Hi I'm Chris and welcome to our how-to video series in this video
I'll be teaching you how to wax your skis.
waxing your skis is a great way to save money in the long run
and then it also allows you to get a lot better performance out of your ski.
you'll notice that you'll glide a lot longer and faster on the flat surfaces
and you'll also have an easier time with turning and things like that.
so let's get started
the first thing you'll want to do when waxing your skis is to take a rubber band and
loop it around the brake and then go around the binding
and loop it around the other arm of the brake and that just holds the brake back
so you don't have to deal with it while you're waxing
From there you'll want to take a nylon pad
and uh...
clean up the basis of the ski so you'll just rub it
To get all the dirt off and then you'll want to take a
rag and just
kinda wipe it down from there
and then after you're done with that
you can apply
the first coat of wax
now the goal with this first coat of wax is to clean the ski
just like with a car, you don't want to apply
the final coat of wax on something dirty. So is what this does, is it just gets
all the dirt and grime that your ski may have picked up on the slope
off of the base
and prepares it for the final wax.
so for this step it's good to use a universal wax that's really soft because it'll penetrate
the base and just
get rid of the dirt a lot better.
so to start out with you just take the bar of wax and touch it to the iron
and then you'll drip it on to the base of the ski in a zigzag pattern
after you've dripped the wax on
the base in a zigzag pattern
you'll take the iron
starting at the tip
and slowly go over the base to iron in the wax.
as you may have been able to tell, this step will take
maybe more than
one pass and the same is true for scraping the wax off.
you'll want to scrape this wax off
while it's still hot. So you start with your scraper at the tip
Hold it at a forty five degree angle to the base
and begin pulling the scraper back.
now some people prefer to push
the scraper
and really it's personal preference
i prefer to pull it
just because it's easier for me
but it's completely up to you which method you prefer
and then after you scrape it twice
you'll want to take a nylon brush
and just
brush from tip to tail
just to
uh... polish up the
wax a little bit
and completely finish the cleaning process
and then also this prepares the base so it'll soak up more wax.
in the final waxing.
so after you're done with the nylon brush
you're going to take the rag
and then just wipe down the base to get rid of any of the wax particles that are left
laying on top of the base
and then from there we move into the final wax
and for the final wax you have a little bit of choice. You can either stick with the
universal wax which will be good for a wider range of temperatures or you can get
a temperatures specific wax, which will perform better for a given
temperature
But the drawback is usually you have to have
several temperatures specific waxes so
that when you find out what the conditions are going to be like in the morning
you can grab whatever wax
and apply it
and be ready to go
but in this case i'm going to just use the universal glide wax
that came in the tuning kit I
got from Swix
and uh...
start applying it.
during this step
it's very similar to the first wax
uh... you apply it
in a zigzag pattern
A lot of people who are just starting out waxing skis
I've noticed
apply too much wax
They think that you need
a lot
to do a good job but it's not necessary.
if you put too much wax on
it's kind of a waste because you just end up scraping it off in the end
after you're done
dripping the wax on
you'll just take the iron
and go over really slowly again
and melt the wax into the ski.
you want to make sure that you don't stop the iron
you want to keep a nice fluid motion going
because if you stop in a certain spot of the ski
for too long, you risk damaging the base
so while we wait for the wax to cool
i want to hit a couple of points
the first is that when you first start out you'll want to preheat the iron to the
temperature that's listed on the box of the wax
so in this case the wax says that the iron needs to be set at one hundred
thirty degrees celsius and so I did that
before i got started
and you'll know if the iron is too hot because the wax will smoke and you don't want that
so make sure that
there's no smoking when you're melting the wax
and uh... you should be good to go
that brings me to my next point which is
it is very helpful to have a waxing iron.
People ask me if it's necessary,
and no it's not absolutely necessary
but the problem with clothing irons is that they have holes in the bottom
for the steam to come out, which can present a problem when applying the wax
and then also those holes make it harder to spread the wax evenly on the base of the ski
The next problem is that clothing irons don't really have
precise temperature control
and uh...
a waxing iron has a lot better control in that respect just because you can control the
temperature
and make sure that you're not
applying the wax to hot which actually will break down the chemical
structure
of the wax
and you'll lose performance there
so now that our ski is done
cooling off and the wax has had a chance to set up, we'll take our scraper and start
at the tip
and scrape it
and you'll want to make sure that you're not pressing too hard.
you'll want to press just hard enough to get the wax to come off.
and it may take
a pass or two
After that you'll take your nylon brush
and uh...
You'll start rubbing it tip to tail.
Then after you've gone over the base of the ski with the nylon brush a couple of times
you'll want to take your scraper
and just clean all the wax off the edges
so after you finish cleaning up the edges with the scraper you're all set
That's all it takes to wax your own pair of skis
If you're looking for more ski related how-to videos be sure to click on
the ski icon
in the bottom left corner of your screen
or if you want more information
about the Swix Ultimate alpine ski tuning kit, that I've used in this video
I've included a link in the description
so you can check that out
I'll also link to all the other
waxing and tuning
products that we offer.
That's it guys. If you have any of your own
ski waxing tips that you'd like to share, be sure to leave those in the
comments for the benefit of the community
and uh...
I hope to see you out on the slopes.