If you were on top of it last season and are always planning ahead, you would have stored your skis with a protective layer of a warm wax. For those who did this, all you need to do is scrape that wax off and apply a cooler layer for the conditions on top.  Good job! You are ready to ski!

Now, for those of you, like me, who did not diligently wax their skis before you put them away – we have some work to do!

The reason why we suggest that you put a layer of a warm wax on your skis for storage is to protect the bases from air.  The air oxidizes the bases, drying them out and leaving them pretty unhappy.  They will also absorb much less wax.  So, the first thing you will need to do is see how dry your bases are.

Take a copper brush, and start at the front of the ski and brush in short strokes to the rear of the ski.  Take a look at what comes off the ski, and also what the bases look like.  If there is a lot of white dust coming off the ski but the bases are black, keep brushing till there is no more dust.  This could just be some left over wax.

Now, if you brush and you get white dust, but are greyish then you have some oxidization happening. The grey color of the base is the oxidized P-Tex, and your skis may need to stone ground. Sometimes the grey will brush away, but often times it will not.

Hot wiping

If you have brushed your bases and they are black, you may want to perform a deep clean of the bases.  To do this take a warm wax, like Toko yellow or Swix CH10, melt and iron on the wax like normal.  But, quickly and before the wax sets, take a piece of cloth or Fiberlene or Base Tex and wipe that wax off quickly.  This takes a little skill, but what it does is take all of the dirt, dog poo and other nasties out of the pores.

Glide Waxing

Now that we have clean bases we are ready to wax.  Remember that when we apply a glide wax, we are heating the wax up to melt onto base.  We don’t want to burn the wax or scorch the ski bases, so have the iron hot enough just to melt the wax, but not so cool that it takes an hour to melt it.  Don’t let the iron smoke – no, not cigarettes silly.  You don’t want the iron to smoke as it means that wax is burning, and is WAY too hot for your bases..  If you put a really hot iron, or really hot wax on your skis you will sear the bases. For anyone who has ever seared a base, you will know that gut wrenching feeling of watching $300-$500 go down the drain.  Ironically, it is the people who are overcautious who tend to do the most damage.  Once a base is seared, there is very little we can do to remedy the situation.

Always do anything to your skis from tip to tail. Start with the base wax.  For this you can use a warmer wax like a Toko yellow, or a CH10, or if you want to get a little fancier and keep your bases cleaner – use a molybdenum base wax which will repel dirt.

Drip the wax on the ski moving down the ski as you go.  Place the hot iron on the wax on the ski and move the iron down the ski.  Take about 10 seconds to move down the ski on each pass.  Do around 2 – 3 passes and then let the ski cool down.  Cooling down takes around 45 minutes.  Don’t rush this.  If you scrape the ski when the bases are hot, you have a pretty good chance of slipping and slicing through the base.  Another expensive mistake.  One good way to avoid this is to have a few sets of skis to wax.  By the time you have waxed the 3rd set, the first set is ready to scrape!

When you have scraped the base layer off, brush it out with a copper brush, and then apply your top wax.  Determine the snow temperature of where you plan to ski (hint:  Check out the Goldstream Sports Wax Recommendations website).  Let the surface wax cool and scrape.  Once the surface wax is scraped, brush it out really well using a copper brush.  Once all the extra wax is removed, used a horse hair or soft nylon brush to polish the base.  Now you are ready to hit the trails!