The Wax and Tune Ya Goon Thread

[kimchi]

Maybe this is your startup idea, ask to be their monocera west outpost

I am JUST barely handy enough to do my own edges and base repairs, no one should be giving me money to tune their gear. Arguably I should be giving someone else money to tune my own gear lol.

[C.Fuzzy]

I want to see Kimchi the human wreckingball outdoor gear tester . com

[coleslawed]

[kimchi]

I want to see Kimchi the human wreckingball outdoor gear tester . com

Stupid glitch

[scrub]

I took my Pow Wrench out for a spin for the first time this season to see if it should go on the chopping block since I should probably have got the 152 instead of the 148 and the base felt slower than all my other Burton boards.

I forgot I had done a hot scrape and then re-waxed it and I think that made all the difference! Fast little bugger now and I think it is staying.

[jota]

I use the wire brush before scraping

Wire brush is before you wax, use it to remove residue and to clean the structure so it will accept all new wax. Tip to tail.

Then wax.

Then scrape.

Then nylon brush, tip to tail.

I wouldn't cork. That is really only for race setups or if you're dry waxing. A cork will remove wax and flatten your structure.

If you were to do anything else after the nylon, it would be horsehair. But again, kind of a racing thing.

Toko introduces the copper before waxing and after scraping . @pow_hnd Do you think it can work with the IR waxer?

And do you think wire or copper is better?

[Spenser]

Brushing before scraping makes no sense.. you aren't doing anything other than scuffing the wax you're about to scrape off

I will sometimes brush before waxing, but I also brush after, with brass. One pass each, both 45° angles, then tip to tail

[jota]

Brushing before scraping makes no sense.. you aren't doing anything other than scuffing the wax you're about to scrape off

I will sometimes brush before waxing, but I also brush after, with brass. One pass each, both 45° angles, then tip to tail

Sorry @spenser i wrote it wrong. “brushing before waxing and after scraping”

[Spenser]

Brushing before scraping makes no sense.. you aren't doing anything other than scuffing the wax you're about to scrape off

I will sometimes brush before waxing, but I also brush after, with brass. One pass each, both 45° angles, then tip to tail

Sorry @spenser i wrote it wrong. “brushing before waxing and after scraping”

Ah! That makes sense

[pow_hnd]

I use the wire brush before scraping

Wire brush is before you wax, use it to remove residue and to clean the structure so it will accept all new wax. Tip to tail.

Then wax.

Then scrape.

Then nylon brush, tip to tail.

I wouldn't cork. That is really only for race setups or if you're dry waxing. A cork will remove wax and flatten your structure.

If you were to do anything else after the nylon, it would be horsehair. But again, kind of a racing thing.

Toko introduces the copper before waxing and after scraping . @pow_hnd Do you think it can work with the IR waxer?

And do you think wire or copper is better?

So tuning and waxing is as much of an art as it is a science…

With that in mind, you can talk to five different expert level pro tuners/techs and get five different answers.

I’d doubt there’s much difference between brass or copper. Both are metal and much stiffer than nylon.

I have no idea if my way is the right way. It’s the way I was trained and just the way I do it.

I will say that I got my training here in SLC at Wintersteiger. If you spent big bucks with them on machines you were able to go to their tuning/tech/repair academy. Our shop and sibling ski shop had a bunch of machines and spent big bucks so I went for like three or four years in a row. The person who taught the class was a World Cup tech. That doesn’t make his way the right way, it’s just the way I learned.

That was 20+ years ago so techniques/best practices for sure could have changed and evolved since then.

Honestly, unless you’re racing, some of the finer details don’t really matter that much, I’d say just making sure to regularly wax your board will make much more of a difference than doing it perfectly say only twice a season.

Although I have Phantom, and am still absolutely 110% sold on it and its benefits, I still wax basically after every ride. Even at Baldface earlier this month I headed down to the wax room and waxed my deck every night.

I’d say since Phantom the thing that has changed is I now use Hertel all temp and no longer worry about having the “correct” wax for the day.

The IR waxer is still an experiment at this point, FYI. It gets pretty hot on your hand when your wax brick gets small. Hard to say if it will be my permanent method of wax application at this point, but we’ll see.