12/08/2025
What makes skis “FAST?” Let’s start by talking about the things that make skis slow; friction.
• The WRONG wax. If you don’t match the correct wax to the conditions of the day, both temperature and snow type, your skis may well be slower than if you didn’t wax them at all. If you use a warm temp wax on a really cold day, your skis might not want to slide at all!!
• DIRT. This becomes more of an issue in the spring. Warm temps start melting the snow, and as the snow level goes down, the dirt, grime, grease and other contaminants don’t melt. They start to congregate on the surface.
• “Hairy” bases. A smooth, shiny, glossy base is usually a fast base. A gray, dry looking, furry base looks like that because of microscopic hairs that are sticking up stealing your glide.
So to make skis fast, we simply want to reduce friction. But how do we go about doing that? We used to think that the answer was to “soak” a bunch of wax into bases, using multiple hot wax sessions, “hot boxing,” scraping, brushing, etc. That works, but not for the reason we used to think. New skis and freshly ground skis were slow. Over time, after we waxed, scraped, brushed and skied them multiple times, they got faster and faster. We thought…. OOH! A bunch of wax is soaking in! My base is getting saturated and fast!! (spoiler alert… Polyethelene ski bases are in effect non-porous.) Why do skis get faster, then? They get faster because they get smoother. Each time you wax, scrape, brush and then ski on your skis, the plastic gets polished more and more. Shiny is fast.
One thing has changed a TON over the years, and that is the quality of a machine stone grind base finish. Back in the day, a fresh ground finish was slow. It really needed to be polished over time before it reached its full speed potential. Nowadays, stone grinds are so freakin good, that skis are fast virtually from day one. They are shiny, smooth, glossy and have a beautiful structure. The key is to MAINTAIN that. We want consistent lubrication between the base and the snow. WAX. The key is to wax OFTEN. A wax-free base can be abraded by cold aggressive snow crystals and actually create that hairy, gray slow base that we all hate.
Hot waxing (whether using an iron, an infrared machine or a hot box) is done for one reason…. To make a solid temporarily into a liquid. Heat is NOT the point!! Do not overheat your skis. Remember, skis are made up of layers of fiberglass, metal, wood, and plastic all held together by epoxy. Each material absorbs heat at a different rate, expands at a different rate, contracts and cools at a different rate. Don’t subject the lamination of your skis to this kind of extreme. Heat the wax enough to make it liquid so that it can flow into every nook and cranny and that’s it. Heating it more is not accomplishing more.
Another thing to consider is liquid wax. Modern science has recently been able to produce liquids that are as good or better than hot wax. I’ve become a huge believer!! The concept is the exact same, but instead of using heat to make the wax liquid, a solvent is used as a carrier. The wax is applied to the base and when it is spread thin and exposed to air, the solvent evaporates and leaves ONLY the wax. At this point it is buffed and brushed and you are done. Here’s a cool byproduct of that solvent… it cleans your base to a certain extent as you apply the wax. Remember… dirt is slow. Even if you don’t buy into liquids full time, I would at least add it to your maintenance program. It’s so quick and easy that you can wax every time you ski. Even if it’s not as durable and long lasting as a hot wax (I would argue that it is) it doesn’t matter if you do it every ski day.
Either way, keep those bases lubricated, shiny and fast!
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