Class Notes for Basic Prepping of Race Skis

Ski Wax Notes:

 Prep/clean skis

Clean entire skis with ski wax remover, and wipe with fiberlene. Scrape kick wax off, if needed due to hard klister, leaves or dirt, etc.

Then use fibertex to cork and buff/smooth out (green) or Scotch bright (green, i.e.Walmart) for tips and tails only. Fibertex aligns the micro hairs in the glide area.

If there any gouges in ski, scrub hard with fibertex which will flatten the scrape, before finishing with a few strokes in ski direction.

Use 60 grit/coarse silicon carbide sand paper in the kick zone only. Sand crosswise, anglewise, and finish length wise. Then wipe again with ski wax remover. Let sit for 20 mins, minimum!!

 Use CH hot waxes (not flouro glider waxes - need good ventilation for this type, its dangerous). Glider waxes are temperature coded, just like kick and klister waxes.

Glide hot wax:

Mark kick zone with fiberlene and hold with masking tape, on the underneath of the ski. You want to keep the kick and glide area separate.

Iron on wax with a Ski/Swix ioron, (or tin foil over a regular clothes iron) don't go much above 120 Celsius. If wax smokes - it's too hot! The temperature setting is usually written on the wax box, on how hot to set iron. Make sure iron is clean. Heat wax with iron, don't do drops, but use wavy ("S") on both sides of ski tips and tails unless it is a new ski.

Iron enough to melt and distribute wax (should be liquid after iron passes a couple of inches). Smooth over with iron another 2-3 passes in ski direction. Use side of iron in grooves to iron wax overflow. If you put your thumb under the top side of ski it should be warm. When done, lay ski horizontally, gravity works! Wait a minimum of 1 hr or longer at room temperature.

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 Scrape wax off with scraper (flat plastic) Scrape grooves and edges first! Scrape it well. 

Cold green glide wax will chip and fly around, so perhaps make just a pass or two with a brass brush before scraping, which will make a powder. Use a nylon brush and scape it again and again, until you can see factory design of ski base. Then use a horse hair brush, keep scraping if needed. Should be smooth and clean. Do it many times, until no more wax comes off.

Need to do final brush and scrape outside (in cold temp) as cold temps will push more wax out of the pores, as the ski contracts.

 Kick base binder/klister hot wax:

 Know where your kick zone is. Toko green is good and so is Swix . Apply like usual kick wax/klister, then use iron to melt after cleaning iron. Apply another thin layer and iron again. Melt and spread with iron. Then cork it in. Stay in kick zone! Take skis outside and let it cool before applying kick klister or kick wax on top.

It there are ripples in wax or klister, it needs to be corked out.

 Base klister wax will bind/last longer, and is better for abrasive conditions but is slower if used in newer snow. Don't use klister if there is fresh snow - will slow you down!

 Put hard wax on top of klister/base wax, after as per usual (wax of the day) but let it cool first. 

Most will used hard wax binder.