Yes, you can
November/December 2007

Tune Your Boards

A step-by-step guide to waxing your own skis and snowboards so you’ll be ready and waiting for that first powder day.

By Kelly Bastone

Women are expected to know how to use an iron—until it comes to waxing our skis and snowboards. Then it’s assumed we’ll shell out 40 smackers for a tune-up at the local ski shop. But tuning your own equipment isn’t hard. All it takes are 15 minutes and a handful of simple tools. By maintaining your own bases and edges, you save a bundle of money over the long haul. And when everyone else is complaining about the ski shop’s slow turnaround, you’re ready to hit the slopes with prepped boards that are begging to rip.

Connie Misket, who waxes and tunes her own gear in Sandy, Utah, learned to work on her equipment 23 years ago when she bought her first pair of skis; and now, because of the money she’s saved and the convenience of the do-it-yourself approach, she won’t do it any other way. “Sure, it takes a few minutes to do the work at home,” Connie says, “but I still think it’s faster than taking my skis to someone else, waiting for them, and wondering if they’ll be ready when I go back to pick them up.”

According to Terry Ackerman, a Durango, Colorado, ski technician and online retailer who operates SlideWright.com, tuning skis and snowboards is a complex affair only if you’re determined to pursue the split-second advantages that racers require. “It doesn’t have to be complicated and intimidating,” Terry says. “Even if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. Your skis aren’t going to explode.” And caring for your own boards can result in dramatic performance improvement. Scott Holmer, who’s designed his own brand of tuning tools and runs the Race Place in Bend, Oregon, says that boards that are properly waxed and tuned make for more fun on the hill because they glide, carve, and turn more effectively. He recommends that waxing and edge touch ups be done every three to five days on average, and “that adds up to a lot of trips to the local shop unless you do it yourself.” So learn to tune with these techniques, which apply equally well to both skis and snowboards.

Waxing the Bases
Snow is more abrasive than you’d think, acting like sandpaper on ski and snowboard bases. Without wax to protect and lubricate them, bases develop “base burn”: rough, fuzzy-looking surfaces that snag on rather than glide over the snow. “Think of the base as a sponge,” says Scott. “When you ski, it’s like squeezing that sponge, bleeding out the lubrication.” Waxing replaces that lost lube, protecting the equipment and improving its performance.

1 Prep the boards. Let the skis (or snowboard) come to room temperature (warm bases absorb wax more effectively) and secure them to a work surface, such as an old table or countertop. If the bases are especially cruddy—spring snow or gladed runs can dirty them—wipe them down with a swipe of base-cleaning solution. Otherwise, simply brush the bases from tip to tail with a brass brush to remove surface dirt and improve wax penetration. Repeat with a coarse fiber pad—a waxing tool that looks like a pot scrubber—to trim away fuzzy, base-burned fibers.

2 Apply the wax. Heat a clothes iron or waxing iron to about 240 degrees F, or hot enough to melt the wax without burning it (smoke means the iron’s too hot). Hold the wax against the iron so that it drips onto the ski base. Drizzle wax all along the ski, distributing drips from tip to tail, then place the iron directly onto the base of the ski and iron the ski as you would your clothes: swirl the iron a bit to spread out the wax, then do one or two long, slow passes from tip to tail (about 20 seconds per pass) to encourage the liquid wax into the bases. You’ll know you’ve heated the wax sufficiently when it stays liquid for about 30 seconds after your last pass with the iron.

3 Scrape off the wax. Let the bases cool until the wax is hardened (you can set them outside to hasten cooling), then use an acrylic scraper to shave off the wax. “You don’t want wax on the base,” says Scott. “You want wax in the base.” Run the scraper’s short edge down the length of the ski to trim wax off the edges.

4 Texturize the base. Using a soft nylon or horsehair brush, brush the base again from tip to tail, then repeat with a fine fiber pad. This creates enough structure in the ski base to improve glide. “A perfectly smooth base will actually stick to the snow like a suction cup on glass,” Terry explains. “Brushing creates tiny water channels that release that suction.”

Trimming the Edges
Powder skiing is easy on the edges—it’s manmade snow and icy conditions that dull them. Meanwhile, debris in the snow causes nicks and burrs that interfere with the board’s ability to hold an edge or carve a smooth turn. Each edge looks something like an L, with one plane running along the base of the ski or snowboard and one running along the side. The point at which those planes meet is the edge that bites into the snow. Home tuners typically trim only the side plane and leave the base plane tuning to the shop pros. Usually, the edges are an 88- or 89-degree L because when the base and side planes are angled 1 or 2 degrees away from square, the ski or snowboard feels more forgiving when you turn, rather than overly responsive and “hooky.” That edge angle is called a bevel, and it’s tuned into the ski by the techs at the local shop—all you’ll do at home is touch it up. To sharpen the edge effectively, you need to know what side-edge bevel has been tuned into your boards. Ask the techs at the shop, then buy a file guide to match that bevel (typically 1, 2, or 3 degrees). The file guide will hold the file at the correct angle for your edge so you don’t have to judge by feel whether you’re filing at 88 or 89 degrees.

1 Place an edge file in the file guide and run it along the side edge of the ski. Don’t press hard or saw back and forth. File in one direction only, using smooth, easy strokes. Test it by running your fingernail across the edge: if it shaves off a sliver of fingernail, the edge is good and sharp.

2 Lube a diamond stone with water, place it in the file guide, and run it along the ski’s side edge to polish it and remove snow-snagging striations left by the file.

3 With a gummi stone (a block of hard, abrasive rubber) held at a 45-degree angle to the side edge, give the ski a light wipe from tip to tail to remove the burr created by filing the side edges.