Wax and scraping questions

[SlideWright]

Try hot scraping 2-3 times with a soft wax and sharp scraper. Dirty skis are slow. (Do you travel with skis on a roof rack?). Brush them out well then use a scotchbright. Then use a regular wax. (I like red Homenkol beta). If they are still slow, I’d look at the grind pattern/depth.

So you don't see the irony here? You're essentially suggesting doing exactly what you'd do over non-proprietary base prep wax that costs pennies versus proprietary Phantom base prep wax that costs hundreds if not thousands over many skis.

If your priority is easy and mediocre to OK glide and money doesn't matter, fine. If you are addicted to good glide and almost a sense of 'flying', there are tons of options at far less cost. But does require effort and focus.

By spending all this money on quivers, the lifestyle, life tickets and everything else and not maximize the performance of your gear, seems like the point is being missed. Good glide and turns is where it's at.

 

[pchewn]

When I need my skis waxed I use this simple, clean, inexpensive, and fast method:

Take them to The REI store about 1 mile from my house, free machine wax in 10 minutes.

 

[SlideWright]

I do think on firmer snow it slides mostly fine and ok, especially as it heats up during a run. It does well on spring snow too. Real wax still glides better but it’s less noticeable on warmer or firmer snow. Fresh snow the difference is shocking. I have a buddy here who skis Alta all day on phantom and says it’s great for him. So I don’t know what else to say other then it was not great for me at all and never going back to it.

Generally, a more aggressive base structure is more important than the wax in springtime. With wet snows, there is more suction due to the water. The structure breaks the suction and allows better glide. Using a durable base wax like purple under a red, orange or yellow will still glide well if the morning's frozen or corn snow wears off the softer waxes.

 

[stevo]

Like I said, I felt the phantom wax did pretty well on spring snow. We can sssume my base structure is fine. In fresh snow is where it has sucked

 

[silverback]

So you don't see the irony here? You're essentially suggesting doing exactly what you'd do over non-proprietary base prep wax that costs pennies versus proprietary Phantom base prep wax that costs hundreds if not thousands over many skis.

If your priority is easy and mediocre to OK glide and money doesn't matter, fine. If you are addicted to good glide and almost a sense of 'flying', there are tons of options at far less cost. But does require effort and focus.

By spending all this money on quivers, the lifestyle, life tickets and everything else and not maximize the performance of your gear, seems like the point is being missed. Good glide and turns is where it's at.

Not really. Most don’t have this issue and I was trying to help troubleshoot it.

For me, Phantom doesn’t eliminate the need to wax. It just prolongs the time between waxing.

 

[silverback]

Like I said, I felt the phantom wax did pretty well on spring snow. We can sssume my base structure is fine. In fresh snow is where it has sucked

A course structure that does well in spring snow is slow in powder and vise versa. A fine or smooth structure base will glide better in cold powder.

Dirty bases or bases that haven’t seen much scraping are slow in general.

 

[stevo]

my base structure was created by one of the best tuners in the area and he was not making it for spring snow. This discussion is getting ridiculous. Glad to hear you like going semi-fast on Phantom, but I don't.

And I agree that Phantom is supposed to prolong the time between waxes, but I don't think its worth the ~$100 or so that it costs if you're gonna end up waxing anyway...and by the way after about two base grinds you will need to do another coat of it. If it actually did work as a complete wax replacement, would be cool....