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Dillon

In the parking lot (formerly "At the base lodge")
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Just starting out on tuning and waxing and looking for some clarification regarding the dominator wax for my Renoun E98s. Only skied them 4 times and just had a machine wax job done before heading out so they are basically new. Already hit up tuning tools questions in the last thread, but want to develop a good waxing schedule system and stick with the same system.

So looking at dominator waxes. Is it best to to start with the re-new waxes as a foundation? Also, can those serve as a warm coat for cleaning?

Is the Fluoro wax worth the extra money for someone unconcerned with racing? I spend about 50-75% off piste depending on snow that day. I was looking at the zoom wax vs the low, mid, and hi Fluoro stuff. Now that I am getting my own set up I will be waxing frequently - even every day if needed.

Basically I will spend what I need to in order to maintain my skis in the best condition I can, but don't want to get suckered into marketing and spend more money/time than needed when I could be skiing.
 

Steve

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I use Dominator waxes mostly. All you need is Zoom. I prefer the Graphite Zoom as I ski in the East and there's a lot of manmade old snow. It's a great wax.

I also use the Renew and yes, as a prep wax, cleaning, storage, etc.
 
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Dillon

In the parking lot (formerly "At the base lodge")
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Perfect. Thanks!
 

trailtrimmer

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Flouro helps for humility levels over 50%. If you are in light powder and low relative humidity, cheap hydrocarbon wax is fine.

My race skis get the royal treatment. Free skis get a hot scrape with base prep and a layer of cheap Hertel FC739. It’s $35 for a 340 gram block and is really the best bang for the buck I’ve found. From about 10 degrees to 35 degrees and low to high humidity, it just glides.

I do keep all my bases saturated in base prep or holmenkol red and re-prep if I go too long and let the base get a little dry.

Don’t get too carried away with free skis, just any wax is better than the majority of the skiing public.
 
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Jacques

Workin' It on Skis Best I Can
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Just starting out on tuning and waxing and looking for some clarification regarding the dominator wax for my Renoun E98s. Only skied them 4 times and just had a machine wax job done before heading out so they are basically new. Already hit up tuning tools questions in the last thread, but want to develop a good waxing schedule system and stick with the same system.

So looking at dominator waxes. Is it best to to start with the re-new waxes as a foundation? Also, can those serve as a warm coat for cleaning?

Is the Fluoro wax worth the extra money for someone unconcerned with racing? I spend about 50-75% off piste depending on snow that day. I was looking at the zoom wax vs the low, mid, and hi Fluoro stuff. Now that I am getting my own set up I will be waxing frequently - even every day if needed.

Basically I will spend what I need to in order to maintain my skis in the best condition I can, but don't want to get suckered into marketing and spend more money/time than needed when I could be skiing.

To start, keep it simple. That means the Zoom Series of Dominator waxes. Use Base Renew wax to prepare the base for sure, then from time to time. Harder waxes need that softer stuff in the base to "stick" when applied.

When the snow gets wet, fluoro will help. In this case use Race Zoom Old Snow. It's spendy. Don't drip it all over. Just rub it on until you build up a layer like with surf waxes. Then iron away.
Graphite Zoom is the best for dry snow or "normal" snow, but graphite is not hydrophobic.

So for super simple you need Base Renew, Graphite Zoom and Race Zoom Old Snow.

Take your time when ironing. Less heat and more time. Pay attention to an even heat across the base all the way to the steel edges. Run the iron over the steel edges so the base at the edges remains warm as the rest of the base.

Good waxing takes time to learn. Always scrape and brush like crazy. Clean the base with Swix Glide Wax Cleaner rather than hot scraping. The waxing will be much better that way. When you get it right, you should not need to wax every day. Maybe once every third day. This assumes good base prep. with Renew and good waxing each time.
Good luck and happy waxing.
 

