Waxing new skis

[Perry]

I anticipate the arrival of new skis tomorrow.  I have been told by Dawgcatching that it makes sense to hot wax and hot scrape about 5-10 times before I hot wax, cool, and scrape as usual.  The skis will already have one coat of hot wax as part of a total ski prep.

What he said made complete sense - soaking wax into the base, apparently they do this 100 times to a world cup ski. (alternative method is to build a hot box and let them sit over night at 130 degrees)  I just had not heard this before and was curious what others here think about it.  I know jbotti and others do a great deal of their own ski maintenance and would be more familiar with the concept.

[LivingProof]

Perry,

I will not argue with Dawg but here's my thinking. A ski base is either saturated with wax or it's not. I put a heavy coat of wax on my bases and just keep hot waxing, letting it melt in, then harden and repeat several times. Add wax where needed. Scrape and the base coat is done. I'm thinking this is probably what Dawg's shop does in the initial prep. Assuming you have wax and an iron, try it and see how much additional wax is absorbed.

There is a Epic thread debating traditional thinking about waxing based on a technical paper that concluded science does not support some waxing maxims.

http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/99979/the-myth-of-ski-wax/30#post_1293844

My opinion is that because we ski more on edges than on flat skis, the actual on-snow skiing benefit of wax is minimal to the recreational skier, at least, in the east on hard man-made winter snow. But, I would make sure new skis are saturated.

[Perry]

Mike,
I actually looked at that thread last night.  Interesting. Bottom line, what you say makes sense and I am a common sense kinda guy.
thanks,
Perry

[midwif]

Just remember the mantra....

Wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off.....