Post Ski Stone Grind Base Cleaning

[Jacques]

So the plasma article was interesting.

Since they dialed it in about 2014, I wonder what, if any ski makers are using this for their bases.
I still think a good cleaning of a base like that would be needed prior to waxing.
Just because it could take up a lot of wax, would not negate the need to thoroughly clean prior to waxing.

Anyway, the article is about creating a better ski base. It's not about cleaning a ski base.

 

[Jacques]

You put the grey Fibertex on it. It knocks down the sharp ridges of the structure and (more than) halves the amount of time one spends per base.

Of course, if you chuck white Fibertex into it and use it after the hot scrape then it can work there too.

Okay, but this is about cleaning a base, not about breaking down a structure.
I did a video on breaking-in (or breaking down) a freshly ground ski.

Let us try to stay with the original subject. We can argue and add constructive stuff to that other thread.
Here is a link to that thread. https://www.pugski.com/threads/breaking-in-a-freshly-stone-ground-ski.7066/

 

[ScottB]

Ok I will join in too. I had several skis ground, beveled, and hyperglide structured from SKIMD. I am going to Phantom them so I decided to clean them and I have the same Swix cleaner you use in the video. As another data point, I got zero residue out of the skis, nada, fibertex was completely clean.

My conclusion; your stone grinder should wash his hands better after going to the bathroom and re-handling the product.

 

[Swiss Toni]

So what did you find out? What exactly is in the mix?
Plastic drys out over time. This includes your ski base. Wax keeps them moist and preserves them. Just like wax on automotive paints to protect and preserve the paint.

I can't figure how someone into skiing, an expensive sport, is so worried about spending $40.00 to clean a ton of bases prior to waxing?

As I said in my previous post the ingredients are listed in the safety data sheet, as a strong advocate of its use I would have thought that you would already know what it was composed of and could tell us why it was so much better than other readily available products that are intended to fulfil similar functions.

As I also mentioned UHMWPE ski bases are intrinsically hydrophobic, they don’t get wet so they can’t dry out, see page 21 in the product brochure from the company that makes the raw UHMWPE used by all the base manufacturers https://www.entecpolymers.com/assets/GUR®-UHMW-PE-Product-Manual.pdf Please explain how wax keeps ski bases moist and preserves them.

I don’t consider skiing to be an expensive sport, skiing is generally less expensive in Europe than in the US. I could easily afford to spend $40 on 500ml of Swix Glide Wax Cleaner, but as its mainly a readily available cheap solvent and there is no evidence to show that it does anything that can’t be done by a myriad of other readily available solvents I don't see the point.

Glad you liked the plasma article. I have no idea why it didn’t take off, maybe it was because they only seem to have carried out laboratory tests “After just nine months and 40 laboratory tests” https://www.plasmatreat.com/news/2014/06/envipark_plasma-nano-tech_ski.html Lots of procedures that people dream up to enhance ski performance simply don’t work in practice.

 

[Dakine]

UHMWPE plastic does not "dry out".
What does happen is the plasticizing agents added to the base plastic migrate out of the plastic and to the surface.
This causes a film on the surface and the base becomes more brittle.
This is much more true with cheap extruded bases than sintered ones.

 

[Jacques]

Ok I will join in too. I had several skis ground, beveled, and hyperglide structured from SKIMD. I am going to Phantom them so I decided to clean them and I have the same Swix cleaner you use in the video. As another data point, I got zero residue out of the skis, nada, fibertex was completely clean.

My conclusion; your stone grinder should wash his hands better after going to the bathroom and re-handling the product.

Well, as I stated in the video, the skis had been waxed with lots of graphite waxes, so who knows?
Maybe the stone grinder used had less fluid? Dirty fluid? IDK.
Anyway, I'm sure glad I cleaned them real good before I started my waxing!

Are the bases of your said skis black?
Or are they other than black bases?
Did you work the Cleaner thickly and brush it wet?
Can you ask the MD if he did anything to clean the bases post grind?

Thanks for sharing your observations. If the cloth came up clean, then that's good.

 

[Jacques]

As I said in my previous post the ingredients are listed in the safety data sheet, as a strong advocate of its use I would have thought that you would already know what it was composed of and could tell us why it was so much better than other readily available products that are intended to fulfil similar functions.

As I also mentioned UHMWPE ski bases are intrinsically hydrophobic, they don’t get wet so they can’t dry out, see page 21 in the product brochure from the company that makes the raw UHMWPE used by all the base manufacturers https://www.entecpolymers.com/assets/GUR®-UHMW-PE-Product-Manual.pdf Please explain how wax keeps ski bases moist and preserves them.

