply, but it's still interesting to be up to date with what is current. But thing is, I have seen, and tried myself, plenty of all sort of stuff and techniques used to make skis even slightly faster, and you had serious issues how much wax lasted with anything but ironing. As I wrote, things changed, and for this particular thing, I have info only from alpine part, where things are different then on xc (things work differently at 130km/h then at 30km/h, snow and conditions are way more agressive etc.) and guys testing it weren't really happy with longetivity.
As for BPL-500 goes, I don't use it. Most of people in racing still don't use it, but I have seen it being used sometimes. It's transport wax so pretty much anything you use is fine for this purpose. Only "problem" is, that you get relatively thin layer, compared to ironing some "normal" wax, which means there's less protection, but then again, you don't throw your skis around, and you don't throw stuff on skis that it could damage skis anyway. But it's much faster to get skis ready for transport then with ironing. This can actually be done in finish area or in parking lot, while ironing takes more time and space. As for "harm"... back in my days even transport wax was HF wax. Nowadays it's normally BP88 or BP77. This means, waxing with BP88/77 would do same "harm" as putting on BPL500. After removing this, you need proper wax for the day anyway. Ok on alpine or touring skis I sometimes don't bother and just scrap off BP, but I would do same with BPL500 on those days.
 

jt10000

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Just have to add that some waxes and wax application methods seem "very fast" *because* they don't last. They're actually coming off rapidly as we go.
 

Primoz

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@jt1000 not that they seem very fast. Some really are. I will never forget few HWK overlays (powders and blocks), which were super fast in certain conditions. They really were super fast on all tests, but they only lasted some 2-3km (for alpine this would mean from start to first gate on DH :) ). At those days, it was more then enough for sprint races, since skis were newly prepared with overlays at least, between each heat. Now this is not allowed, so 2-3km is way too little to last through the heats.
 

Zirbl

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Only "problem" is, that you get relatively thin layer, compared to ironing some "normal" wax, which means there's less protection, but then again, you don't throw your skis around, and you don't throw stuff on skis that it could damage skis anyway. But it's much faster to get skis ready for transport then with ironing.
What happens to the bases if you just strap your skis for transport without applying a travel wax? What are you protecting against, dust?
 

Tony S

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Learning a lot from this thread.
 

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