Review: DPS Phantom Permanent Base Glide Treatment

[nay]

Ok, in the interest of science, and to what I think is point of Phantom, I have started from the test point of “brutal maintenance”. Which means: I’m never really up on maintenance unless it’s critical and does Phantom bridge the gap?

Bear in mind I pretty much only ski soft snow and I only ski on a powder biased 105mm all mountain ski. And I don’t need my skis to be faster. The terrain takes care of speed.

@Jacques may want to look away at this point.

First, some amateur p-tex repairs. No major gouges, but more than surface scratches out to the edges in spots.

Lots of long typical surface scratches.

Post repair. Does this shot make my bases look hairy?

Ready to go after basic base cleaning.

Part A applied on the first ski.

Curing. Don’t they look pretty?

After one hour.

Now you might be wondering why I didn’t go get a stone grind since I need one and that’s what is recommended prior to application?

Because I’m testing for minimalism. I wish I had time to do more than rode hard and put away wet, but mostly there is beginning of season and end of season.

If Phantom bridges the gap, then I’m sold. If it’s finnicky, then in my view this is a manufacturing product, not a maintenance product.

More to follow.

 

[nay]

Part B. Wasn’t sure I’d have enough sun with the incoming storm and rain this morning, but you can get sunburned on a cloudy day in CO in May so I went for it.

Part B starts out more beaded on the surface, so I came back out and spread it after about 30 mins. Looks to be curing rapidly.

 

[James]

You'll never get the edge sharp when the base edge is like that.

Does it work on extruded ptex - like the patches you have? Have they mentioned this?

 

[nay]

You'll never get the edge sharp when the base edge is like that.

Does it work on extruded ptex - like the patches you have? Have they mentioned this?

I don’t know - haven’t found anything on whether Phantom is dependent on a sintered base structure like wax. That’s part of my curiousity.

My edges are detuned so I’m not super sensitive to the base edge condition, although a full tune is in order. This season was just ugly off-piste and the damage kept coming so I gave up outside of some basic stone treatment.

I decided I wanted to do the Phantom first since DPS suggests a stone grind will freshen up the base. One takeaway I have is that “base texture is essential to ensure proper glide” - so if we’re trading waxing frequency for grinding frequency that’s no good.

I’m a good test case since I do little of either.

 

[nay]

Ok, some thoughts on curing since I got to about 1:45 curing time in very close to full sun in May at 7,400 ft before this rolled back in:

Different UV wavelengths increase at different rates with altitude, and we don’t know which one(s) is doing the curing, but at 10% per km generally UV would be about 25% higher than sea level, and then there is low ozone, etc. and we’re under 45 days from max sun angle, so “3 hours” are not all created equal and the variance in altitude, latitude, season would all have a major effect.

DPS sez it’s cured when slightly gummy, and that was fully the case before the clouds rolled in.

I wonder why they are talking about time instead of just noting it’s cured when the liquid texture is stable and “slightly gummy”.

Time to cork this off, which was hardly easy with part A, and then wire brush out the texture.

First test possibly tomorrow in some May powdermank.

 

[nay]

Ok - Part B is now corked and wire brushed to clean out the grind texture as indicated.

The bases look “waxed” and still have a little bit of surface feel to them, although that seems to be drying out for lack of a better term.

As for extruded ptex, here’s the long scratch repair. No way to know if the Phantom penetrates this stuff.

Only thing left to do - I hope - is ski it.

 

[Jacques]

Ok, in the interest of science, and to what I think is point of Phantom, I have started from the test point of “brutal maintenance”. Which means: I’m never really up on maintenance unless it’s critical and does Phantom bridge the gap?

Bear in mind I pretty much only ski soft snow and I only ski on a powder biased 105mm all mountain ski. And I don’t need my skis to be faster. The terrain takes care of speed.

@Jacques may want to look away at this point.

