Why clean your base?
Cleaning your Ski and Snowboard base –also called assault– is an often overlooked part of waxing. It is not enough to simply apply new wax to glide smoothly again.
Just like with your car - where, in addition to topping up oil, you also have to regularly change filters and the oil itself - you must pay extra attention to this special base material every five to seven periodic waxings with your Snowboard or Ski slats.
Both a Sintered and an Extruded base consist of an enormous mass of small pores that clog up with wax, but also with small particles of dirt such as soil, soot, stone chips, etc. During standard maintenance you cover this dirt with a layer of wax, which means less there is room for the wax itself, the result: the performance of your Ski or Snowboard deteriorates!
Fortunately, there are various methods to polish your base, after which you can apply clean wax to the deepest parts of the pores. We explain them briefly.
TIP! Do you often go indoor skiing or snowboarding? Then we advise you to clean your base more frequently, as manual snow is not only hard and dry, but also seriously contaminated by, among other things. soot particles from the “Pistebully”, rubber from the “Magic Carpet”, etc.
Manual or manual cleaning
Hot Wax
With a Hot Wax maintenance service Wax & Board We clean your base by hand as standard. Which means; Depending on the degree of contamination, we select the correct hardness of our hand brush as well as its metal structure. There are 3 types of brushes that we use; Steel, Copper or Bronze. These come in a soft and harder version. We use these brushes exclusive to clean your base so that no dirt gets back into the base material.
We do the manual cleaning several times from “tip to tail” so that we open the pores in the correct sliding direction. Ready to absorb new wax.
Belt Wax
Wait a second! What about those cheap “Belt Wax” what you get in every other maintenance shop? A Belt Wax machine shortens maintenance from just over an hour to about 3 to 5 minutes. This makes them popular because you can handle a larger volume, which of course reduces the maintenance price enormously.
However, you do sacrifice quality; These machines usually consist of 2 fixed Nylon brushes that only spread wax and then polish. If you're lucky, the shop will do a manual cleaning first, but this is an exception. If you are unlucky, the previous board was so dirty that it is still in the brushes and therefore transfers to your board.
Please know that base cleaning is only the very first step in waxing and grinding Wax & Board. We wax and polish your skis in several phases instead of in one go during maintenance with a Belt Wax!
Chemical cleaning
Chemical cleaning is a less popular solution for cleaning pores from dirt. Years ago this was fairly aggressive stuff that literally chipped away at the structure of the ski surface. This chemical substance has been further developed over the years and is now able to dissolve only wax - and embedded dirt - from solid to liquid substance. This chemical cleaning can be applied to the Snowboard in an aerosol or liquid product, after which you can remove the old dirty wax a few minutes later with a special cloth.
During chemical cleaning Wax & Board we have a choice of 2 different cleaners for both your skis and snowboards. We have special cleaning fluid for Fluorine Wax as well as for the more modern Fluorine-free (organic) wax.
Tip! Because a chemical cleaning all removes wax from the pores Wax & Board With this maintenance type, first apply a Base Wax, which improves the absorption of wax, and finally apply the maintenance wax of your choice. This way you can be sure that the wax will last longer than 1 day on holiday!
Hot Scrape
Finally, there is the famous, most popular, “Hot Scrape” cleaning. During this maintenance we apply a soft and specially designed paraffin over the entire surface of your Snowboard or Skilat. As soon as this has the correct degree of solidification, we remove this still warm cleaning wax from your base. During this process we literally remove the contamination from the base. The bright white paraffin goes on the board and comes off gray to black. We should note that this is a special technique because you can also scratch the base of your plate without any effort, which gives the same color effect, but something that is of course not the intention!!
We repeat this Hot Scrape procedure Wax & Board as often as necessary, until the base of your skis or snowboard is clean.
The big advantage of this cleaning method is that there is always wax, or paraffin, in the pores, which is less harmful to the material. Naturally, after this cleaning we always first apply a so-called “Base Wax” before waxing with the wax of your choice.
Finally
If you have your equipment maintained as a slalom skier, you know that mixing ski wax is an unavoidable part of the standard workshop. A serious consequence can be that you have so much fluorine on your base that you ski more slowly.
As a Freestyle Ski or Snowboarder you will also experience one Dry Slope take track. This slope requires specific “Dry Wax” which cannot be used in normal skiing conditions.
We can help in such extreme cases Wax & BoardOn request, carry out a combination of specific cleanings so that you can start again without any problems.
If you want rock-solid maintenance for your Ski or Snowboard, you will of course choose waxing and sharpening at Wax & Board!
