New skis waxing
The process of ski fabrication includes two steps prior to final
quality control and packing:
Your ski base finishing: making your skis perfectly flat with a stone
grinding machine and finally structuring them for hydro-dynamic
process. The last stage is very important in “the management of water
film” caused by “heating-up” generated during ski contact with snow.
With different manufacturers structures may be either both straight and
thin or in geometric forms (straight fishbone pattern looking upwards
or downwards, curved branches, sinusoids, etc.).
Semiliquid wax application: plays rather antioxidant than
water-repellent role. It is either levigated with or without infrared
radiation or applied with hot roll waxing. The following results show
recommended steps when buying new skis.
Zoom into brush bristle dimensions and its presentation
Observations:
Structures for cold snow are very difficult to brush. So for this kind
of snow we often have to use straight and very fine structures that can
be prepared with brass brushes. Their rigidity allows us to use
12-micron diameter bristles to clean the entire structure.
Microscratches produced by aggressiveness of this brush are not
damaging, on the contrary they can sometimes better the results. It is
still banned to use brass brushes in preparing structures for fresh and
transformed snow…
Straight structure topography design (ski crosscut) surveyed by laser
head scanner before and after brushing:
Observations:
The deepest base point is about 2 to 4 microns, thus, it is impossible
to clean ski base correctly with mechanical brushes. Remember that from
20 to 30% of wax remain at the bottom of the structure and that
application of highly fluorinated wax after maintenance wax only
dilutes this underlayer and reduces fluorine content of your racing
product. So we advise you to apply only PFX6-LF as maintenance wax on
your racing skis.
Study protocol:
We inserted a marker (*) in the “first” wax applied in factory. The
study was carried out on three types of application (spraying, spraying
+ irradiation, hot roll waxing) at the same time.
- 1 light exposition and zone reference measuring
- 2 waxing + scraping + brushing with hard and medium brushes, use of
traditional PFX1-CH low temperature wax (-5°C/-15°C).
- 3 light exposition and zone reference measuring
…
We continued this way until getting a light level theoretically close
to 0.
Results: After 5 traditional waxing sessions we obtained an acceptable
dilution level of initial wax. This study was first effectuated for
cold and then for hot wax scraping. With hot scraping we got better
results after 3 waxing sessions, thus corroborating our recommendation
for hot scraping with mechanical cleaning of your ski structure.
Recall: the use of cold wax which has a higher melting point comparing
to warm wax (135°C against 58°C) allows to implement the process of
mechanical cleaning. In fact, after passing a gelatinizing phase and
once solidified wax will capture all ingrained dirt and old melted wax.
The analysis of extracted wax surplus shows the presence of other
organic matter than hydrocarbon (CH). This improvement is achieved by
base warming-up, which avoids you buying a thermo-bag (3 000 euros/ 20
000 F) or infrared light exposition (4 000 euros). We advise you to use
either a heat gun or an iron. The heat gun should be adjusted to a
medium temperature and used minimum at a 30-cm distance (but you
should know that its usage may be limited outside). If you use an iron,
avoid its direct contact with ski base, you can insert a piece of
moistened cotton twill. Water will control the iron inertia (as its
temperature rise often exceeds thermostat regulations). Your base is
warmed-up longer and more profoundly. The aim is first of all to expand
the base so that it captures more wax into its structure.
Attention:
you should respect all this so that not to “put a strain" on your base,
as it is sensible to any thermal shock (waxing and cooling down
outside).
(*) Marker: it is a reagent belonging to colouring agents’ family. It
can never change the wax chemical formula, as it is only a pigment. It
reacts to optical excitation in a certain wave length. In a visible
zone it emits light that will be captured, filtered and measured in
order to detect its concentration after each waxing or skiing session
or even after each km. The measuring is carried out with the use of WWC
wax wear control device (DRAGONSKI’s patent in February 2001).
NAPPA-DRAGONSKI
is the exclusive owner of this article’s contents which reflect the
results of our research and development. If you want to use the whole
or a part of this text for pedagogical purposes, you should inform us
and put a reference (according to DRAGONSKI’s research work). Dragonski
is not responsible for any property damage or personal injury owing to
the use of the information contained on this page.
