I'll start out by saying my approach to waxing varies depending on the conditions, how "seasoned" the skis are (ie: number of times waxed), how much wax is still on/in the bases and - uh - how much time I have on my hands.
I kind of follow the same ritual each season. For much of the season I use a classic waxing approach: drip a couple lines of wax on the base, iron it in, let cool, scrape, brush, buff with felt. Sometimes I work Fiberlene into the routine, but I've been using it less often the last couple years.
Once spring conditions set in, I tend to wax every evening before I ski. It's mainly because that spring wax usually gets skied off pretty quick each ski day.
My "Baking Parchment Paper" technique:
My spring wax technique employs using plain 'ol baking parchment paper. First, I steal the stuff from my wife, take the roll of paper out of it's box and cut the roll into halves or thirds (tip: handsaw).
How I use it for waxing:
So, some discussion:
Baking parchment paper can be found in just about any grocery store.
Unlike Fiberlene, baking parchment paper doesn't really absorb any wax.
A paper strip can be re-used many times. Wax doesn't stick to it. I always try to use the same side of the paper facing the base. That's because my iron will transfer a bit of aluminium onto the paper (gray scuff marks) after a while & I don't want that in my bases.
From my experience, the paper allows me to transfer heat to the wax/base and hold that heat with good "by feel" control - with a somewhat lower iron temp. The technique can be fast compared to the classic drip technique. You also can save big-time on wax use.
From what I've been able to learn about baking parchment paper, it is just a smooth finished paper that's been coated with a bit of silicone and perhaps some wax-like material. From my experience, if the paper imparts some of those materials to the ski wax it is an exceedingly teeny amount and I haven't detected any negative impact on glide when using this paper.
In the past, I tried crayoning & then just ironing over it (no paper). Didn't like the result and it required a lot more crayoning. I like my paper technique because it gives me good results and requires much less crayoning.
I kind of follow the same ritual each season. For much of the season I use a classic waxing approach: drip a couple lines of wax on the base, iron it in, let cool, scrape, brush, buff with felt. Sometimes I work Fiberlene into the routine, but I've been using it less often the last couple years.
Once spring conditions set in, I tend to wax every evening before I ski. It's mainly because that spring wax usually gets skied off pretty quick each ski day.
My "Baking Parchment Paper" technique:
My spring wax technique employs using plain 'ol baking parchment paper. First, I steal the stuff from my wife, take the roll of paper out of it's box and cut the roll into halves or thirds (tip: handsaw).
How I use it for waxing:
- Crayon wax onto the base. How much? I stop crayoning when the wax build-up gets a somewhat bumpy texture and leaves a slight milky color on the base. Maybe 2-4min of crayoning, depending on how hard your wax is. It takes very little wax - way way less than the classic "drip-on" method.
- Preheat my wax iron to 100 degrees C (212 degrees F). This is a somewhat lower temp than I use for classic drip-on waxing. That's because (1) spring waxes usually require lower heat and (2) higher heat makes it harder (uh, more painful) for me to control base temperature with this technique.
- I place a 2-3 foot strip of the parchment paper on the base so it covers the tip area to about mid ski. Then I start working the iron on the paper. In doing this I'm moving the iron in small circles or back/forth strokes. While doing this, the paper will show darkened patterns where wax has melted underneath. Note that it is not possible to get the paper to turn completely dark - so don't try. It is because crayoning doesn't deposit a perfectly smooth layer of wax. Trust me: if you see the dark patterns in the paper, ALL the wax underneath the area has melted. The trick is to keep it melted a sufficient amount of time so the wax can get into the base structure.
- As I move the iron over the paper I'll periodically rub the heel of my palm (with some moderate pressure) over the paper where the iron was. I'm applying some pressure AND I'm feeling for temperature. If it's too hot for my palm to touch then the iron was there too long. I'll continue to iron until I'm satisfied I've applied enough heat for long enough on all areas along the paper. Then, I'll remove the iron & wait a minute for the paper to cool. Then I'll move the paper to the other half of the ski and repeat the process.
- When done, I let the ski cool to room temp.
- The wax coating will probably look a bit mottled and feel a bit textured. Scraping is optional at this point. But, I usually do a couple moderate passes with a scraper (there's really very little to scrape) and then simply buff the base a bit with felt. The resulting finish will be pretty glossy with some random areas of very slight excess wax. No problem. In classic spring conditions here, the early AM re-frozen snow wears off any excess wax pretty quick - which exposes all my spring base structure for when the snow starts turning to slush a couple hours later.
So, some discussion:
Baking parchment paper can be found in just about any grocery store.
Unlike Fiberlene, baking parchment paper doesn't really absorb any wax.
A paper strip can be re-used many times. Wax doesn't stick to it. I always try to use the same side of the paper facing the base. That's because my iron will transfer a bit of aluminium onto the paper (gray scuff marks) after a while & I don't want that in my bases.
From my experience, the paper allows me to transfer heat to the wax/base and hold that heat with good "by feel" control - with a somewhat lower iron temp. The technique can be fast compared to the classic drip technique. You also can save big-time on wax use.
From what I've been able to learn about baking parchment paper, it is just a smooth finished paper that's been coated with a bit of silicone and perhaps some wax-like material. From my experience, if the paper imparts some of those materials to the ski wax it is an exceedingly teeny amount and I haven't detected any negative impact on glide when using this paper.
In the past, I tried crayoning & then just ironing over it (no paper). Didn't like the result and it required a lot more crayoning. I like my paper technique because it gives me good results and requires much less crayoning.
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