Wax base preparation and after methodology

[macumbed]

Hi Skiers friends

So I based grinded my only snowboard - all season (I know, it's about skiing forum, but you guys are the masters of wax racing) and it will be first time I will be waxing at home. I live in Quebec, so is usually cold (2C to -15C temperature) but also humid (75% humidity in avarage). Also I mostly have access to swix products, it's hard to bye dominator here. So I'm planing to:
1) clean with swix glide base cleaner, even if is grinded they waxed with some all weather wax.
2) even if weather is cold, I'm think to first use swix BP99 prep to saturate the base applying like ~10 times, re-heating at max scraping (I have free time!!!)
3) scrap, brush and apply swix PS6 cold also, maybe apply/re-warm like 6 times also - NOT SURE how many times
4) will buy PS6, PS7 and PS8 to be used according the temperature of the day, it's a sintered base.

Question1: Looks like a good plan? what do you do differently? consider that you live here.
Question 2: Do you guys like to do this waxing per temperature, or do something more simple, like use a all-weather wax? It make sense do the base saturation if I will put a all weather wax on top?
Question 3: Do you think the step 1 will be enough to remove the undesired wax? I'm afraid to be in the way of the base saturation. Swix base glide cleaner does not remove everything I guess, is not a remover. I have the swix red base cleaner too but swix support told me to not use it, it's for grip wax only/cross-country skies lol.

Share your shinegans! Thanks!

 

[MikeHunt]

1) clean with swix glide base cleaner, even if is grinded they waxed with some all weather wax.

Use sparingly as too much could potentially dry out the base. Experiment with older skis or snowboards first and see if you like the dryness/hardness you get at the amount of liquid you use.

 

[KingGrump]

You getting the board ready for the 2026 Olympic?

 

[Rdp]

Say more about your snowboarding. Is this for race prep? Recreational? Your approach is way overkill for the majority of use cases.

 

[macumbed]

Say more about your snowboarding. Is this for race prep? Recreational? Your approach is way overkill for the majority of use cases.

Recreational, second year doing it in my life, going to do 40x prob in the season. I'm super curious to see how much difference saturating the base will do, as also the right combination of wax

 

[cantunamunch]

Recreational, second year doing it in my life, going to do 40x prob in the season.

I assume that means you're going to use the snowboard 40 times, not do the waxing process 40 times Because that would be very ambitious.

I assume you will do the waxing process about, oh, 10-15 times in those 40 days.

Do whatever you feel like doing with the cleaner and prep wax, but reduce your wax of the day process until you can do wax, scrape and brush in less than 1 hour total or even much less than that. (Do something else while the board is cooling for scrape - don't count that bit)

 

[macumbed]

I assume that means you're going to use the snowboard 40 times, not do the waxing process 40 times Because that would be very ambitious.

I assume you will do the waxing process about, oh, 10-15 times in those 40 days.

Do whatever you feel like doing with the cleaner and prep wax, but reduce your wax of the day process until you can do wax, scrape and brush in less than 1 hour total or even much less than that. (Do something else while the board is cooling for scrape - don't count that bit)

Nice! Yor assumptions are right about the fréquence. I may wax after every 2x went to the mountain. Let's see.

I know is kind of overkill, but I was curious about what wax people choose to do the base prep wax and Daily wax

 

[macumbed]

You getting the board ready for the 2026 Olympic?

Of course not, otherwise I was going to wax with TSP series instead of PS.

 

[KingGrump]

Of course not, otherwise I was going to wax with TSP series instead of PS.

Appears you will have enough time to complete your outlined process just prior to the competition.

Like the old timers would say, "let's not make a career out of it. "

Only time of the season waxing is super critical is spring. Then it's everyday. Sometimes half way through the day.
If you are not racing,. every 3 to 4 days is fine.

 

[MikeHunt]

Nice! Yor assumptions are right about the fréquence. I may wax after every 2x went to the mountain. Let's see.

I know is kind of overkill, but I was curious about what wax people choose to do the base prep wax and Daily wax

No base prep wax.

