First home board WAXing. Did I do anything wrong here? ...

That all sounds pretty good. Next time maybe not so much wax. I like
to just heat the bar up a bit on the iron, then rub it on the base
like a big crayon. Just keep taping it to the iron often to keep it
warm. Works way better for me than dripping.

As for why your glide didn't go so good, I've got 2 guesses:

1. You still had to much wax on the bottom. Remember, the idea is to
get wax to soak into the base, not to have any left stuck on the
bottom.

2. It was to cold for your all temp wax. We rarely get cold like that
here, so I don't know much about cold temp waxing. But from what I've
read, you need a harder wax, and cold snow can oddly be even slower
than slush. If your all temp wax is pretty soft, maybe try something
harder?

And finally, I'm totally convinced that base structure is key to
glide. If the shop that did a stone grind for you left your base with
no texture, like a sheet of glass, then that might be it.

How hot do I have to set the waxing iron? My wax does not seem to
'penetrate' very well. I'm waxing at approx. 11C and the wax doesn't
smoke
off the waxing iron. Before scraping off I leave the board for a
couple of
hours. After a half day of use the edges of the base are already dry,
and
the board is only quick in the first few runs.
Thanks.

Conventional wisdom says, if the wax is smoking, the iron is too hot.
Especially when I'm waxing in colder weather ( 50F/10C) I get my iron
as warm as I can without making it smoke. I do tend to take my time
ironing it in and that helps. I might make 4 or five passes when it's
all said and done. I try to heat the wax up enough such that it says
shiny for about 5 or 10 seconds, let it cool to dull appearance, in
between each pass.

Realize that some bases take on wax better than others. Sintered bases
generally take wax better than extruded bases. There are several
grades of sintered base, the higher grades seem to absorb more wax, as
one would expect. (Ptex 4000 is the highest commonly found grade, if I
am not mistaken - I believe many manufacturers big and small including
Donek, Salomon, Ride, K2 use it on some or all of their boards).

Some types of snow also wear wax away faster. Man-made snow is
particularly tough on a wax job. So is corn and granular snow. I do a
lot of spring riding, and sometimes it seems like all the wax is gone
after 3 runs, no matter what I do.

Mike T

Switters wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 09:58:21 GMT, Baka Dasai
allegedly wrote:

On 4 Feb 2004 09:03:39 GMT, Switters said (and I quote):

Did you brush in the direction of travel, i.e. nose to tail?

Are you sure this makes a difference?

It's better than brushing across the width of the board, agreed? :-)

Why wouldn't brushing tail to nose be faster?

Don't know. Why would it?

Cross-country skiers (the real expert waxers) have
always scraped from tail to nose.

Really? I always go from nose to tail.

Now I'm confused. I figured it was just good enough to go lengthwise.
I actually go both directions...scrap a bit in one direction (tip to
tail), then go back and scrap the other direction (tail to tip) to get
some parts I missed. It seemed easier, for instance, to scrape the end
of the board when pulling from the other direction.

"toddjb" wrote in message
m...
"Max" wrote in message
...

Try this stuff though, you put it on just before you go on the slopes,
only
takes a couple of mins.

http://www.zardoznotwax.com/


Ya know, I don't normally buy that type of stuff because everyone says
it only lasts a couple of runs. Has anyone tried this brand and liked it?

I got several samples of it from entering a race last year and just
started
using it this year when I was between wax jobs. The stuff seemed to work
pretty good for a full day or two but for some reason I'm still skeptical
of
any "snake oil" products.

-todd

(oh yeah, last post forgot to answer the question, yes, I scraped in the
direction of travel tip to tail, tail to tip.)

To be honest i only bought it when i bought my board cos it looked cool,
although the guy did say he uses it and its amazing! I have only been on a
board twice so i wouldnt like to comment as most of the time i ended up on
my arse - perhaps i should put it there?

Max

all said and done. I try to heat the wax up enough such that it says
shiny for about 5 or 10 seconds, let it cool to dull appearance, in
between each pass.

OK, I should use a bit more heat then

one would expect. (Ptex 4000 is the highest commonly found grade

That's the one I have too.
Thanks a lot for the advices!

all said and done. I try to heat the wax up enough such that it
says
shiny for about 5 or 10 seconds, let it cool to dull appearance, in
between each pass.

OK, I should use a bit more heat then

If more heat makes smoke, just move the iron a little slower.

While pondering the Universe, (toddjb) wrote
:

"Max" wrote in message
...

Try this stuff though, you put it on just before you go on the slopes,
only takes a couple of mins.

http://www.zardoznotwax.com/


Ya know, I don't normally buy that type of stuff because everyone says
it only lasts a couple of runs. Has anyone tried this brand and liked
it?


Notwax will last up to a day, depending on the conditions. It is best
to use it at normal to warm snow temps, and is great when things get
sloppy in the spring. But yes, it does last more than 2 or 3 runs!

While pondering the Universe, (Rob) wrote bvs2qn$ulj$1
@news1.tilbu1.nb.home.nl:

all said and done. I try to heat the wax up enough such that it says
shiny for about 5 or 10 seconds, let it cool to dull appearance, in
between each pass.

OK, I should use a bit more heat then

Iron should be just shy of smoking the wax. When you iron the wax
in you can keep on hand under the board (ie on the topcoat). You
should feel the topcoat get warm, but not hot.

Half a bar of wax, even a small bar, sounds like way too much. I'm
guessing that you either a) didn't iron it in well, or b) didn't get
it all off. People tend to get scared when using the scraper on the
base (for good reason!) but you really do need to assert some
pressure and have a fairly good edge. As a check, if I have a shop
do a tune, I take a credit card and run it along the base at about
a 30 degree angle. You didn't mention the condition of your base.
If its warped or has dimples this could also effect the ride as you
may not have been able to get the scraper over those spots well enough.
Credit card works wonders on those areas as you can flex it.

agh dammit.. i just waxed my board today (used to skiis), and couldn't
figure out where the rest of the board was good, but i scrape huge
chunks out from under the bindings!!

Mike T wrote:

Yeah, it seemed like a lot. One of the online guides I looked at

showed

a ton of wax on the board so I kind of copied what I saw. I guess I

can get

less wax and just iron more, eh?


In your original post you said you scraped till no more came off.
Given that, the amount of wax you used may not impact performance at
all, you might have simply wasted a lot of wax. Unless, that is, you
simply didn't iron it in well enough.

You may have read my favorite waxing jingles in previous posts:

"Penetration, not lubrication"
"Thick sticks, thin wins"

I find it noticeably more difficult to do a good job waxing in the cold
than in warm temps. The wax hardens quickly, so you really have to
work at it to get it to penetrate deep enough. Waxing at 70F/20C is
much easier, it just goes right into the base.

Another thing - did you take your bindings off or at least loosen the
mounting screws before waxing and scraping? If you leave the bindings
mounted, it pulls up on the base a bit, making it hard to scrape it all
off right under the bindings, and you've got "thick sticks" right where
all your weight is when you're riding flat.

Mike T

Neil Gendzwill wrote in message ...
toddjb wrote:
- dripped All Temp flouro induced wax over entire board (half a bar)
it was an extremely cold day... 5 degrees F.

I think 5 (-15C) is out of the useful range for "all-temperature" wax.
I never use the stuff, I have 3 flavours of wax at home. Got lazy this
last trip and let the shop wax it, as a result I had really bad glide
and it was around the same temperature as you were in.

I agree with this. I put some all temp wax on my board before we went
away at x-mas. Then it turned out it was -15/-20 and I was just
grinding to a halt. Got a shop to put some cold temp stuff on and
next day it was much better.

Iain.