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#11
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"Edgar" wrote in message oups.com... In response to your question: Noel Charonnat, former owner of Sierra Nordic, wrote a web tech article titled " Understanding Glide Waxing" (Tech Tip #2) that explains the make-up of glide waxes. Noel wrote: "The performance of cross country skis is directly and significantly influenced by the glide wax applied to the bases. Properly waxed skis will have an enhanced glide that not only allows for faster skiing with less effort, but also yields skis that turn and descend with increased control." See the full article at: http://www.fwpages.com/home/index.ph..._selection=729 Toko's web site also has technical explanations about what goes into their glide waxes than most skiers will want to know. See: http://www.tokous.com/InfoCenter.htm Toko's Nordic Manual 2005-2006 says: "The different racing glide wax categories include paraffins, synthetic waxes/hardeners, molybdenum (or graphite) waxes, fluorinated waxes, and fluorocarbons. Each has its special properties which offer advantages in certain conditions and disadvantages in other conditions. "Paraffins (System3 Waxes) are the waxes of the good old days which resembled candle wax., except in the Blue range where they are hard and brittle. Paraffins generally are utility waxes by themselves and are good for base cleaning, saturating bases with wax, storage and travel waxing, and preserving the ski bases during training. Pure paraffins offer no performance edge over the other waxes in their respective category strengths. Lastly, you may want to read Noel's explanation why "no-wax" skis need to be waxes. See Tech Tip #9: http://www.fwpages.com/home/index.ph..._selection=736 Again, my apologies for not taking your question about paraffin waxes seriously. Edgar No need to apologize! I realize most on this forum take their striding very seriously (and competitively) and a question like that might seem like a troll. Most of my skiing - limited by definition as I live in the mid-atlantic - is marginal snow and along relatively poor trails. Canaan valley is the exception, where if snow is good, I can actually try to tele-turn in powder. So I guess i'm a "BC lite" skier. This year I bought and old pair of Karhu Lookouts (presumably an inexpensive way to tele in the powder) and a new pair of Pinnacles (new ski for Karhu with a weird shovel tip and almost straight tail) - both waxless of course. So naturally I was shopping for waxing tips etc. I did get out on the Pinnacles this past weekend (8-10" of great new snow!). So far they are a winner. I hot waxed with paraffin mostly because I didn't have time to mail-order and there's nothing nearby avail! I also used some Notwax. In truth, they worked great. Of course compared to my old woodies there's no comparison! But breaking trail or following my wife, they were fine. When I get out to Whitegrass later this season (think snow...) I'll try some perfomance waxes in prepared tracks. Great links. thanks much... a |
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#12
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"Edgar" wrote in message oups.com... In response to your question: Noel Charonnat, former owner of Sierra Nordic, wrote a web tech article titled " Understanding Glide Waxing" (Tech Tip #2) that explains the make-up of glide waxes. Noel wrote: "The performance of cross country skis is directly and significantly influenced by the glide wax applied to the bases. Properly waxed skis will have an enhanced glide that not only allows for faster skiing with less effort, but also yields skis that turn and descend with increased control." See the full article at: http://www.fwpages.com/home/index.ph..._selection=729 Toko's web site also has technical explanations about what goes into their glide waxes than most skiers will want to know. See: http://www.tokous.com/InfoCenter.htm Toko's Nordic Manual 2005-2006 says: "The different racing glide wax categories include paraffins, synthetic waxes/hardeners, molybdenum (or graphite) waxes, fluorinated waxes, and fluorocarbons. Each has its special properties which offer advantages in certain conditions and disadvantages in other conditions. "Paraffins (System3 Waxes) are the waxes of the good old days which resembled candle wax., except in the Blue range where they are hard and brittle. Paraffins generally are utility waxes by themselves and are good for base cleaning, saturating bases with wax, storage and travel waxing, and preserving the ski bases during training. Pure paraffins offer no performance edge over the other waxes in their respective category strengths. Lastly, you may want to read Noel's explanation why "no-wax" skis need to be waxes. See Tech Tip #9: http://www.fwpages.com/home/index.ph..._selection=736 Again, my apologies for not taking your question about paraffin waxes seriously. Edgar No need to apologize! I realize most on this forum take their striding very seriously (and competitively) and a question like that might seem like a troll. Most of my skiing - limited by definition as I live in the mid-atlantic - is marginal snow and along relatively poor trails. Canaan valley is the