Every 4 or 5 days, just drip and spread one coat of temp wax, leave for 15 minutes, then scrape with plexi 'til there's no shavings left to scrape, brush with steel or copper brush 'til there's no more visible wax dust, then final polish with 3 or 4 passes using horse hair or nylon brush.

For daily, one coat of liquid wax or liquid spray in the morning or evening spread with paper towel, felt, or fiberlene. Let dry for 5 minutes then polish away a few times with horse hair or nylon brush.

That's it.

 

[motogreg]

I know conventional wisdom says the base gets "saturated", my understanding is the microscopes tell another story. Doesn't stop me from giving multiple coats, but I question whether it's just obsessive compulsive behavior every time....

 

[cantunamunch]

I know conventional wisdom says the base gets "saturated", my understanding is the microscopes tell another story.

He's not going to resolve that conflict with just one snowboard; the best he'll be able to do is get what feels like a good time/feel tradeoff for him.

Doesn't stop me from giving multiple coats, but I question whether it's just obsessive compulsive behavior every time....

One unfortunate knock on effect is that screwing up @MikeHunt's level of base scraping and brushing can easily nullify all the effort that goes into doing the earlier coats. IMO that is the thing to practice first - and then get it down to something easily doable every other day.

 

[Dwight]

1) clean with swix glide base cleaner, even if is grinded they waxed with some all weather wax.
2) even if weather is cold, I'm think to first use swix BP99 prep to saturate the base applying like ~10 times, re-heating at max scraping (I have free time!!!)
3) scrap, brush and apply swix PS6 cold also, maybe apply/re-warm like 6 times also - NOT SURE how many times
4) will buy PS6, PS7 and PS8 to be used according the temperature of the day, it's a sintered base.

1. Use the Glide Wax cleaner. You want to clean the base not remove everything.
2. More than once is enough. You could melt the wax. Let it cool, reheat, then cool. You could also do the paper towel smoothing trick too.
3. I would use ToKo red or blue wax. Want to make really easy? Use LIQUID PARAFFIN between hot waxes.

You ski on ice in Montreal area. Wax and let the hill do the scrapping.

 

[cantunamunch]

You ski on ice in Montreal area. Wax and let the hill do the scrapping.

One problem with that is when it rains into the fresh snow - "american heat wave" - and they're stuck with nothing but jump turns.

Or when it goes -20C or below and one can walk uphill with anything softer than PS5

EDIT: I would send OP my entire stash of LFG4 except it's probably illegal now, and even if it isn't they'd have to pay more than the current valuation in import duty.

 

[snwbrdr]

Hi Skiers friends

So I based grinded my only snowboard - all season (I know, it's about skiing forum, but you guys are the masters of wax racing) and it will be first time I will be waxing at home. I live in Quebec, so is usually cold (2C to -15C temperature) but also humid (75% humidity in avarage). Also I mostly have access to swix products, it's hard to bye dominator here. So I'm planing to:
1) clean with swix glide base cleaner, even if is grinded they waxed with some all weather wax.
2) even if weather is cold, I'm think to first use swix BP99 prep to saturate the base applying like ~10 times, re-heating at max scraping (I have free time!!!)
3) scrap, brush and apply swix PS6 cold also, maybe apply/re-warm like 6 times also - NOT SURE how many times
4) will buy PS6, PS7 and PS8 to be used according the temperature of the day, it's a sintered base.

Question1: Looks like a good plan? what do you do differently? consider that you live here.
Question 2: Do you guys like to do this waxing per temperature, or do something more simple, like use a all-weather wax? It make sense do the base saturation if I will put a all weather wax on top?
Question 3: Do you think the step 1 will be enough to remove the undesired wax? I'm afraid to be in the way of the base saturation. Swix base glide cleaner does not remove everything I guess, is not a remover. I have the swix red base cleaner too but swix support told me to not use it, it's for grip wax only/cross-country skies lol.

Share your shinegans! Thanks!

