Nordic Skiing and Waxing Notes from last night.

Lets start from scratch. I have a pair of skis that has not been used or waxed in a few years.
The glide area did not have any storage wax on it. Oh no!! haha. (Do as I say not as I do.)

So use some ski wax remover, and clean both glide area and kick area. Use a plastic scraper to scrape wax off in kick area before using wax remover. There are many wax companies like Swix and Toko that show you how to do this, or find it on YouTube.

Roughen up the area under the kick area with some silicon 100+/- grit sand paper and clean the kick area again.
Make sure you wait 20 minutes for the properties of the wax remover, to evaporate.

Fibertex using several passes, from tip to tail on the glide areas. Hot wax the glide area area with the appropriate wax of the day, which was Swix CH4 last night. That wax is brittle, so keep your mouth closed and and kind of squish it down with iron till the wax is warmed up. Feel the top portion of the ski to make sure it is warmed up enough, which normally takes 4 or 5 passes. If the wax is smoking it is way too hot, stop and turn it down, though you will need the iron to be hotter then other warmer waxes.
Never hot wax the kick area, use polar wax if you are going to skate, in the kick area.

Let the skis lay in a horizontal position for at least an hour inside, as gravity does it work. Scrape the groove and side of the ski first.
After an hour or so, scrape the base of the skis, then brush scrape a few more times with a plastic scraper. Finish up with a nylon brush, though I like using a horse hair brush. There are combo brushes of various kinds that you can buy at the local store.

Now onto the kick area. Crayon some base wax like Swix VG35 or Toko Green and use a clean iron or hair dryer to warm it up and cork it in. It is a good idea to have some specific corks for klister, base wax, hard wax and soft wax. Apply the wax of the day, which in this case last night was green.

If you have new skis, I recommend hot waxing after every ski, as a base guideline for the first 8-10 skis. You want to get all the little micro holes filled up with wax. A wax box is supposed to do this as well, but I am not sure about that.

If you want, you can leave the skis outside, to cool before a final scrape/brushing as the cold will squish out a bit more wax as the base contracts.

Waxing can become, Very Expensive, if you let it. However around the #yeg area you can get away with a cost of less then a $150.
A few kick waxes, base binder, universal glider, universal silver klister, some baggies, ski wax remover, scraper or two, fibertex, some corks, a roll of blue paper towels, hair dryer and an old iron will suffice.

I can normally do my skis during commercials of a one hour TV program. :)

Not sure what wax to use? Read directions on the cannister or download the app from Swix, turn on the WiFi, and it will get locate you and the weather where you are, for simple or advanced waxing. The app now has the directions in English, though not the videos which are still in Norwegian.  snow
As a rough rule of thumb wax at least  4 degrees warmer as the thee snow gets old and the tracks get skied in.

Go ski a click or two and have your wax tested before class starts.

Go out and ski, and have FUN.