Graphite Wax

[nekdut]

Hey all,

just a quick question: any harm using a graphite wax on a non-graphite base (other than the dark color on the base)?

I bought a block of dominator zoom graphite wax, but some of my skis/boards are not electra.

Thanks!

-Neil

[Jonny]

Should work fine, but it will leave a residue which will be visible for quite a while. you can minimize the effect by using a good coat of prep wax under the Zoom. I like to iron in and scrape off at least half a dozen coats of base wax before applying any running wax at all.

[Mike T]

I used to use a graphite wax (One Ball Jay "Summer Slush") for spring / summer riding... it took 2 - 3 base grinds for the discoloration to go away, not that I care or anything.

[Baka Dasai]

Originally posted by Jonny
I like to iron in and scrape off at least half a dozen coats of base wax before applying any running wax at all.

I have a question about this that I have asked before, but never received a meaningful answer.

What's the point of scraping off a coat of wax if you're just going to reapply another coat of the same wax? Why wouldn't you just re-iron the previous unscraped coat after waiting for it to cool?

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Baka Dasai
I have a question about this that I have asked before, but never received a meaningful answer.

What's the point of scraping off a coat of wax if you're just going to reapply another coat of the same wax? Why wouldn't you just re-iron the previous unscraped coat after waiting for it to cool?

The short and stupid answer is "'cause it works". Most of my waxing comes from prepping race skis, both alpine and nordic, well before the modern age of the super-fluoros, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Every ski racer has noticed that a pair of skis with many worn-in coats on them will be faster than even a well-prepped newer pair. As to why, well... Hmmm...

My guess is that it's more effective at ensuring that every microscopic bit of p-tex is coated by at least a monomolecular layer of Swix or superzoom or whatever. Even with a thorough re-melt, there are voids and imperfectly adhered sections, which scraping and reapplying seems to take care of. It's also clear that creating as flat a surface as possible, then re-applying and re-flattenning, similar to french-polishing, gives me the best chance at a truly flat place for my structuring.