James

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Pretty sure that these days fluoros are for almost all snow moisture contents. It uses to be just lots of moisture, but I think that was disproved. @Primoz would know.
Not that I recommend using fluoros for the op. Spring maybe.
 
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Dillon

In the parking lot (formerly "At the base lodge")
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Not having figured out all the tuning stuff just yet and which tool set up I want, I went ahead and bought my waxing set up. Thanks for all the help/recommendations. Pretty excited to get it in and at least wax my new skis and looking forward to the tuning journey.

Got an iron, scraper, renew wax, old snow/race wax, fiberlene cloth, and three brushes. Out east all my snow from now on will be high humidity and old. If I can squeeze another trip out west in before the season is over then I'll get some other wax for the conditions. Hopefully they arrive before this weekend!

Thanks mates!

Dillon
 

Primoz

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Fluoros were for all conditions from beginning on, not that it changed much regarding this lately. Only thing is, difference between fluoro and non-fluoro waxes in low humidity is smaller then it's when humidity is high, and therefore, when waxing on budget and every hundredths of a second doesn't play role for you, waxing fluoro and fluoro overlays might be overkill in such conditions. But HF waxes always work better then LF or CH waxes. It's tested and proven, regardless what someone might say, especially someone who was never testing such things.
 

James

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It's tested and proven, regardless what someone might say, especially someone who was never testing such things.
That's never stopped anyone with no knowledge from being an expert.

What about the idea that flouros build up in the base and eventually make it slower. Therefore use them only when needed or periodically clean the base. That's not true either, right?
 

Primoz

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It's true to some extent, but it's not that you need to clean that after every use. It's more true for powders and liquid overlays and much much less of and issue for "normal" HF waxes. In top level racing, where budged doesn't play much of role, majority of ski preparation is still done with HF waxes. That means when ski is new, and you go through those 20-30 cycles of waxing before putting ski on snow, most of those cycles is done with HF waxes, not with CH waxes. If having too much fluoro in ptex would slow skis down, this wouldn't be done. Same as it wouldn't be done, what Fischer and Rossi are doing on certain ptex mixtures for their xc skis, that they have ptexes with some sort of fluor included in ptex. "Building up" fluoro in ptex means, ptex is able to accept less fluoro from waxes when waxing, but that doesn't mean skis are slower. Especially with xc that's not an issue at all, considering you normally have one skis for one conditions and other for the other conditions, so certain skis are always waxed only with similar/same temp range waxes, which also include same/similar fluoro combo.
More problem with that is of course with fluoro overlays, but even there majority of issue is, when you wax skis and don't run them (you have 2 or 3 pairs of skis prepared for race, and use only 1 pair at race). Then it's good to either run those skis for few runs or clean them with base cleaner.
PS: I totally agree with first point of your post. But honestly, I don't really care much about that ;) I have tested things I write about myself, and I made several 1000 ski/wax/structure tests in my life, or I got that info first hand from friends who are still in this business doing exactly that. If someone find it useful I'm happy about, if someone think I have no idea about all this and they know better after they waxed 3 pairs of ski in their life and never made single proper test to find out what's fast and what's slow, I'm also fine with that. I'm not gonna argue about that.... except if it's rainy day and I would have way too much time :D
 

trailtrimmer

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What about the idea that flouros build up in the base and eventually make it slower. Therefore use them only when needed or periodically clean the base. That's not true either, right?

I've never bought into this part at all. If the chunks of flouro were that big and the bases had that large of pores, it would be like sandpaper on snow. I've literally ironed a light layer of flouro powder into my top coat before and it was fast as hell for a short period of time. (done in a well ventilated area) A couple hot scrapes pulls it off no problem. I also only use base cleaner after skiing in dirty conditions, I want that wax to stay in there unless I've been skiing in dirty crap.

Flouro is always faster, however running HF or LF in dry conditions is just burning cash on free skis. I only hit my free skis with HF in the spring when it's super wet, race skis see HF constantly. My region next to the big lake is almost always 70%+ humidity, but I'll never put HF on my free skis on a regular basis.