First, some amateur p-tex repairs. No major gouges, but more than surface scratches out to the edges in spots.

View attachment 45128

Lots of long typical surface scratches.

View attachment 45129

Post repair. Does this shot make my bases look hairy?

View attachment 45130

Ready to go after basic base cleaning.

View attachment 45131

Part A applied on the first ski.

View attachment 45132

Curing. Don’t they look pretty?

View attachment 45133

After one hour.

View attachment 45134

Now you might be wondering why I didn’t go get a stone grind since I need one and that’s what is recommended prior to application?

Because I’m testing for minimalism. I wish I had time to do more than rode hard and put away wet, but mostly there is beginning of season and end of season.

If Phantom bridges the gap, then I’m sold. If it’s finnicky, then in my view this is a manufacturing product, not a maintenance product.

More to follow.

Yea, you have a few places I would have done a welded base repair. I see you used a candle. That's not a strong repair. Very soft.
Anyway, any repaired areas will not take up wax anymore and Phantom only works so so in those areas as well.
That said, as long as you sharpened your edges, I think you will be happy with the Phantom treatment based on your expectations and what others have reported on about the product here.
Ski on and don't sweat the small stuff!

 

[Jacques]

I don’t know - haven’t found anything on whether Phantom is dependent on a sintered base structure like wax. That’s part of my curiousity.

My edges are detuned so I’m not super sensitive to the base edge condition, although a full tune is in order. This season was just ugly off-piste and the damage kept coming so I gave up outside of some basic stone treatment.

I decided I wanted to do the Phantom first since DPS suggests a stone grind will freshen up the base. One takeaway I have is that “base texture is essential to ensure proper glide” - so if we’re trading waxing frequency for grinding frequency that’s no good.

I’m a good test case since I do little of either.

DPS says Phantom is for sintered bases. They say you can apply to extruded bases, but they will not work as well as with sintered.
Although very little amorphous regions in an extruded base some do provide a tiny bit of absorption.

 

[nay]

This was probably a good first test .

My experience was exactly as prescribed: a little slow for maybe one run, slow in the corral (I actually liked this), and the skis would release and glide with very little speed. I didn’t notice it at all when skiing until the very end of the day.

This one time where I wondered if the Phantom was underperforming was on my last runout to depart. The sun had just come out and the snow started consolidating immediately. I got a little bit of grab there.

I can’t say that was Phantom - this was a big storm in May where sun will act immediately on the snow. I’ll get a much better feel with more spring conditions.

 

[Jacques]

This was probably a good first test .

View attachment 45315 View attachment 45316 View attachment 45317 View attachment 45318

My experience was exactly as prescribed: a little slow for maybe one run, slow in the corral (I actually liked this), and the skis would release and glide with very little speed. I didn’t notice it at all when skiing until the very end of the day.

This one time where I wondered if the Phantom was underperforming was on my last runout to depart. The sun had just come out and the snow started consolidating immediately. I got a little bit of grab there.

I can’t say that was Phantom - this was a big storm in May where sun will act immediately on the snow. I’ll get a much better feel with more spring conditions.

Nothing sticker than fresh then warming snow. Nothing really overcomes that. Some things better than others though.
We need a report back from those skis after another 60 days or so of skiing!

 

[nay]

Nothing sticker than fresh then warming snow. Nothing really overcomes that. Some things better than others though.
We need a report back from those skis after another 60 days or so of skiing!

Agreed. I’ll keep up here to date on my experience.

 

[nay]

Ok. Loveland closing day was sticky and I did not have good glide even for the conditions - worse than other people. This was really limited to flatter terrain, but it’s there for sure.

One thing I noticed in my application was that Part A was difficult to “cork” off - probably took me a half hour to get the excess removed. Part B was much easier.

I’m thinking that if you skip the recommended base grind (the “best” recommended prep procedure) and just clean the bases (the “better” method), then Phantom may not penetrate as effectively as needed.

