Review: DPS Phantom Permanent Base Glide Treatment

[James]

Makes me wonder. Google told me that the most effective way to clean my bases was to wax and warm scrape. Keep doing it till the warm wax doesn't pull up nasties.

Wait, so here we are at a ski site and one goes to google for this?

 

[CalG]

Test time:
Which of these items is the most unlike the others?
A) Product sold as "Base Cleaner" for ptex.
B) Hot soapy water
C) Olive oil. Any type,

Just bizarre.

Hot soapy water.

The other two are "oil and oil derivatives" .

There are few common solvents that work well for wax removal. Emulsifiers and surfactants are difficult but possible.

I'll remain in the hot scrape camp. ;-)

 

[Monique]

Wait, so here we are at a ski site and one goes to google for this?

Well, I was on my way into the basement, so, yeah. I didn't have time for poking around!

Anyway, it made sense to me.

 

[dovski]

I applied the phantom to my skis yesterday during the one sunny day Seattle has seen in a month. My skis were stone ground and had a nice structure put in early in the week and were ready to go. Needless to say I played musical chairs as sun shifted shadows throughout the day to ensure that the skis cured in direct sunlight. The strange thing was that Phantom for both applications A and B did not dry up or evaporate. After each cure I ended up wiping a ton of liquid off my skis, so nothing like the video DPS posted. Skied them hard today in varied conditions and the skis felt quite sluggish. I've reached out to DPS on this, but my assumption is that that with a UV factor of 1, the sunlight was not strong enough to properly cure the skis. Will keep you posted on what I hear back from DPS. Will also hold off on applying my remaining two Phantom kits until DPS comes up with their indoor solution or the weather improves in Seattle in Spring/Summer.

 

[Philpug]

Like i said in one of my initial posts, the one pair of skis that was sent to us just had the application done to it and it was a bit sticky to the touch. It took about 3-5 runs for it to work ooff and sice then the skis have beem running smooth and fast. @Andy Mink has been skiing them more than me but I plan to get them to @smoothrides for a grind to see how they do after that.

 

[Primoz]

Makes me wonder. Google told me that the most effective way to clean my bases was to wax and warm scrape. Keep doing it till the warm wax doesn't pull up nasties.

For normal dirt this is all you need. But sometimes, at least around here, you are skiing real dirt. You know that warm slushy spring snow with whole bunch of dirt (from air) and from trees blown down the course, where you end up with ski being really sticky as it accumulated that sh**t through the sessions. In such times, wax removal solvent works best. It dries up the base too, so if not really needed you don't want to go there, but sometimes you just don't have other options.

After each cure I ended up wiping a ton of liquid off my skis, so nothing like the video DPS posted.

Could be, you used wrong olive oil to clean the bases before... or after applying this

 

[dovski]

For normal dirt this is all you need. But sometimes, at least around here, you are skiing real dirt. You know that warm slushy spring snow with whole bunch of dirt (from air) and from trees blown down the course, where you end up with ski being really sticky as it accumulated that sh**t through the sessions. In such times, wax removal solvent works best. It dries up the base too, so if not really needed you don't want to go there, but sometimes you just don't have other options.


Could be, you used wrong olive oil to clean the bases before... or after applying this

I stone ground the bases at a local shop and put in a nice structure. Personally I use olive oil for cooking and a citrus based wax remover when I clean my bases and follow up with a damp cloth to remove any residue.

 

[dovski]

Like i said in one of my initial posts, the one pair of skis that was sent to us just had the application done to it and it was a bit sticky to the touch. It took about 3-5 runs for it to work ooff and sice then the skis have beem running smooth and fast. @Andy Mink has been skiing them more than me but I plan to get them to @smoothrides for a grind to see how they do after that.

My skis were not sticky to the touch so not sure what that means. We got in 16 runs today and did not see a change from start to finish. As I said before my hunch is that they have not tested with a weaker winter sun and this may have impacted the curing process. Will wait to see what DPS come back with.

 

[Primoz]

@dovski don't take me too serious I was just making fun after reading what @James posted as official DPS instructions on what to use when cleaning bases. And honestly, everything about this product is joke, so why to keep it serious anyway

 

[dovski]

No worries I don't take to many things seriously these days. I think science behind Phantom is quite interesting, and if applied properly it should work, but it clearly is not a wax replacement.

 

[Primoz]

Realistically, it's kinda hard to expect some super breakthrough from company with few people and running kickstarter scam (sorry but with percentage of successful kickstarter projects, I doubt kickstarter thing could in any other time be considered as anything but scam by default). There are big chemistry giants trying to develop such sort of thing for ages, yet they still didn't come anywhere closer to it, as they were 20 years ago... or 30 or 40 While I agree companies like Swix etc. could be depressing such things even if they would accidentally discovered it, as it would mean much less revenue for them on long run, but thing is, ptex, fluoro stuff for waxes etc, is not developed and produced by wax companies, but by big companies in chemistry industry, and they have zero respect for small niche wax companies if they would be able to sell this to ski producers (point is to develop ptex which doesn't need waxing). But that doesn't stop some home companies producing bio soap to claim they also invented super wax which works for every snow in all conditions and you basically just rub it on and it last for 1000+km. No that's not a joke, but there really exists one company which main product is bio soap, but as side product they also sell you super wax

 

[mdf]

a bit sticky to the touch

One thing I learned in my google poking around was that some classes of UV cured resins are subject to an effect where the oxygen in the air keeps the surface from fulling curing. That could be why there is a sticky surface layer that has to be skied off.

