Waxing new skis, Hotbox

[CwmRaider]

I found the site you translated from, they wrote "amfore deler" instead of "amorfe deler", resulting in the translation to "amphorae" instead of "amorphous". Interesting confusion.

Regardless, no experience with hotbox but I don't really see the point for touring skis, unless you're going to spend most of your time on prepared hardpack tracks.
How many "norwegian miles" do they suggest the hot box glide waxing works? My understanding was that it wears off within a few 10s of km for normal procedures (iron/scrape/buff), so is it much more with hotboxing?

50 miles so 500 km.

We had a wax guru here locally, a really weird shop it was in a huge clothing store with like suits and womens dresses, his old family business, then in the back a fully equipped very nice x-country shop (we are not far from the Asiago Plateau- 500km of X-country trails and a Nordic world cup area) . He was fairly portly so when he said he was racing in Sweden last week I was thinking "Jeeze the heavyweight division" ..what he was doing actually was waxing Italian racers competing in Sweden, travelled with the race team. He had about 150 grand of waxing equipment in his basement- he glide waxed the skis of my wife and I and we had the best base we have ever had for the entire 3 week tour wedid up north that year. Sadly his multi-generational clothing store failed (it was like a 70s retail type place) and he moved to Finland in 2019. Not sure what he did to our skis but it kicked ass.

Personally don't like waxable skis, where we mostly ski- in Lapland- the snow varies so much in a day, I don't like stopping or removing mittens, it is normally very cold. I carry two liquid glide waxes- one general and one for very warm snow. I used them very little after our buddy waxed them in his shop. I guess I should have paid a little more attention to what he did!

From the text you cite, my interpretation is that the 500km figure is for the base structuring, not for the waxing.
Highly skeptical of wax lasting that long, hotbox or not. But I have been wrong before.

[randoskier]

I found the site you translated from, they wrote "amfore deler" instead of "amorfe deler", resulting in the translation to "amphorae" instead of "amorphous". Interesting confusion.

Regardless, no experience with hotbox but I don't really see the point for touring skis, unless you're going to spend most of your time on prepared hardpack tracks.
How many "norwegian miles" do they suggest the hot box glide waxing works? My understanding was that it wears off within a few 10s of km for normal procedures (iron/scrape/buff), so is it much more with hotboxing?

50 miles so 500 km.

From the text you cite, my interpretation is that the 500km figure is for the base structuring, not for the waxing.
Highly skeptical of wax lasting that long, hotbox or not. But I have been wrong before.

When we had the local Italian wax-guru do ours (not positive what he did, I believe hotbox) we skied from Hemavan Sweden, over the border mountains (awesome descent) into Norway across the Rosvatnet to a farm on that lake called Steikvasselv, north over the Grasfjellet, to Umbukta Fjellstua (Thor the owner there skied the length of Norway in, if I remember correctly, 56 days! 2nd fastest ever, he was like 56 years old when he did that!! They also make great bacon cheeseburgers at his joint!), up via the Virvashytta (Ranafjellet) and down to Bolna, up the heart of Saltfjellet and descended to Rokland (Nordland), last day ski out- a climb followed by a 1100 meter descent to the E6. The wax mostly held, a couple of times we dabbed them with liquid wax and brushed it, nothing major though. I waxed the sleds several times on that trip and I am thinking of installing two UHMW PE runners on them.

[randoskier]

I found the site you translated from, they wrote "amfore deler" instead of "amorfe deler", resulting in the translation to "amphorae" instead of "amorphous". Interesting confusion.

Regardless, no experience with hotbox but I don't really see the point for touring skis, unless you're going to spend most of your time on prepared hardpack tracks.
How many "norwegian miles" do they suggest the hot box glide waxing works? My understanding was that it wears off within a few 10s of km for normal procedures (iron/scrape/buff), so is it much more with hotboxing?

Google Translate changes the name of the town- Bø in Telemark to Bogota! I think they been smoking some Columbian over at the Google campus.

Another translation of Google's- Not sure I want this option on my skis....

Ønsker du svimerking på din ski ? = "Do you want dizziness on your skis?"

I already have that!

[Stephen]

You might look at the DPS Phantom treatment:
https://www.dpsskis.com/products/phanto ... I8EALw_wcB

[riel]

I'm always hesitant to hotbox my skis. Even as a race coach in the 80's, I never did it for my athletes. Back then, I'd run a profiler over the bases, iron the stuff in, scrape, brush and buff. Must have worked, since when I coached the Univ. Ca. Davis team, we had 5 league championships consecutively for my tenure (bragging ). Never had to worry about accidentally leaving the skis too long at temp, either. That's my big concern with hotboxing. If it's hot enough to melt the wax, it's hot enough to do other damage if applied too long.

Is wax, even so-called hard wax, actually a solid though, or is it more like a paste?

If it is more like a paste, then you only have to soften it, not melt it, in order for the wax to penetrate the pores of the p-tex.

This DIY nordic ski hot box "melts" in the wax at 55 degrees C, not the 130 degrees or so a wax iron would typically run at. That makes me think burning the bases might be less of a worry with a hot box than with an iron.

https://nordicskiracer.com/news.asp?New ... fHwBkTMJ5Y

[randoskier]

Info from:

https://www.nordicskiersports.com/pages/hot-boxing

[can't seem to find their- "documented lab tests"]

Hot boxing is not a wax job to last you all season. You will need to iron on
some glide wax after skiing a few times. Because your skis have been initially saturated, they will absorb and retain wax better than skis that have only had meager coats of wax at long intervals, but you still need to renew the surface.
Cold, hard conditions are abrasive. Warmer, moist conditions often bring debris to the surface, which isalso abrasive.

#1: Competition Level Treatment: Bases hot-wax cleaned, then saturated with Swix BP99. 4-hour low heat baking time. Hand finished with CH6 (23-14 degrees F).
Can you believe only $39?
#2: Basic Treatment / Summer Storage Treatment: We saturate the base with Swix BP99 and slowly low heat the skis 3-4 hours. For summer storage the wax is not removed. All this for only $29!
* DOCUMENTED LAB TEST HAVE SHOWN THAT 2-3 TIMES MORE WAX PENETRATES DEEPER INTO THE BASE USING THE HOT BOX METHOD

[randoskier]

A hotbox vs iron debate-

https://nordicskiracer.com/news.asp?New ... fOpO-rMLIU

[randoskier]

DIY Hotbox

"Some of my friends who are non-hotbox owners have repeatedly asked me why would a 5th wave Birkebeiner skier need a hotbox? The answer is simple; some experts say that a few hours in the hotbox is the equivalent of about 30 waxings by hand. Think of how long it would take you to wax 30 times. I have always prided myself on being a student of the latest wax technology and hot boxing appears to be at the cutting edge (at least for now)."


https://fasterskier.com/2004/05/the-joys-of-hotboxing/