If you're going to go overkill, skip the base cleaner, and go hot scraping with cheap warm wax. Swix base glide cleaner is highly flammable (it's petroleum distillates), so it will dissolve the wax. But after a base grind, there's not much wax for it to dissolve.

PS6 isn't that cold. but if -18°C is the coldest you're going to ride, then that's fine.

If you previously had a lot of base burn at the edges, you might want to fortify the edges with some Swix Polar powder.

 

[Zirbl]

1) clean with swix glide base cleaner, even if is grinded they waxed with some all weather wax.
2) even if weather is cold, I'm think to first use swix BP99 prep to saturate the base applying like ~10 times, re-heating at max scraping (I have free time!!!)

If you're already inclined to buy Swix out of wax, they have their 3-step base prep outlined here:

 

[jt10000]

Hi Skiers friends

So I based grinded my only snowboard - all season (I know, it's about skiing forum, but you guys are the masters of wax racing) and it will be first time I will be waxing at home. I live in Quebec, so is usually cold (2C to -15C temperature) but also humid (75% humidity in avarage). Also I mostly have access to swix products, it's hard to bye dominator here. So I'm planing to:
1) clean with swix glide base cleaner, even if is grinded they waxed with some all weather wax.
2) even if weather is cold, I'm think to first use swix BP99 prep to saturate the base applying like ~10 times, re-heating at max scraping (I have free time!!!)
3) scrap, brush and apply swix PS6 cold also, maybe apply/re-warm like 6 times also - NOT SURE how many times
4) will buy PS6, PS7 and PS8 to be used according the temperature of the day, it's a sintered base.

Question1: Looks like a good plan? what do you do differently? consider that you live here.
Question 2: Do you guys like to do this waxing per temperature, or do something more simple, like use a all-weather wax? It make sense do the base saturation if I will put a all weather wax on top?
Question 3: Do you think the step 1 will be enough to remove the undesired wax? I'm afraid to be in the way of the base saturation. Swix base glide cleaner does not remove everything I guess, is not a remover. I have the swix red base cleaner too but swix support told me to not use it, it's for grip wax only/cross-country skies lol.

Share your shinegans! Thanks!

This is too much. Do three applications of the softest wax you can find. 10 times is silly.

Then something hard. Or something medium then something hard. Or maybe your PS6 but only two or three times total, not six times.

Then wax of the day.

Scrape and brush between each waxing.

Don't use base cleaner for grip wax unless you ride through oil or tar or something. It should be followed by re-application of a very soft wax a couple times, then something hard. Then wax of the day.

You can use the products marketed a glide wax cleaner, though I don't understand why you'd do this at the start of your process. Dirt in skis is bad. Wax, even some random wax, is good. Don't worry about it.

Note I've mentioned: the "something" hard before wax of the day - that's important in cold or icy conditions such as in PQ.

 

[Zirbl]

Swix Base Prep wax vs CH

Anyone familiar with swix bp waxes vs CH waxes? Have been using CH10 as initial prep wax after grinds and dominator renew with colder wax of the day on top which worked well, but am running out of dominator and can get swix cheap. Any big difference between BP99 and CH 10? For BP 88 and BP77 do...

www.skitalk.com

 

[snwbrdr]

Swix Base Prep wax vs CH

Anyone familiar with swix bp waxes vs CH waxes? Have been using CH10 as initial prep wax after grinds and dominator renew with colder wax of the day on top which worked well, but am running out of dominator and can get swix cheap. Any big difference between BP99 and CH 10? For BP 88 and BP77 do...

www.skitalk.com

Speaking of that thread.... if you're going to ride older snow (which tends to be dirtier) as well as man-made snow... Some molybdenum (or graphite) is good.

For base prep wax with moly, there's Toko Base Prep/Refresher with Moly (as well as Dominator Renew-G). The moly can tint your clear p-tex more of a translucent black. More of an issue on snowboards, since they tend to have fancy graphics behind the p-tex base.

Realized I'm out of Swix BP88, for my other boards.... good ol racewax. Though i should of waited for their black friday discount code, but free shipping is good enough for me.