Relative Something

The first time I created the ski trail in my woods, I used my skis to pack the snow. For three days, I skied back and forth on my little trail, lengthening it by packing another 4-5 ft, each time I reached an end. That did a number on the glide wax on the bottoms of the skis.

Over the weekend, while it was rainy and melting, I scoured the interwebs for videos on waxing skis. I have had this procedure demonstrated to me, in person, several times, and even tried myself a couple of times, years ago. What I remember about my experience with waxing skis is, the next time mine were due for waxing, I took them to a shop and paid to have them done.

Now that I have my own shop space, I am again inspired to see if I can develop my skills for waxing skis. I looked to the videos in order to refresh my memory of the tips and tricks.

The first thing I ran into was, conflicting advice. One said to scrape the wax off while it is still warm, others suggest (or insist) you let the ski cool. Universally, the videos demonstrated simple and effortless examples supporting the instructions for each step being described. For every phase I attempted, I experienced distinctly different results. It was pretty much a disaster, and became primarily an exercise in overcoming my perfectionistic tendencies. I remember why I paid to have them done last time.

First, apply the wax. They suggest you test the temperature of your iron by watching for smoke. If melting the wax creates smoke, your iron is too hot. Mine smoked right away, at the low setting. I monkeyed around a bit, but struggled with getting it hot enough to melt, but not smoke. The results were far from the perfection shown in the videos.

There are different ways to apply the wax to the ski. Melting it on tends to create more waste, so heating the wax on the iron for a second, and then crayoning it on, is an alternative. I tried both. When I melted it on, most of the wax ended up in the center groove (where it’s not wanted), or in a single drop that I had trouble distributing with my hot/not-hot iron.

Melt the wax into the base of the ski. I’ve already touched on my struggles with this. The instructions are explicit about never stopping the iron on the ski, to avoid overheating, and damaging, the base. Moving from tip to heel, the demonstrations show 2 even passes of the iron down the length of the ski. The wax completely liquefies and soaks over the width of the bottom of the ski. As if. Not even close. The wax would get wet, for a second, but not flow over the full area. I did everything I could to not stop in one place, and not turn the iron up to smoking, but I never really achieved the results demonstrated in the videos.

Scrape the wax off. Yes, this seems like the silliest project ever. Put the wax on, and then scrape it off. Obviously, this reveals that you only need a really, really thin layer over the base material, which is why it is a waste to melt too much on, in the first place. You scrape out the groove and clean the edges and then pull an even stroke down the ski. Well, the rounded corner of my scraper that is intended for the groove, doesn’t match the shape at all. My scraping was reasonable, but subject to the inconsistent quality of the wax I was able to apply.

In the end, I believe my results were satisfactory. The skis are certainly better off than if I had done nothing, but I don’t think they glide as well as they should, yet. It was certainly a great opportunity for me to practice settling for something less than perfect.

I just need more practice. The problem is, the end of the season is near, and by next year, I’ll be back to square-one, researching those videos to remind me of all the steps I have yet to master.