Zelf je ski’s fixen

Ik heb vandaag mijn ski's maar eens weggebracht om te laten waxen, slijpen en opvullen - dat was toch wel nodig na rond oud en nieuw wat steentjes te hebben geraakt. En in maart moet alles toch weer piekfijn in orde zijn voor een weekje Les Arcs. Oef, moest toch EUR 24,50 neertellen voor een 'grote beurt'.

Het wordt toch maar eens tijd om te leren dit zelf te doen. Dus bij deze, voor iedereen: een les 'hoe fix ik mijn ski's!', van Teton Gravity. (vanwege de grootte van de foto's moet je eerst een stukje naar beneden scrollen…)

 

So there are always a ton of posts of people trying to figure out how to tune a ski. Since I was gonna fix up my girls skis this weekend anway, I figured I'd document it and post it up here with some instructions. I hope this is helpful and hope that I didn't just waste 6 hours of my time putting this whole thing together. It's got some basic tuning info and some pictures that should serve as a guide. There are lots of tricks and different styles that different people will tell you, I find the ones I used are most generic and most should agree on them. Perhaps if I get a lot of positive feedback on this I could ask ONS to make it a sticky for a little while so that more people can learn from it. Anyway, enjoy.

Here we have all the equipment. It is, from left to right: Horsehair brush, brass brush, nylon brush, scraper, wax, iron, multi-purpose file guide (swix xactor), fine diamond stone, medium diamond stone, pocket stone. red gummi stone, steel scraper, matches, candle, P-tex stick, brake retainers. (not shown is fibertex, it's a lot like a scotch brite pad)

Some things to know before your start: when you are doing any type of work on your ski, make sure to do it from tip to tail. Also, you need a file guide if you want to do edge work.

For doing p-tex repair work (filling in gouges in your ski base) You will want to do as follows: light a candle and allow p-tex stick to warm up and catch fire, next, you will hold the p-tex candle close to the base of the ski and allow p-tex to drip off the candle onto your base. After this, allow it to cool and then use a metal scraper to remove the p-tex as much as possible so that the base is even. Next, run some fibertex over the repair to knock down any (microscopic) p-tex hairs that would be sticking up.

The picture below should also be in the base prep section, but they all would not fit. This is just a basic idea of how to use fibertex so that you get it to work each part of the ski evenly.

Next, you want to sharpen your edges. A common misconception is that you need to file your edges to get them sharp. This is wrong, you should normally just run some stones down the edges and they will become sharp. If you file all the time, you will wear down your edges very quickly. The following are pictures of 4 basic edge tools. From left to right they are : Swix pocket stone, file, medium grit diamond stone, fine grit diamond stone. These 4 tools will get most of the work done. First you start off with the pocket stone to take down any huge burrs or damage, then just work your way down from the medium grit to the fine grit diamond stones. (called deburring) Always remember to use a file guide, and to do your base edges beore your side edges. Another helpful point is to wet the diamond stones with water before using them, as it will prevent them from getting built up with dirt.

Use a gummi stone if there is a lot of rust on your edges, or if there is a section of damage that you want to dull out before using your stones. You can also use it to deburr if you plan on skiing on very very very soft groomed stuff, or if you prefer a duller less grabby edge.

A good easy way to tell if your edges are sharp is to scrape your finger nail over them as shown below. You will know if they are sharp if some of your nail comes off. The amount of nail that came off in the picture is exagerated (scraped off a lot of nail) so the concept can be easily understood.

Next you want to prep your bases for waxing. Make sure to clean off any edge material or dirt that may have gotten onto your skis using a paper towl and some water, I find a spray bottle to work well. After this you will want to brush the base with a brass brush to open up the structure, and then use fibertex to knock down all the little p-tex hairs. I find if you lay a scraper over the fibertex you will be able to get more out of it

(not enough room for pictures)

Now you want to begin to wax your skis. You basically take a brick of wax, hold it to the iron, and allow it to drip on the ski base. After this, you make a quick pass with the iron to allow the wax to spread out. Following this, a longer slower pass with the iron is needed to allow the wax to melt into the base. These longer passes depend on the wax. If you are using a cold temp wax like CH6 or CH4, the passes will need to be longer than if you were using CH10, CH8, or universal wax. There should be a trail of liquid wax after the iron passes by it, but it should very quickly after then turn from a clear liquid into a cloudy white solid. (this is not shown in any of the pictures)

When you are done applying the wax, allow the skis to cool. It is usuallly wise to start work on your other ski while the freshly waxed one cools.

Note: Do not allow waxes such as CH4 or CH6 to cool. They should be scraped soon after they are waxed, while they are still warm, CH4 especially.
Note 2: The amount of the wax used on the ski in the picture is much more than should normally be used.

This (below) is about the right about of wax you want to have on your ski before you iron it all in, maybe a little bit more. Sometimes it is helpful to "crayon" the wax over the base of the ski so that the base does not get burned. Here I am using a soft wax, so it spread out easily eliminating the chance for the base burning

When the wax has cooled, you begin to scrape. Hold the scraper as shown and scrape as much wax as possible off of the ski base. I find that having a 2 scrapers is a benfit, I use the older duller one for initial scraping, and the newer sharper one for final scraping.

note: don't forget to scrape the wax off of the sidewalls and edges of your skis.

Next you brush. Brushing allows you to open up the structure of your ski and allows you to polish your bases, which will make the ski glide more effeciently. Brushing is commmonly skipped, but it is an essential step to waxing.

First start out with a hard bristled brush, I prefer brass or nylon, and make about 20 or more overlapping pass along the length of the ski. Then finish up with 20 passes of the horsehair brush to polish it all off. When you brush with bras/nylon, you should see small bits of wax getting kicked up behind your brush, this is a good sign.

When all is said and done, you should be able to spray water onto your bases and see it ball up like shown below. Another cool thing is that if you spray water onto your bases like shown, you will easily be able to blow it off, leaving the base perfectly dry. It's neat-o.

Anyway, good luck.

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