I don’t consider skiing to be an expensive sport, skiing is generally less expensive in Europe than in the US. I could easily afford to spend $40 on 500ml of Swix Glide Wax Cleaner, but as its mainly a readily available cheap solvent and there is no evidence to show that it does anything that can’t be done by a myriad of other readily available solvents I don't see the point.

Glad you liked the plasma article. I have no idea why it didn’t take off, maybe it was because they only seem to have carried out laboratory tests “After just nine months and 40 laboratory tests” https://www.plasmatreat.com/news/2014/06/envipark_plasma-nano-tech_ski.html Lots of procedures that people dream up to enhance ski performance simply don’t work in practice.

I don't know what's in the stuff. That's why I asked you, as you seem to know.

Seems you want to argue in a non-constructive way.
I am not a chemist or polymer chemist etc.
I have seen many a ski base become dried out from sitting around for years with no wax on them. IDK how to say it. It's like the emollients dry up in the plastic.
I am basing my conclusion on that and what I have learned from others observations through their years of experience.

 

[Jacques]

UHMWPE plastic does not "dry out".
What does happen is the plasticizing agents added to the base plastic migrate out of the plastic and to the surface.
This causes a film on the surface and the base becomes more brittle.
This is much more true with cheap extruded bases than sintered ones.

I'll go for that explanation.
I don't want to argue over semantics. Just like when we talk about bases oxidizing etc.

 

[Dakine]

Bases oxidize too!
Maybe that is part of what people see when they say a base had dried out.
That is also why you always need to keep them waxed and out of the sun.
Oxygen and UV radiation really goes after porous polyethylene.
The SWIX manual is real clear about always keeping them waxed especially for travel.

 

[Jacques]

Bases oxidize too!
Maybe that is part of what people see when they say a base had dried out.
That is also why you always need to keep them waxed and out of the sun.
Oxygen and UV radiation really goes after porous polyethylene.
The SWIX manual is real clear about always keeping them waxed especially for travel.

Thanks for the good information addition. You rock.

I still say it's good to clean a base before waxing. Not with harsh removers, but with one of the Cleaners, be it Swix or one of the other "fluoro" cleaners.

 

[Swiss Toni]

UHMWPE plastic does not "dry out".
What does happen is the plasticizing agents added to the base plastic migrate out of the plastic and to the surface.
This causes a film on the surface and the base becomes more brittle.
This is much more true with cheap extruded bases than sintered ones.

Plasticizers are not added to UHMWPE, they are mainly added to PVC and Polyurethane.

I don't know what's in the stuff. That's why I asked you, as you seem to know.

As I said above the ingredients are listed in the safety data sheet.
According to the SDS it is composed of 80-100% Hydrocarbons, C10-C12, isoalkanes, <2% aromatics, which is odorless mineral spirits in the real world. It also contains 1-<10% 2-(2-Ethoxy-ethoxy)ethyl acetate (which is sold as Eastman™ DE Acetate by the Eastman chemical company it is used as a solvent in printing inks) and 0,1-<1% 1,3-Bis(trifluoromethyl)benzene. So, at the end of the day we have a solvent cocktail that contains ca. 90% of a readily available solvent that retails for around $14 a gallon. The very small amounts of the other two chemicals are presumably there to help remove the fluorocarbons, which they don’t seem to do very well.


Odorless mineral spirits has a Kauri-butanol value of 27, the kauri-butanol value is used as a measure of the solvent power of hydrocarbon solvents. The higher the kauri-butanol value the stronger the solvency. The other Swix base cleaners have higher Kb values, citrus wax remover contains D-limonene (Kb 67) and standard base cleaner is mainly regular mineral spirits (Kb 33), regular mineral spirits is not as highly refined as odorless mineral spirits so has stronger solvency.

After stone grinding, I would clean the base with a solvent containing D-limonene as there is no wax on it at that stage and I would also use a brush with finer bristles. The bristles on that white nylon one you are using are too thick to get into the valleys in the structure.

Bases oxidize too!
Maybe that is part of what people see when they say a base had dried out.
That is also why you always need to keep them waxed and out of the sun.
Oxygen and UV radiation really goes after porous polyethylene.
The SWIX manual is real clear about always keeping them waxed especially for travel.

Oxidation may have been a problem with the early polyethylene bases (polyethylene ski bases were first introduced in the 1950s), but I don’t think it’s much of a problem now, a lot of improvements have been made since then. Thermal oxidation occurs if UHMWPE is continually exposed to high temperatures, 11 days at 80°C is considered to be equivalent to 4 to 6 years of ageing. Photo-oxidation can be prevented by adding 2.5% carbon black, if you don’t want a black base the addition of 0.5 wt.% UV stabilizer will give min. 5 years of UV resistance.

