I have spent a great portion of my career working with Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene. It is a great wear material for sliding abrasion and has many other wonderful properties.
UHMW does not have a melt-flow point. It requires a lot of pressure to either extrude it or sinter it. Materially there is no difference between the two processes. If one uses the same resin for either process one gets identical properties.
Over the years I have been told that bases need to be heated so that the wax can penetrate its pores. I have seen UHMW under electron microscope magnification. It does not have any pores at all. None, zero, nadda, zilch.
UHMW is not easy to adhere to. There are several processes that are used to increase the surface energy of UHMW. Crown Plastics uses flame treating, others use corona treatment. The object is the same, to oxidize the surface to increase its surface energy and perhaps to create some polar bonding sites.
The best treatment is fluoro-oxidation. It is a specialized process that must be done correctly. It uses Fluorine gas and heat to work. Fluorine gas is the most reactive element in the periodic table. Under the correct conditions it can start steel on fire! To get Fluorine gas one must crack it out of hydrofluoric acid. An HF spill of any size is very nasty because it dissolves the calcium in your body. 250 ml spilled on your body will kill you within a few hours. All that said, done correctly fluoro-oxidation increases the surface energy of UHMW more and more permanently than any other method. Great adhesion to the ski is the result.
Melted wax has very low surface energy. It adheres well to the UHMW of the base. However it simply does not last all that long. Most of the time we are just skiing on the uncoated base.
I am working on an alternative to UHMW ski and board bases. One issue that I find difficult to believe is the idea that 'texturing' the ski base actually makes it faster. Wax may adhere better to these bases but again that wax is so comparatively soft with relation to the abrasive ice crystals in the snow that I doubt it stays on for more than a few runs. I would like to get some comments from more learned community members to demonstrate to me why I should texture my new base instead of polishing it.
UHMW does not have a melt-flow point. It requires a lot of pressure to either extrude it or sinter it. Materially there is no difference between the two processes. If one uses the same resin for either process one gets identical properties.
Over the years I have been told that bases need to be heated so that the wax can penetrate its pores. I have seen UHMW under electron microscope magnification. It does not have any pores at all. None, zero, nadda, zilch.
UHMW is not easy to adhere to. There are several processes that are used to increase the surface energy of UHMW. Crown Plastics uses flame treating, others use corona treatment. The object is the same, to oxidize the surface to increase its surface energy and perhaps to create some polar bonding sites.
The best treatment is fluoro-oxidation. It is a specialized process that must be done correctly. It uses Fluorine gas and heat to work. Fluorine gas is the most reactive element in the periodic table. Under the correct conditions it can start steel on fire! To get Fluorine gas one must crack it out of hydrofluoric acid. An HF spill of any size is very nasty because it dissolves the calcium in your body. 250 ml spilled on your body will kill you within a few hours. All that said, done correctly fluoro-oxidation increases the surface energy of UHMW more and more permanently than any other method. Great adhesion to the ski is the result.
Melted wax has very low surface energy. It adheres well to the UHMW of the base. However it simply does not last all that long. Most of the time we are just skiing on the uncoated base.
I am working on an alternative to UHMW ski and board bases. One issue that I find difficult to believe is the idea that 'texturing' the ski base actually makes it faster. Wax may adhere better to these bases but again that wax is so comparatively soft with relation to the abrasive ice crystals in the snow that I doubt it stays on for more than a few runs. I would like to get some comments from more learned community members to demonstrate to me why I should texture my new base instead of polishing it.