"Clogged" bases

    

Dr. D explained this really well in a response here a while back. Maybe there is something on his site.

In layman's terms, my understanding is that your bases are porous like skin. If they are dirty then wax will sit on top of the contamination and not soak in, like putting ski cream on a dirty arm.  A clean base will soak up the wax and last longer, whereas wax on a dirty base comes off in a couple of runs.  

Also, if your iron is too hot you can burn the base and permanently fry the pores closed, just like when you severely burn your skin.  A similar thing can happen if you never wax your skis and let them sit over the summer, the bases can dry out.  Once either of these things happen the bases will not hold wax, it simply slides around on top, and then promptly comes off when you ski.

If you keep your bases waxed well it will keep contamination from getting in the pores.  If they do get contaminated you can wax and scrape them a couple of times.  The dirt will hopefully rise to the top of the hot wax so you can scrape it away.

I am no expert, other than I have been waxing a lot of skis for the last 30 years, and have picked up some info along the way.  If you look at your base you can actually see dirt in it if it is really contaminated.  If it has been fried or is badly dried out the top will appear smooth, even though it has not been waxed for a long time.  If you wax clear bases with a colored wax (which I don't recommend), and then scape it really well, you should still see the color in the bases.  Obviously, on black bases this does not work.

In my experience, on a freshly waxed ski it is very hard to tell the condition of the bases because you are just looking at the wax.  Once the wax has worn completely off the surface you can get a better idea of the condition of the base.  The experts probably have a way of telling in more detail, but I am just operating from experience on how the bases feel and look, so what I am talking about is more in the realm of OK, or completely screwed.

There are products you can buy to clean your bases.  I suggest checking out Tognar if you want to get more technical solutions than waxing the dirt away.

One thread claims the wax penetrates but only the surface and another claims the 'pores' are clogged.  Clogged with what ?  Wax ? But ......

Dirt  and other materials can be hotscraped and you can stone grind or add some texture without grinding . I'm not sold on clogged . Dirty makes sense ,clogged doesn't and I'm not sold on cleaners being good for anything but your tools.

Clogged is a generic term, but if you have fried your base or gotten serious dirt in it I think you could call the pores "clogged."  Besides dirt and parking lot debris, you can get pine tar from tree skiing, Dextron (hydraulic fluid leaked from a snow cat), explosive residue from skiing through a avalanche bomb crater, etc., some of which will not float out in a hotscape.  If you do a p-tex repair you have a section of "clogged base." The wax will not penetrate it, and comes off as soon as you ski on it.

You are correct that a hotscape and stone grind will take care of most base problems, but that can get expensive and is not a cure all for certain kinds of contamination.

Sounds like an urban legend to me.  I would only agree that there is probably always some degree of leftover wax, dirt, and junk residue on every base that has been used.  The degree to which the base is unclean is the degree to which someone might call it"clogged".  maybe? Is there a snopes.com for ski related gossip?

Regardless, I'm sure that folks sell stuff that "guarantees" to "unclog" your bases.  I thought that was a purpose of hot boxing.. to melt off old wax residue.

I have no intention to argue semantics.  The guy asked a question, I tried to answer it.  If you ever had pine tar on your base, or over cooked it with an iron, I don't know what you call it, but I think "clogged" would probably cover it.  We all know what it means to have your pores clogged on your face, when the pores of your bases are full of crap, you can call if whatever you want.

The cleaners for your bases I was referring to are wax removers, which usually pull most of the dirt out with it.

We'll call them contaminated. Or dirty or just dried out and unable to hold wax might be another . If they are dried and discolored it's time to grind if it's just pollen ,sap ,dirt and all the other crap we ski over then it's time to clean your bases. Some feel base cleaners are safe and use them to clean a base to start over. I like to use hotscraping to clean my bases.  Whatever you want to call it you should not wax over dirty skis.
That's why people put a summer wax on . Hotscrape and  then apply your preferred wax when it's time to ride and enjoy your skis. You only have so many stone grinds on a ski so preventive maintenance is a good idea to keep your bases in healthy shape.

Then there's people who just pull them out and ski the summer wax off. I'm guilty of this one but I always try to maintain the health of my bases by cleaning and maintaining  a good wax coverage ,

Wax'm, scrape'm, ski'm, and if the bases are dry after one day then the wax is not penetrating the bottoms very well, which means they are clogged, or some other adjective of your choosing.

