Waxing The Base Of A Snowboard Properly
admin | July 7, 2009
If you have the pleasure of owning your own snowboard, you’ll want to make sure it gets the best treatment. Part of looking after a board is giving it a regular waxing. The reason you wax the board is not to increase grip like waxing surfboards, but instead to make the board more slippery and faster on the slopes. The wax on a snowboard actually soaks into the base when it is applied. When you ride on the snow the wax actually causes a melting effect, so essentially you end up planing on a micro-thin water layer. Here is how to wax your board properly
Remove previous coat. You need to make sure the board is clean and the base is exposed before you apply new wax. You can do this by scraping the wax away from you using a plastic scraper tool. You may want to use a hair-dryer to soften the wax and base cleaner which you can get from a snowboards shop. Avoid using anything metal to do this job however as you risk doing permanent damage to the underside of the board.
Iron on the wax. Get an old iron at try to use a heat that melts your wax at a gentle pace. cotton is ironed at the same temperature so you can use this as an indicator. Touch the wax against the irons base when you have the optimum heat and drip it around the bottom side of board. Now iron the board directly and move it all around so that every inch has a thin wax coating.
Finishing. After around 30-35min cooling time, you can now work on finishing the board. This is done by rubbing down the wax layer with a new cloth and bringing it to a nice shine. Then finally brush over it with a hard-bristled brush and remove and built up areas of wax, before buffing again. Now your ready for some extreme sports action
