How to Wax Your Skis at Home
This is the most simple of tech tasks and can save you lots of $$$; we encourage all skiers to consider doing wax work at home.
IMPORTANT: We feel that waxing at home is easy and critical to your skis’ health and well being. To that end, we are happy to meet you at the end of our business day and give you a live demonstration free of charge. Better yet, bring your own skis and for the usual fee we will let you do the work yourself (with instruction of course). Talk about a win-win situation! Just call ahead and we will make the time.
Quick Overview:
- The ski first must be cleaned
- Wax is heated, dripped onto ski and hot ironed into the base
- When cool, wax is scraped off, leaving a thin layer on the base
- Wax is then buffed with a structure brush to even it out and to
allow it to assume the structure of the base
Here are the steps involved to hot wax a ski:
1. Pull back the brakes, use the rubber bands and loop one side around one brake then pull the band around the binding and then loop it around the other brake. This will keep the brakes out of your way while you work.
2. Clean ski bases using a citrus based wax remover/ski base cleaner. Wipe the entire base clean to remove any old wax, road grime, salt, or oils that may be hanging out as it will prevent the new wax from binding to the base.
3. Heat wax with the iron until it melts and drips onto the base. Hold wax to the iron above the ski starting at the tip and drip a solid line of wax all the way down to the tail and then loop back to the tip. Cover approximately 40% of the surface with drips.
you’ve applied the wax, smooth wax onto the base with the iron from edge to edge and tip to tail – allow it to penetrate while keeping the iron moving.
Add more wax by dripping where necessary. Don’t heat the non-waxy base for too long, but make sure you cover the entire base. Turn off the wax iron and allow the wax to cool and become part of the base. Let the skis sit for at least 30 minutes. I usually let them sit overnight.
5. Scrape the excess wax with a plastic scraper – most will come off. This is okay, we want a thin layer on top of the base. You put wax into your ski base more than on the surface of it.
6. Once the excess wax is removed, grab a structure brush and buff from tip to tail. Brush to remove uneven areas and provide structure, which breaks suction. You’ll see some flecks of wax coming off as you go. You can’t over brush so keep going for several minutes until you see less wax coming off. Work the skis until you get a nice, smooth, shiny finish. This should take about 5-10 minutes.
Now you’re ready to ski!