Cheap Tricks: Tune your skis for less
Face it, you don't have to wax your skis.
Sure, you probably should, but it's not like changing the oil in your car, in that if you skip it, you risk catastrophe.
So, according to a number of people who tune skis for a living, the vast majority of skiers never bother.
"It can be pretty sad what most people's skis look like," said Mike Miller, who tunes skis at Mountain Chalet.
The edges are dull and dented, the bases look as though they'd been in a fight with a lynx.
"And it totally makes a difference when you ski," Miller said.
Even if going fast isn't your thing, well-waxed and tuned skis can make turning and stopping easier. Clean, sharp edges are more consistent on the snow.
On the other hand, it's so easy to skip it and just ski - especially when a full tune at a shop can cost more than a day at Monarch.
Miller agreed to share his secrets for a cheap, easy tune that skiers can do in their garages. Follow his simple steps for a better day on the slopes. True, a home tune is not as good as the tune you'll get from a shop, where $20,000 stone base grinders and edge sharpeners can make skis like new, but a home tune is a heck of a lot better than nothing, which is probably what you're skiing on now.
FROM DOPE TO WAX
• Ski wax was absolutely essential to North America's first downhill skiers, the California gold miners. In the 1850s, to prepare for community ski races, they rubbed their long, wooden skis with secret concoctions of tree sap, sperm whale fat, vegetable oil and other closely guarded ingredients.
They called the stuff "dope," probably because the brown, gooey substance looked a lot like opium.
Waxing was essential for wooden skis. With the advent of plastic-based skis in the 1960s, waxing become optional, though companies still have secret concoctions of silicon and fluorinated carbon.
THE $42 TUNING KIT
Travel iron: $15
Travel irons don't have holes, making them easier to clean. If you're not a neat freak, a cheap Goodwill iron will do.
P-Tex candle: $1
Available at any ski shop
Metal and plastic scrapers: $3 - $7
Available at any ski shop - sometimes come free with wax.
Arkansas stone: $3
Available at any ski shop or hardware store
Scotch-Brite pads: $4
Available at any supermarket or hardware store
Citrus degreaser: $5
Available at any hardware store, ski shop or bike shop
Universal wax: $7 - $15
Available at any ski shop
HOW TO TUNE YOUR SKIS
1. Start clean
Set your ski, bottom up, on a sturdy table and clean the base using a clean cloth and a citrus degreaser to remove old wax and grime.
2. The poor man's base grind
Start with 80-grit sandpaper and rub firmly lengthwise along the base of the ski to remove small scratches. Repeat with a finer, 200-grit sandpaper. Finish with a 400-grit sandpaper, lightly dragging the sandpaper from tip to tail.
3. Fill major gouges
To fill gouges not blended away by sanding, light the end of a p-tex (polyethylene) candle and let the molten plastic drip like wax into the gouge. Use enough p-tex to overfill the gouge. (Check our video at gazette.com to see how to keep carbon from weakening the bond with the ski.) Wait 10 minutes for the p-tex to cool, then scrape off the excess with a metal scraper. Sand the repaired areas using the technique in Step 2.
4. Hone your edges
Sharpening edges at the proper angles takes pricey tools and know-how, but you can easily repair dings and nicks at home. Lay an Arkansas sharpening stone flat on the base of the ski so that half of the stone overhangs the metal edge. Angle the stone slightly down over the edge and rub it gently along the metal to remove burrs. Once the bottom face of the edge feels smooth, place the stone flat along the side of the ski and smooth the side face of the edge.
5. Take a file to gnarly edge damage
In spots along the edge where a rock or stump has gouged out larger nicks, lay a mill bastard file flat along the edge and file down any metal protruding from the damaged area. Do the same thing along the side, until the area feels smooth.
6. Easy waxing
Make sure skis are dry and at room temperature before you start. Clean the base with a citrus degreaser. Pick a universal hot wax you like. Mountain Chalet's ski techs recommend F4 wax (a fluorinated wax that works in a wide range of temperatures). Get a second-hand iron to melt the wax. Travel irons, which have no holes in the bottom, work best, but any iron will do. Keep the temperature low. If the wax starts to smoke, the iron is too hot.
Hold the wax to the hot iron over the ski and drip a few ounces of wax over the length of each ski. Then slowly iron the base of the ski to melt the wax into the base. There should be enough wax to cover the entire base in a thin layer. Again, if you see smoke, the iron is too hot. Let the wax cool for an hour.
Scrape all the wax off with a metal scraper, leaving only the wax that has soaked into the plastic base. To finish, buff the ski with a gray Scotch-Brite pad.
You're now ready to enjoy the ride.
Wax every five to seven ski days.