I don’t have a comparison to make for having done the base grind in advance, but to the extent my Part A experience was different than others, definitely get the grind so you are starting with best possible base structure. The effectiveness of the treatment may be proportionate to the prep. Often the case.

I’m going to stick with my lazy maintenance model and do a stick rub wax and see how things go since that stuff won’t last. Here’s what my bases look like after 2 days.

I will keep this study that has no control ski for reference going to see how things proceed.

 

[cantunamunch]

Has anyone on this forum reported back about Giga Glide yet?

 

[ScottB]

Nay, I have a comment.

How is the big white lettering done on your skis? I know it came that way, but is it different base material or more likely is it some sprayed on material over the base material? I don't know the answer, but I wonder if the Phantom does not do its glide thing on that material.

I bring this up because I put Phantom on 4 skis, did not grind any of them, and it worked fine for all, including spring conditions. None of my skis have any significant lettering on the bases, which is about the only difference between what you did and what I did.

I also wonder if you need to ski them some more to get all the excess out of the base. I know you corked and brushed, as I did. The first day I skied mine was on very hard snow and felt great. The second day was very wet warm snow and they were a little sticky. After a few more days of skiing the stickyness went away for the warm conditions.

 

[Sibhusky]

Could the structure be gummed up with the treatment? Maybe try some brushing with a steel brush?

 

[Jacques]

I would concur with the above. (Not that I know about Phantom) Brush the crap out of them with steel and brass.

 

[nay]

The Phantom kit comes with a steel brush and I brushed them pretty good, but sounds worth hitting it again. DPS does emphasize this in the instructions.

@ScottB thanks for the info on your application and experience. Sounds like my second day may have been similar to yours. The white lettering is just base material from what I can tell, but I don’t know? I’d think of that was the issue it would present with wax, too.

Back to brushing and some more ski days. Will report back.

 

[Tricia]

Ok. Loveland closing day was sticky and I did not have good glide even for the conditions - worse than other people. This was really limited to flatter terrain, but it’s there for sure.

I took two DPS Skis to Mt Rose, one with Phantom. The other prepped with yellow wax.
I found them to ski similarly when the snow got sticky.
The yellow wax may(emphasis on may) have been slightly quicker on the first run or so, but when the snow gets sticky, its sticky.

 

[nay]

I took two DPS Skis to Mt Rose, one with Phantom. The other prepped with yellow wax.
I found them to ski similarly when the snow got sticky.
The yellow wax may(emphasis on may) have been slightly quicker on the first run or so, but when the snow gets sticky, its sticky.

^^^^that’s a proper test

I was skiing with @mdf and @James and there was a difference. Everybody was feeling the stickiness, and I wasn’t expecting relief, but I was also being passed by other skiers on flatter terrain.

My thoughts right now aren’t that Phantom isn’t “working”, but that there may (emphasis on “may”) be some value in the full grind base prep. My study doesn’t have a control ski, so it is entirely invalid other than perceptions. I need more time and varied conditions, methinks.

Did anybody else find there was more surface material to cork/buff out for Part A than Part B? I really had to work to get A ready for B, but I also let it cure for about 5 hours in high altitude Colorado sun at near peak UV strength and B was much less time.

 

[ScottB]

When I did my skis, I just wiped them with a paper towel after part A cure. I didn't cork and brush until after part B was cured and wiped off with a towel. I though that was what DPS's video said to do. I don't think it matters much either way. What I do think and has been reported several times is sometimes you have to ski them for a couple of runs to possibly days before getting good glide, presumably to get all the "residue" out of the ski and just have the chemical that bonded with the plastic "in" the ski. Mine skied well from the get go, but the second day I was on them had wet sticky conditions and they didn't glide as well as the first day on hard snow. On the wet snow I could feel the slight friction in the lift lines and when pushing off from a start. That went away in a few more days of skiing, I didn't really focus on it much.