The Wax and Tune Ya Goon Thread

[jota]

thanks! was that a single board you’ve done so far or have you had time to work on the technique? @pwd_hnd mentioned it taking a couple boards to get it down.

i haven’t managed to get the coverage i want with the crayon/iron technique without ending up with some amount of scraping. i tune inside so eliminating the scraping part would be the biggest draw, followed by time savings, and third money savings.

point 2 is interesting!

I only tried two… a full board and a half board. my IR is not for this. It only serves to “know” and “test” the process.

You can go to a supermarket and buy something like that. For €16 or $20 you can do it as a game. You will have your experience and draw your own conclusion.

If I want to pass this test then the mountain flow will be a good option. It is expensive but I understand it will be designed to work correctly as @C.Fuzzy says in the appropriate wave and power range to do a good job.

With the IR at the end, you wonder if your board has enough wax. With the iron you distribute it but here you only do it when crayon. Many things are different and personal preferences will be important too. That's why I was curious and wanted to test..

[tracer]

looks like their “IR” waxes might just be tad softer than regular bricks for easier crayon-action? but not quite paste wax still.

Looks like they also have IR paste wax:
https://snow.wendperformance.com/np-inf ... paste-wax/

[Supra]

For the guys using Hertel wax, if you want to save on scraping, just rub it on. Then give it a cork rub until the base squeaks and you're done. I would recommend a proper hot wax at the start of the season and every now and then if the base gets too dry. In peak winter, a Hertel Super Hotsauce or Racing rub on lasts all day. I'm now on the Beaver wax program and that lasts all day too.

I'm going to try the MountainFlow IR method...with an iron. Just crayon on the wax and iron carefully, then rotobrush. Just to see, but Beaver wax scrapes off really easily so I won't be saving that much time. I bet I won't hit top speeds until a day or so later after the excess wax has been rubbed off.

As for the 'does pushing the iron down into the base help?' question, I would say not really. The melted wax is a liquid, and a liquid will seep into all the microscopic cracks in the base naturally.


NEW QUESTION FOR YOU NERDS:
there was a question of FB yesterday - should I take my bindings off when waxing?
The common answer is 'of course! The heat from the iron will make the inserts pull on the base giving you divets'. However, Warren Currie the owner of Easy Rider wrote 'never'. This made me wonder if the taking bindings off theory was actually correct or just made up science. Personally I never took the bindings off in my early years and never had divets. Nowadays I take them off religiously, but leaving them on would save time. What do you guys think?

[Spenser]

I've heard that for years. Never done it. Never had an issue whatsoever. Do we really think the gentle warming of the base is enough to make the inserts want to move? I don't buy it, but I'm open to it being proven.

I've been rubbing/buffing wax more often than hot waxing for a few years, but I do hot wax every so often throughout the season. I especially do it if conditions change a lot, like if we go from a cold to a warm period. Sometimes I even just wax the edges, particularly when I'm doing a lot of carving. It's performed as good as ever for me.

The only boards I've felt the need to hot wax very regularly have been Mervin (yes, sintered)

Speaking of wax stuff, I still use Zardoz when it gets wet enough. Only lasts a little while, but takes the edge off on those days. I'm usually not out super long when it's that wet anyway.

[C.Fuzzy]

NEW QUESTION FOR YOU NERDS:
there was a question of FB yesterday - should I take my bindings off when waxing?
The common answer is 'of course! The heat from the iron will make the inserts pull on the base giving you divets'. However, Warren Currie the owner of Easy Rider wrote 'never'. This made me wonder if the taking bindings off theory was actually correct or just made up science. Personally I never took the bindings off in my early years and never had divets. Nowadays I take them off religiously, but leaving them on would save time. What do you guys think?

My understanding of this issue is 'maybe' and 'it depends' based upon my understanding of materials and how heat can impact those materials. Both of the 'maybe' and 'it depends' is based upon how much heat is applied during the waxing process.

The application of heat to most any material will cause it to expand. The more heat, the more it'll expand. (conversely we talk about things shrinking in the cold (especially yur weewee)). However, other variables to add into the equation; materials expand at different amounts, and rates (absorbing more or less energy to expand) and materials have different conductivity.

So an application of heat to a snowboard will cause the different elements of the board to expand, but with a bit of a variable.

It's safe to say waxing will first cause the ptex to expand because that's the area getting direct heat applied. However, the metal inserts will not expand at the same rate, and will need more heat to do so. They stay colder longer because they need more heat to expand, In essence they act as a heat sink sucking the heat out the the ptex base in the areas they're touching.

This means the ptex base in contact with the inserts stays colder than the surrounding ptex, and due to that temperature difference, doesn't expand as much.

However those inserts are a small amount of metal, and for the most part (sans bindings) all we notice is that wax applied over the inserts cools a tiny bit quicker and makes little discoloration dots appear on our board. This happend more when a board is colder than room temp, but I think we've all seen this phenomena.