Ski bases are not porous in the traditional sense. If they were the pores would get clogged with epoxy during pressing and any that were open after that would soon get clogged with other crap. They would also be very weak, if you ran over a rock a large section would probably get ripped out.

 

[Jacques]

Plasticizers are not added to UHMWPE, they are mainly added to PVC and Polyurethane.


As I said above the ingredients are listed in the safety data sheet.
According to the SDS it is composed of 80-100% Hydrocarbons, C10-C12, isoalkanes, <2% aromatics, which is odorless mineral spirits in the real world. It also contains 1-<10% 2-(2-Ethoxy-ethoxy)ethyl acetate (which is sold as Eastman™ DE Acetate by the Eastman chemical company it is used as a solvent in printing inks) and 0,1-<1% 1,3-Bis(trifluoromethyl)benzene. So, at the end of the day we have a solvent cocktail that contains ca. 90% of a readily available solvent that retails for around $14 a gallon. The very small amounts of the other two chemicals are presumably there to help remove the fluorocarbons, which they don’t seem to do very well.


Odorless mineral spirits has a Kauri-butanol value of 27, the kauri-butanol value is used as a measure of the solvent power of hydrocarbon solvents. The higher the kauri-butanol value the stronger the solvency. The other Swix base cleaners have higher Kb values, citrus wax remover contains D-limonene (Kb 67) and standard base cleaner is mainly regular mineral spirits (Kb 33), regular mineral spirits is not as highly refined as odorless mineral spirits so has stronger solvency.

After stone grinding, I would clean the base with a solvent containing D-limonene as there is no wax on it at that stage and I would also use a brush with finer bristles. The bristles on that white nylon one you are using are too thick to get into the valleys in the structure.


Oxidation may have been a problem with the early polyethylene bases (polyethylene ski bases were first introduced in the 1950s), but I don’t think it’s much of a problem now, a lot of improvements have been made since then. Thermal oxidation occurs if UHMWPE is continually exposed to high temperatures, 11 days at 80°C is considered to be equivalent to 4 to 6 years of ageing. Photo-oxidation can be prevented by adding 2.5% carbon black, if you don’t want a black base the addition of 0.5 wt.% UV stabilizer will give min. 5 years of UV resistance.

Ski bases are not porous in the traditional sense. If they were the pores would get clogged with epoxy during pressing and any that were open after that would soon get clogged with other crap. They would also be very weak, if you ran over a rock a large section would probably get ripped out.

Ha ha. I have seen that video before. I don't believe the fluoro Glide Wax Cleaners dissolve the fluoros. Seems they leave them at the surface in sort of a powder form. Then they are brushed away in the final step when the ski is brushed out with fine brass or steel.

So it seems whatever that other 10% is, that's the part that makes it work.

Other than that, I would not say that no wax was present after the grind I had done. The ski had been base preped quite well to include hot boxing and a bunch of iron, cool, iron, cool sequences.

So it seems as far as cleaning a base, you would just use mineral spirits, and you would not bother to clean a freshly stone ground ski.
Is that what you are saying?

 

[Dakine]

I think Toni and I are going to argue a bit about this.
Sintered ski bases certainly have open porosity, otherwise they would not accept much wax.
They also have closed porosity and free internal volume amongst the loops of the polymer chains.
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/webproj/212_spring_2014/Riley_Troyer/Troyer_Riley/wax.html
While the polyethylene used in sintered bases does not contain large amounts of the plasticizers used in extruded bases, it does contain processing aids, stabilizers and residual catalyst from its manufacture. It was careless on my part to call these plasticizers although they do make the polymer grains more processable.

The real measure of a solvent's ability to dissolve something is called the Hildebrand Solubility Parameter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrand_solubility_parameter
The Kauri Butanol solubility index is a result derived from simple lab testing that is only loosely related to the solubility parameter.
It is, as Toni points out, a simple way to evaluate a solvent.

Any freshly ground surface will oxidize and poluethylene is no exception.
While the bulk of the material is unaffected by this the surface should be protected by wax at all times.
Carbon black addition eliminates light penetration so only the surface is attacked by UV light.

