OK, along these lines, a question to the folks experienced in tuning and waxing here: I was talking the other day with an ex-racer/current masters racer who told me that I should never ski brand new skis out of the wrapper before prepping them before that.
By prepping, he meant first checking the edges, make sure the angles are right and then he explained the new ski must undergo a process of waxing which includes up to 30 times (for race ski) waxing one after another so that the base is saturated with wax...or something.
I forgot the finer details (of course) but was wondering how true is that. Any opinions?
If that is true, how many times would be OK for non-racing ski?
I do pretty much what
@Noodler does, except I'm a little less type-A about it then I use to be, especially for non-race skis.
1) I'll always shape the sidewalls first, so they're not affecting any edge work for the current tune session and the future tune sessions.
2) I'll check the flatness of base and base edge angle. I've been known to self flatten a brand new pair of skis in the past, but less so these days. If it's unskiablly off I'll get a grind. If it's not perfect, but I determine it'll work, I'll just ski it and see. Base edges might need a tweak, or not-I usually hope for not, but there's usually something near tip and tail that needs attention. I try to do as little as possible on the base edge.
- For a race ski I'll get the ski blanked to flat so I can put a .5 edge angle on it myself.
3) Side edges always need a tweak and a polish. And of course, address any hanging burr.
4) Waxing- 30 times seems way excessive to me unless you're prepping a WC ski. And then they're usually using a hot box so they can eliminate some of that repetitiveness. For me, if it's a race ski, I'll wax in some base conditioner, then some hard wax, then wax for conditions of the day. If it's a play ski, these days I'll usually just use universal temp wax, unless it's going to be really warm, then I'll wax for temp.