The base is like a sponge and it holds the wax.  The wax bleeds out of the pores as you ski to lubricate the surface. If there is no uptake of wax because of dirt, I would imagine that the lack of lubrication would allow the base to dry out and oxidize from the friction of skiing.

Dirt physically blocking the base pores is one cause.

Pure liquid fluoros are another.  If they fill a pore deep in the base, it may be hard to displace it with normal wax because they don't mix well under these conditions.  Zardoz is notorious for doing this.  Eventually you might be able to ski it out but you will dry the base as well trying.

Can someone, anyone, who makes statements about "drying the base out" (except wrt to physical abrasion) or "oxidation" offer up one single paltry credible example of evidence for this?  Under normal circumstances it takes an act of god -- or at least some flame or some serious acid to oxidize UHMWPE. Or as Acrophobia pointed out, perhaps a heavy dose of life destroying gamma radiation will pre-dispose it toward oxidation. And since UHMWPE contains no "moisture" or other liquids, it can not "dry out". Under normal circumstances, the stuff is insanely hydrophobic - so how would one speculate it could "dry out"? Or is there some other mystery liquid in play?

 

Every time I hear about "drying out" and "oxidation" in the context of bases I just groan. It is like listening to an entire industry segment that believes in voodoo. Maybe there is some surprise chemical or physical phenomenon at work. If so, I'd think someone could offer up one little shred of credible evidence for it ( backed up by maybe some combo of microscopy, spectroscopy, chromatography, etc etc). 

 

There is no question that wax has some impact on performance. In some manner. But the more the waxing world talks about the whole thing, the more convinced I become that they live in a world of myth that only loosely correlates with whatever is really going on.

 

Speaking of which -- how exactly is it that Zardoz  is "notorious" for clogging the pores? The Zardoz folks claim it is totally wax compatible. My experience is consistent with that claim. But I'm hardly a waxing maven. What theoretical or empirical evidence is there for it creating problems? The case laid out so far  seems weak to me.

 

Please, can anyone in the waxing world move this from the realm of fantasy to the realm of real plausible explanations with evidence to back them up? I know waxing &/or Zardozing makes some level of difference in performance (on typically structured sintered bases). Especially on wet snow. Beyond that - I see lots of fog  & little substantiated fact. As a consumer, I find it frustrating as hell.

From an add for Swix Wax:

Swix Easy Glide liquid is ideal for basic maintenance of waxless skis. Even waxless skis require some maintenance to keep the bases from drying out, which causes the bases to oxidize and absorb dirt. To keep your bases in good shape, apply Easy Glide on the total length of the ski base, including the grip section. Let dry for a minute, and they're ready to go! Easy Glide will make the glide sections perform better and avoid icing in the grip section.


The Urban Ledgend continues!

Indeed it does. Just because someone in the Swix marketing department wrote myth-compatible copy for an ad does not make it so. My challenge still stands. Show me.

And BTW - I mean it. Every damn wax expert & wax company has a different story. And most of them fall apart with a bit of reading about UHMWPE. Some stories hold up better than others - but it is hardly a well understood picture that stands up to critical analysis. So either there is something seriously special  - and clearly secret - about sintered ski bases, or there's a lot of myth. As a consumer with a small fleet of skis, I'd love to really understand what's going on without having to commission a lab to scope it out for me ;) And without just adopting the religion of my favorite "guru".

When it is very cold and the snow is most abrasive, perfectly pampered race skis can get edge burn underfoot after just a few runs.  The black base becomes a hazy grey or even lighter, and can quickly get fuzzy.  Dry, grey/white, fuzzy base material is SLOW!  We fight it with CH3 or some other super cold wax.

At any temperature if you don't keep the bases waxed the abrasion of the snow will wear away the wax and then wear on the base material.  You can see it as plain as day.

But what the heck, if your'e not racing and don't have any flat traverses to cross who cares if the bottom of your skis are like sand paper?

When you ski you slide across the snow and creat a micofilm of liquid water to glide across.

There are pores in a ski base. The wax takes up space in the pores and prevents water and sharp snow crystal edges from from wicking up into the pores and creating excess drag.  

