by Noel Charonnat

The traditional American way to glide wax a ski is to run the iron back and forth along the length of the ski base. Many Europeans, and their wax mfg reps, recommend waxing only in a tip-to-tail direction. The stated reason for this one-way direction is to align any P-tex hairs (micro strands of base material protruding from the base) in a rearward direction.

This “hair reason” is a hair-brain misconception. If there are any hairs, these will “float” in the wax, and the scraping, brushing and polishing of the wax off the surface of the base (in a tip-to-tail direction) will either cut these off (like using wax to remove hair from human skin) or align them in a rearward direction.

The real reason for passing the iron down the base from the tip to tail is the tempo. Each pass is usually supposed to take 30 seconds. This is slow enough to ensure the wax becomes molten and the base material becomes warm so that the pores of the base open up and the wax drops into the base. This pass is also fast enough that the base does not get too hot. This method works well for soft to medium hard waxes.

But the back-and-forth method of waxing, which moves the iron in a quicker motion and repeatedly goes over each area base while working down the ski, is equally effect. If you are comfortable in waxing in this manner, continue to do so. If you are unsure of how long to wax, use the 30 second tip-to tail method (three passes is usually enough).

For soft cleaning and penetration waxes, like STAR Uniblock yellow, the wax should become thoroughly molten along the entire base. These can be wiped off the base with a paper towel, an effective alternative to scraping. The paper towel, or Swix Fiberlene paper, will draw the molten wax out of the pores at the surface. Since this soft wax is being used for penetration and cleaning, this is a desired effect. The wax of the day should be scraped off.