Buying fancy, 40 to 100 gram retail packaged wax for free skis is also a cash burn for less returns. You can buy 250 gram bars of Wintersteiger, Wend or Toko shop wax for $15 to $25 on ebay. For $40 you can stock your bench with moly and a warm wax for base prep and hot scrapes. Add $35 for a simple and effective all temp wax like FC739 and you have your start for 80% of the conditions you'll see for $75. When getting started, that money is better spent on fiberlene paper, extra brushes, scraper sharpener, etc. Just picking up a set of vices is $100 to $140 and it's a far greater benefit than scraping expensive wax onto the ground.
 
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Primoz

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There is also a thing where it's SO cold and SO dry that one adds a warm wax for internal lubrication of the cold wax.
True, but in my case that warm wax was always HF ;) Back in my days my favorite combo for that sort of conditions (super dry snow from -15 to -20c, lower it didn't matter as racers couldn't start if it was under -21c) was Toko Nordlite and Toko Yellow HF Dibloc. Nowadays that would relate to something like 2/3 of Toko HF Blue with 1/3 of Toko HF yellow.
 

cantunamunch

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True, but in my case that warm wax was always HF ;) Back in my days my favorite combo for that sort of conditions (super dry snow from -15 to -20c, lower it didn't matter as racers couldn't start if it was under -21c)

-4F actual air temps or lower is something we've seen quite a bit of this winter.

Unfortunately I have no idea what the appropriate Dominator mix would be for this - maybe @Jacques or @Atomicman know.
 

Jacques

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-4F actual air temps or lower is something we've seen quite a bit of this winter.

Unfortunately I have no idea what the appropriate Dominator mix would be for this - maybe @Jacques or @Atomicman know.

When the snow is super cold I mix some Dominator Bullet to whatever wax I am using. Super cold that would be their turquoise. They make a harder white, but I never use it as the Bullet mix will really harden the wax mix.
 

Atomicman

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Just starting out on tuning and waxing and looking for some clarification regarding the dominator wax for my Renoun E98s. Only skied them 4 times and just had a machine wax job done before heading out so they are basically new. Already hit up tuning tools questions in the last thread, but want to develop a good waxing schedule system and stick with the same system.

So looking at dominator waxes. Is it best to to start with the re-new waxes as a foundation? Also, can those serve as a warm coat for cleaning?

Is the Fluoro wax worth the extra money for someone unconcerned with racing? I spend about 50-75% off piste depending on snow that day. I was looking at the zoom wax vs the low, mid, and hi Fluoro stuff. Now that I am getting my own set up I will be waxing frequently - even every day if needed.

Basically I will spend what I need to in order to maintain my skis in the best condition I can, but don't want to get suckered into marketing and spend more money/time than needed when I could be skiing.
Yes, Base Renew is great as a foundation (of course you still scrape it and brush it, before final waxing) and is excellent for hot scraping to clean and condition bases. Graphite Zoom is All-Temp and is a great everyday Wax for Black Bases, Plain Zoom All-Temp for non-black. Makes it very simple.
 
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Dillon

In the parking lot (formerly "At the base lodge")
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Yes, Base Renew is great as a foundation (of course you still scrape it and brush it, before final waxing) and is excellent for hot scraping to clean and condition bases. Graphite Zoom is All-Temp and is a great everyday Wax for Black Bases, Plain Zoom All-Temp for non-black. Makes it very simple.


Leaving work now to get to it!!

Ordered the normystiff not knowing that. No issues. Try graphite next time.

Can’t wait to see how the skis ski with wax and a tune! Already loved them so I’m sure it’ll be better
 

Atomicman

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Leaving work now to get to it!!

Ordered the normystiff not knowing that. No issues. Try graphite next time.

Can’t wait to see how the skis ski with wax and a tune! Already loved them so I’m sure it’ll be better
Just make absolutely sure they have no hanging burr!
 

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