Many contaminants are hydrophilic and will also cause the base to absorb water and create drag. Drag = heat = more wear on the bases.

Worn base = more surface area = more drag...

I have had issues with base burn in the past when skiing in the refrozen manmade midatlantic snow on skis with really soft base material. The stuff is just so abrasive that it just bunrned off all my wax no matter what I did.

Localized heat from the extreme forces of friction from skiing will break the chemical bonds of the UHMWPE and in the presence of oxygen (so skiing on Mars is better for your bases) the material will oxidize or change chemical structure.  These changes will change the physical properties of the base.

The drying out bit is not in reference to moisture, it is in reference to wax content, i.e., a dry base has no wax.

BTW, gamma rays are nothing amazing, I work in radiation research. I can do more damage to your base faster with a heat gun or a wax iron than with gamma rays.

Sorry, I was attempting to answer that with the post above. If there was a lack of wax uptake, it would lead to poor surface lubrication that would in turn cause oxidation and further damage.
Edited by Doctor D - 10/27/09 at 5:53pm

Like I said above, a clogged base does not hold wax, so if you wax them and the bases are dry after one day of skiing, they are not holding wax, and therefore must be "clogged."  Other than that, I suppose you would have to go to a microscope for an objective test.

Dr D.

If your bases are contaminated with any kind of crap (please note this is a generic term), they will not hold wax.  It doesn't really matter if the words "absorbed," "pores," or "clogged," are accurate on a microscopic level, everybody understands what we are talking about.  I have often been able to see brown dirt "in" my clear bases, and I could not simply wipe it off the surface.  Regardles of the "crystalline and amorphous regions in the polyethylene structure," of the bases, I still think they were "clogged."

As I said above, the test is, "Wax'm, scrape'm, ski'm, and if the bases are dry after one day then the wax is not penetrating the bottoms very well, which means they are clogged, or some other adjective of your choosing."

Based on the info here, it appears even many of the people in the industry are confused as to the exact mechanism of ski waxing, but there does not seem to be much disagreement on the practicalities, but thanks to Speeder for clarifying the reality of the situation.
Edited by mudfoot - 12/9/09 at 2:35pm

The problems that arises when people talk about things like bases and wax:

- People use ready physical metaphors and analogies (like "pore" and "dry out") for processes that occur at a chemical level.

- Other people take the metaphors literally.

- People repeat things they heard somewhere and the meaning metastisizes gradually, then loops around so that people hear approximately the same thing from multiple sources (all of whom heard from somewhere else), giving it an air of credibility.

- Marketing departments say whatever pops into their heads.

Kinda like this (the white is the wax):



I think of them as nooks, crannies, ridges and valleys (that expand and contract relative to heat), to which the wax adheres. The wax adhesion is also relative to direct contact to the zillions of mini-surfaces. Any deleterious material (just like paint on a dirty surface) will reduce the adhesion. Wax doesn't bond to the surfaces, it adheres. It takes multiple applications, to fully 'saturate' or cover all of these surfaces completely which adds to durability.

Maybe that's why wax manufacturer's make and suggest the use of cleaners to clean the base material so the wax will adhere better.

I'm not sure what to tell you comprex. I would think over heating and causing the base material to melt and no longer have the nooks and crannies, would be equivalent to 'clogging' the bases.

And just for grins:


Edited by Alpinord - 12/9/09 at 3:41pm

I'm not any great authority on this, and I suspect my answer is entirely different from the more common ones, but:

Unless you take carefully prepared skis out and run gliding tests with them on the snow, I doubt you will be able to tell a "clogged" base from an unclogged one, any more than you could easily tell an extruded base from a sintered one.

There aren't any pores in ski bases, any more than there are pores in sandwich baggies. People talk about "pores" to describe some things that happen between wax and plastic molecules on a chemcial level, by way of a rough (and probably more confusing than enlightening) metaphor. When the "pores" of a "base" are "clogged" (okay ... wait: I don't need the quotation marks around base ... that's what it really is) it means that the nature of the chemistry between between the molten wax and the warm base is altered. Unless you do some pretty high-powered scientific stuff, the most obvious way you'd tell a "clogged" base from an "unclogged" one would be (at least in the case of a base "clogged" with pure fluoros) to wax both with a wax appropriate for cold temps, then test how well they glide on cold-temp snow. Test very carefully.