And I would be suspicious of the lack of the expected stickiness. It might mean it did not cure at all.

 

[markojp]

" Your group" has been strictly defined by it's membership.
quote
Me, @kimmyt , @RachelV , for three ...
end quote.

The subject was if the product might be targeted to the general population of women.
No one suggested any population might "care less". The use of a product that replaces perceived drudgery is not a concession to caring.
From the short series of post immediately above, it appears that many of the female contributors to this thread find some aspect of waxing disagreeable. It is not uncaring about the outcome to seek alternatives to actions that are deemed unpleasant.

the entire process is pleasant to me. (excepting the needle sharp edge shavings that embed into my skin.;_)

FWIW, we were testing DPS skis this past Friday. None of the skis we skied used the special sauce. We didn't really get into the 'why' of it at all as the rep's explanation as to why he hadn't seemed reasonable... so much so that I forgot what he had said about the topic. I'm sure finding time to give everything time to sun cure is pretty much an impossibility for them this time of year, and I have no recollection of any mention that it was for women who didn't like aspects of ski maintenance.

 

[Mendieta]

Like i said in one of my initial posts, the one pair of skis that was sent to us just had the application done to it and it was a bit sticky to the touch. It took about 3-5 runs for it to work ooff and sice then the skis have beem running smooth and fast. @Andy Mink has been skiing them more than me but I plan to get them to @smoothrides for a grind to see how they do after that.

Ten pages later, lots of interest in this technology. You may want to start a fresh post after the stone ground. Or refresh the original post. Hard to keep up! Any word whether shops will/can adapt to apply this for customers? Perhaps with an indoors UV "curing" lamp.

 

[Monique]

For normal dirt this is all you need. But sometimes, at least around here, you are skiing real dirt. You know that warm slushy spring snow with whole bunch of dirt (from air) and from trees blown down the course, where you end up with ski being really sticky as it accumulated that sh**t through the sessions. In such times, wax removal solvent works best. It dries up the base too, so if not really needed you don't want to go there, but sometimes you just don't have other options.

That makes sense! Save the solvent for the really nasty stuff. Thanks!

 

[Eleeski]

As humans, we are pretty good at feeling differences. Like freshly waxed skis. A test is whether one can feel a difference between a treated ski before and after fresh wax.

Factory bases are pretty slippery. Snow is pretty slippery and the slipperyness is variable. So measurements of coefficients of friction aren't particularly valuable. Racers offer the only quantifiable measurement of the effectiveness of a product. Any results there?

The skis will run down the hill reasonably well no matter what. Even the klister I rub on mine to slow me down isn't that effective!

I like Koolaid but not that much...

Eric

 

[Primoz]

As humans, we are pretty good at feeling differences. Like freshly waxed skis. A test is whether one can feel a difference between a treated ski before and after fresh wax.

Some can, most of people can't. One thing (probably only thing ever anyway) where I was really good was being ski tech. For most of time, especially on xc skis, I didn't really need test to figure it out which ski or wax combo is better (for small difference there's still nothing but watch to tell what's faster). But majority of people will never have this feel, and differences can be super small (few hundredths of a sec on 10sec test), so most of people would be never able to tell which option is faster, unless you really test it. And testing alpine skis and waxes is not an easy procedure.

 

[Eleeski]

My skis rarely get waxed. So I actually can notice a fresh waxing. For maybe one run. But the effect is very subtle. I'm probably the demographic DPS is chasing - the lazy skier who wants to never worry about wax.

I do tune my skis a lot (when the snow is hard). Edges matter. Nice thing about wax is that it prevents rust on the edges. I don't think DPS is claiming to protect the steel in the edges. That one I might purchase.

@Primoz is right that I certainly couldn't feel the difference between types of wax.

Eric

 

[Mendieta]

Some can, most of people can't. One thing (probably only thing ever anyway) where I was really good was being ski tech. For most of time, especially on xc skis, I didn't really need test to figure it out which ski or wax combo is better (for small difference there's still nothing but watch to tell what's faster). But majority of people will never have this feel, and differences can be super small (few hundredths of a sec on 10sec test), so most of people would be never able to tell which option is faster, unless you really test it. And testing alpine skis and waxes is not an easy procedure.

That's a difference of roughly 1 in 10,000. No wonder we don't detect it!

My skis rarely get waxed. So I actually can notice a fresh waxing. For maybe one run. But the effect is very subtle. I'm probably the demographic DPS is chasing - the lazy skier who wants to never worry about wax.

I do tune my skis a lot (when the snow is hard). Edges matter. Nice thing about wax is that it prevents rust on the edges. I don't think DPS is claiming to protect the steel in the edges. That one I might purchase.

@Primoz is right that I certainly couldn't feel the difference between types of wax.

Eric

And I think I would be part of the demographic, too. And many others. I could be wrong, but my limited experience tells me that I notice the wax, not so much in the downhill speed, but rather in overall usability: traversing flats, cat-tracks, even variable snow where you might hit a sticky patch while gliding.

To your point, because we tend to be (more or less) on the edges, a tune is a lot more relevant, otherwise. Another great reason for this product (or similar)

 

[Monique]

What @Mendieta said.

I notice a fresh wax job on flats and traverses. When you come out of a steep and into a cat track. I'm usually out ahead, and some folks are always wayyyy behind, poling. Part of that is weight, but not all of it.