exception, where if snow is good, I can actually try to tele-turn in powder. So I guess i'm a "BC lite" skier. This year I bought and old pair of Karhu Lookouts (presumably an inexpensive way to tele in the powder) and a new pair of Pinnacles (new ski for Karhu with a weird shovel tip and almost straight tail) - both waxless of course. So naturally I was shopping for waxing tips etc. I did get out on the Pinnacles this past weekend (8-10" of great new snow!). So far they are a winner. I hot waxed with paraffin mostly because I didn't have time to mail-order and there's nothing nearby avail! I also used some Notwax. In truth, they worked great. Of course compared to my old woodies there's no comparison! But breaking trail or following my wife, they were fine. When I get out to Whitegrass later this season (think snow...) I'll try some perfomance waxes in prepared tracks. Great links. thanks much... a |
#13
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I don't think anyone really addressed the waxability of no wax skis
satisfactorily in this thread ... not that any of you seriously considered it i.e. since you mention basic paraffin rather than high end fluoros. anyway it "would be a huge waste of money to use high end glide waxes on the tips and tails (glide zones) of no wax skis and under no circumstances should you grip wax the kick zones of them. also by their very nature waxless skis are NOT BUILT to handle the heat necessary to apply the better glide waxes to them with an iron ... any glide wax you apply needs to be "corked" in. I speak from experience; I tried to iron in a base prep wax on a pair of old waxless skis I had (instead of relying on WD-40 or silicone sprays which unfortunately don't have good adhesion to the ski and have to be reapplied often). the result was that the p-tex or whatever it was on the bottom began to melt ... i.e. what you'll notice is that the skating race skis and waxable classic skis are made of better quality graphite and other materials which have the correct heat resistance and porousity to handle good glide waxes. these types of glide waxes really only go in well when you iron them in. in the interest of economy and realistic expectiations for your waxing dollar all that's really needed for cheap waxless skis is "maxi-glide maxx-waxx" or lemon pledge if you're really cheap and want to avoid the icies ... perhaps if you have a pair of Fischer RCS Waxless which have actually won a World Cup or two during those crazy transitional temperatures ... it might be worth it to experiment with some of the more expensive glide waxes ... to try for better performance. |
#14
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"Big Z" wrote in message ups.com... I don't think anyone really addressed the waxability of no wax skis satisfactorily in this thread ... not that any of you seriously considered it i.e. since you mention basic paraffin rather than high end fluoros. anyway it "would be a huge waste of money to use high end glide waxes on the tips and tails (glide zones) of no wax skis and under no circumstances should you grip wax the kick zones of them. also by their very nature waxless skis are NOT BUILT to handle the heat necessary to apply the better glide waxes to them with an iron ... any glide wax you apply needs to be "corked" in. I speak from experience; I tried to iron in a base prep wax on a pair of old waxless skis I had (instead of relying on WD-40 or silicone sprays which unfortunately don't have good adhesion to the ski and have to be reapplied often). the result was that the p-tex or whatever it was on the bottom began to melt ... i.e. what you'll notice is that the skating race skis and waxable classic skis are made of better quality graphite and other materials which have the correct heat resistance and porousity to handle good glide waxes. these types of glide waxes really only go in well when you iron them in. I'm new at waxless so YMMV, but I recently waxed 4 sets of skis and had no problem that I could see. The first 'guinea pig' was an older pair of Rossignol waxless and the remaining three were all realtively new Karhu BC type "short and shapely" skis. On all, I followed what I'd read which was to keep the iron moving at a speed which would leave a trail of melted wax 2-3" long. I used Paraffin, not really because I'm too cheap to buy wax, but mostly because it was all that was avail on short notice, and I wanted to test it's use on untracked snow. Of interest, one of the links suggested to me, mentioned using paraffin wax for the first wax jobs on new skis http://www.fwpages.com/home/index.ph..._selection=729 : "Ski waxes are blends of paraffins (candle-like waxes) and micro-crystalline and noncrystalline polyethylene (plastic waxes). Paraffin and polyethylene waxes melt at about the same temperature and blend easily. This is why a soft paraffin wax used for a ski's first waxing(s) will result in good absorption - the paraffin wax blends with the residual amorphous polyethylene left within the gaps as a result of the sintering process." I'm going to experiment with using paraffin for periodic hot waxing to heep the bases clean and protected, followed by an iron-on glide wax or maybe a wipe on before daily outings such as Swix F4. I may be wrong regarding the temperature/melting issues - is it that the harder waxes require a significantly higher temperature? a in the interest of economy and realistic expectiations for your waxing dollar all that's really needed for cheap waxless skis is "maxi-glide maxx-waxx" or lemon pledge if you're really cheap and want to avoid the icies ... perhaps if you have a pair of Fischer RCS Waxless which have actually won a World Cup or two during those crazy transitional temperatures ... it might be worth it to experiment with some of the more expensive glide waxes ... to try for better performance. |