 

[Swiss Toni]

I thought the pore myth had been debunked years ago. UHMWPE ski bases are pressure sintered the, UHMWPE is mixed with any additives the manufacture wants to use and filled into a cylindrical mold it is then compacted under a pressure of 20 to 50 bar, heated to 180°C - 220°C and then cooled. During cooling it is subjected to a pressure of 100 bar, after cooling it is skived into a strip, the whole process takes 7-8 hours. There is no possibility of there being any pores in it. When asked about pores, Urs Geissbühler the former head of R&D at IMS Kunststoff AG the Swiss company that introduced P-TEX said that in 38 years of working with ski bases he had never seen one. If you want to know what they put in them P-TEX have a look at his patents https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Urs+Geissbuhler

UHMWPE is a semi crystalline polymer with amorphous and crystalline regions, the amorphous regions begin to melt at around 60°C and the wax dissolves in them. The warmer you can get the base the more wax you can get into it, but if you get it too hot the bond between the base and the ski will fail. Unfortunately, you can only get a very small amount of wax into the base, around 2mg/cm2.

Most of the wax is held on the surface of the ski. The process of repeatedly waxing scraping and brushing with a metal brush builds up a carpet of nanofibers that resemble those in a flokati rug. Each bundle of nanofibers is between 100nm and 200nm long so there is a lot of space between the bundles of nanofibers for wax, as the individual wax molecules are very small in relation to the many millions of atoms that the polymer chains are built from. The very fine steel brushes (0.06mm dia. bristles) that are now available are increasingly being used to create the carpet. If you want a fast ski you start brushing in the spring.

I used kauri-butanol value because as you say it’s a simple way to evaluate the solvency of a hydrocarbon solvent that almost anyone can understand.

Waxing discussions might become a thing of the past in the near future. The European Union has decided to ban the production and use of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and its derivatives from 4 July 2020, so the European ski wax manufactures will have to change their fluorocarbon wax formulations. I think they could move away from wax-based products to more sophisticated coatings. TOKO in conjunction with a Swiss university already has a race proven UV cured ski coating in development, once they have found a way to cure it without the use of a mercury-vapor lamp they will put it on the market https://www.zhaw.ch/en/about-us/new...high-tech-ski-wax-to-be-used-at-the-olympics/ I wouldn’t be surprised if conventional waxes disappeared as fast as rear entry boots did.

 

[Jacques]

Oh well.....^^....... I'm not sure what any of that above had to do with if one should clean a freshly stone ground ski or not, or how one might go about it.

Seems this thread has drifted away from the subject.

Anyone else clean a ski after it has been stone ground? If so, please share your experiences and take on the subject.

One person above said when he went to clean his cloth was clean. That was not so for me. Each time I have had a base grind, I got lots of "gunk" out with cleaning.

 

[BC.]

Oh well.....^^....... I'm not sure what any of that above had to do with if one should clean a freshly stone ground ski or not, or how one might go about it.

Seems this thread has drifted away from the subject.

Anyone else clean a ski after it has been stone ground? If so, please share your experiences and take on the subject.

One person above said when he went to clean his cloth was clean. That was not so for me. Each time I have had a base grind, I got lots of "gunk" out with cleaning.

-Each ski that comes off the machine gets the base and top sheet wiped down with SVST Agent Orange. This wipe down helps to clean up the emulsion/residue that is on the ski from the edging/base/stone work. I like to have a nice clean/dry base before wax/scrape/brush.

 

[Jacques]

-Each ski that comes off the machine gets the base and top sheet wiped down with SVST Agent Orange. This wipe down helps to clean up the emulsion/residue that is on the ski from the edging/base/stone work. I like to have a nice clean/dry base before wax/scrape/brush.

Agent Orange! Sounds deadly! https://www.slidewright.com/svst-agent-orange-citrus-base-cleaner-6oz177ml.php
So it seems some places do clean after the grind is done.
Thanks for that info. It's nice to hear from "shop rats."

 

[OldJeep]

Anyone else clean a ski after it has been stone ground? If so, please share your experiences and take on the subject.

.

Cant say that I've ever had a stone grind that didn't include a wax. The shop I typically use has a Montana wax future that the skis are run through after the Snow Star.

 

[Jacques]

Cant say that I've ever had a stone grind that didn't include a wax. The shop I typically use has a Montana wax future that the skis are run through after the Snow Star.

That's where I differed. I asked for a grind only. Not to touch anything else, as I would do the rest myself.
We will assume they did some sort of cleaning prior to waxing.

 

[BC.]

Agent Orange! Sounds deadly! https://www.slidewright.com/svst-agent-orange-citrus-base-cleaner-6oz177ml.php
So it seems some places do clean after the grind is done.
Thanks for that info. It's nice to hear from "shop rats."

As the late Doug Coombs said in his Q and P tune......"Citrus, environmentally safe....you can drink it...you can put it on your salad"......lol