HOWEVER, the more metal the more heat it takes to warm it up and the more it'll act as a 'heat sink' so now (IF we do NOT remove our bindings) the addition of screws into those inserts (adding more material) will absorb or 'suck' more heat or alternately keep the ptex base in contact with the inserts colder longer.

Thus, it increases the exapnsion differential... such that if those areas of ptex can't expand at the same rate due to the increased amount of heat it takes to warm up the inserts and the screws, the surrounding ptex expands much more as it heats up and those areas of ptex in contact with the inserts will expand less and in essence create.... "divots".

Infact the whole binding will act as a heat sink to some degree. And also, the insert and the screw will expand at different rates themselves, due to an differential in energy conductivity, but also because the bining is acting as a heat sink for the screw. (they will also cool at different rates, and MAY cause the threads to not seat quite perfectly as they do). I think we've all heard that "waxing with your bindings on can cause your shit to crossthread". While I don't think your screws will cross thread per se, if you get your screws and inserts hot enough, because they'll cool at different rates ( such that the screws will cool quicker than the inserts due to the binding acting like a heat sink to the screw) you could maybe notice your screws are hard to get out because of the threads may not being seated correctly anymore due to an mismatch in cooling rates.

BUT.... but..... but.... but.....BUT....

The amount and variable of material expansion all really depends on how much heat you apply to your board.

Less heat = less expansion = less variable = less divots = less noticeable issues.

Personally, I just don't have my iron hot enough to do much more than melt my wax and cover the base.

I think others maybe have their irons too hot and keep waxing until the base is hot, and thus see more exaggerated results and issues.

TLDR: It depends on how hot you get yur shit.

my $0.0200001

[jota]

I always use hot wax before every trip. Before and also during the trip every two or three days. Now I can't use hot wax while traveling so I use cold wax. (Always hot wax before)

I always identified cold wax as a process for “solve the moment” but of mediocre quality. But I see that many of you use cold waxes so I think I may be wrong

What do you think about cold wax? Do you think it works as well as the hot one?

[pow_hnd]

What do you guys think?

No need to take them off, but I always loosen the screws.

As some people here have stated, you can never do it and be fine, but it can and does happen that you can get divots.

There's a bunch of variables, namely board construction and how hot your iron gets ( or how long you're ironing it for )...

Since I can't control the board construction variable, I control my screw tension just to be safe... Takes all of 30 seconds.

YMMV

[kimchi]

I usually just take my bindings off. I always end up hunting for one or two screws in my garage when I try to just loosen screws. Added bonus, I can center the board up on a tuning vise more easily rather than offsetting the bindings.

[eleveneightnate]

I usually just take my bindings off. I always end up hunting for one or two screws in my garage when I try to just loosen screws. Added bonus, I can center the board up on a tuning vise more easily rather than offsetting the bindings.

4 more weeks and I'll finally have a garage to do all that instead of vice gripping my board to the kitchen island in the apartment hahaha.

[Spenser]

Re: base material expanding from heat. The long gone website that dispelled "the myths of pores and waxing" broke down the theory that heat from the iron expands pores to let wax in. As I recall, these were older folks who were scientists, and had been skiing for years, who decided to look into these theories of how wax works. Right off the bat, we know there are no pores, meaning at some point in the past, somebody made that "opening pores" statement with no basis whatsoever. Second, these guys used known material properties, formulas and data to prove that the amount of heat required to "expand" base material from "closed" to "open" (specifically regarding the size of a wax molecule) would have long since vaporized the base. The base melts way before that point. They also used an electron microscope to show structure at different levels of magnification, including before and after with heat applied, and couldn't observe expansion there either.

If it doesn't even expand on that microscopic level, how is it going to leave us with something observable to the naked eye? The base only gets a little warm. The "expansion" of metal with temperatures possible from an iron seems even less plausible than with plastic. I heat up various sizes of nuts & bolts on vehicles with a torch all the time, much hotter than an iron (like, glowing red), and they don't observably move either. That may not be "scientific" like what these guys showed, but…

Also, I don't know that I've ever heard anyone address why it supposedly "pulls" in that direction. Why is low heat making the screws "pull?" Especially if we're talking about expansion, not contraction?

And all this leaves out the thought that tight binding screws pulling on the inserts, in a wood core board, that you apply force to while you ride, could leave divots from said squeezing & pulling effect. It seems like a total no-brainer. Genuinely, who cares if you want to loosen the screws or take the bindings off. Doesn't matter, do whatever you want. I just think this idea seems kinda silly - again, especially when you remember we are talking about tight screws in a wood core board that has increased & variable force applied constantly while riding..... potentially leaving mild divots in the exact direction the binding is pulling on the inserts & core. But it's not caused by that.. instead it's caused by gentle, occasional warmth "expanding" or pulling on things?

Has anyone ever had an issue resulting from these little divots anyway? Don't say "it's harder to scrape the wax off"