#15
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I think it was more that I had a really cheap pair of waxless skis that
had low quality p-tex or some sort of clear polyethylene bottoms over the ski. this polyethylene started melting at a low temperature even when I kept the iron moving. anothter pair of 215 cm. karhu backcountry skis I had with p-tex bottoms were able to accept hot waxing but I never really got the high quality performance you'd expect from this sort of glide waxing. the same glide wax applied to a pair of old karhu SKATE skis with graphite bottoms gave me a FAST ski; this wax applied to my karhu backcountry skis gave me a ski that was still suboptimal for fast downhill xc (crown didn't help) although the glide wax helped with the icing problem. my experience though was that a good fluorinated paste wax like MAXX-WAXX was much easier to work with (no iron needed) and gave better performance since it could also be applied to the kick zone w/o the potential for damaging it. you really don't want to risk flattening your crown with a hot iron. |
#16
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a wrote:
"Big Z" wrote in message I may be wrong regarding the temperature/melting issues - is it that the harder waxes require a significantly higher temperature? a Harder waxes (for colder snow/air temps, eg. Swix CH4, Toko Blue, Start Green) require more heat to melt the wax than the softer (warmer, eg Swix CH10, Toko Yellow) waxes. Swix suggest wax iron temp of 110C for the yellow CH10 glide wax to wax iron temp of 150C for the green CH4 glide wax. At 150C, you need to be careful to not do damage to the base or ski structure. One rule of thumb is to touch the base after you wax and if it feels too hot, you are putting too much heat into the ski. I should mention that a good wax iron will hold a stable temperature. A poor iron will cycle hot to cold and you will need to dial in a high (hot) peak temp setting to keep the iron melting wax as it travels down the ski. A good iron minimizes the min-max range so that the hottest temp is lower than a poor iron while being able to melt the wax. Quality irons minimize tempearture fluctuation by using thick base plates to keep the heat uniform and have a good control that cycles the energy on and off to keep the tempearture in a narrow band range. Edgar |
#17
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Z wrote: "this wax applied to my karhu backcountry skis gave me a ski
that was still suboptimal for fast downhill xc (crown didn't help) although the glide wax helped with the icing problem." If the Karhu's are "no-waxers" the mechanical grip pattern is probably the poor glide problem, not the glide waxed tips and tails. While glide waxing the tips and tails of "no-wax" skis is important for good glide and for reducing the icing problem, the grip pattern will slow down the glide. If I recall correctly, Karhu uses a positive grip pattern, meaning that the grip pattern sticks above the base (above when the ski is upsidedown on your waxing bench). In contrast, Atomic and Fisher typically uses a negative pattern where they machine the base to create the mechanical grip. Karhu also seems to use a longer grip zone than the usual grip/kick wax zone of a waxable ski. The bottom line is that the skis are probably gliding poorly because of the ski, not the glide wax or lack of glide wax. Edgar |
#18
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my "crown didn't help" remark is really the bottom line ... so I guess
I was more or less trying to set 'a's expectations realistically as to what he could expect by waxing "waxless" skis. you could give them the best CERA F wax that SWIX can produce and you will still have a ski that will never perform like a waxable ski; the crown is a limiting factor. for whatever magical reasons grip wax doesn't seem to affect downhill performance as much. it is the downhill situation when you want your classic skis to be real gliders. I guess it is a bit of be careful what you wish for as when I have waxable classic skis on their enhanced flexibility (camber) makes them unresponsive skis for downhill anyway. when combined with the good glide I was getting; I found it was easy to take some good tumbles on hills that I would manhandle with both good speed and turnability in skate skis ... while these same hills I would die from boredom on the waxless skis. I never had trouble with control on downhills with waxless skis but I also was never able to reach the high speeds I was able to with the waxable (classic and skate) skis. |
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