Skis and Snowboards
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SKI MAN ADJUSTABLE GUIDE BLOCK
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When it comes to your carving equipment, follow this simple maxim: Do the maintenance yourself; pay someone else to do the repairs. Filling deep gouges (P-Texing) or moving ski bindings is best left to pros with years of experience and access to multithousand-dollar machines. On the other hand, the bulk of the doctoring your planks will
need—waxing and edge-tuning—can be done in the garage with very few tools. And they'll pay for themselves in one season.
Snow conditions will determine how often you need to wax your bases and tune your edges. Generally, three full days on the slopes will scour off wax. (You'll know if the base turns milky-white.) Start by buying a specialty vise to hold your skis or board steady while you work. Spirakut's Racer Plus ($65) has a friendly rubber teeth and a jaw opening of
3890mm that should be used with a pair of adjustable guide blocks from Ski Man ($41 a pair) to prop up the tip and tail.
To begin work on the base, first clean any dirt out of the pores with a citrus degreaser. Then go over it very lightly with a stiff-bristled brush, such as the one from Spirakut with a mixture of brass and horsehair bristles ($35). You'll need to figure out what type of wax to use for local conditions, but someone at a shop can tell you. Swix, Spirakut,
and Holmenkol all sell a wide variety of iron-on waxes at around six bucks for a pack that's good for 15 applications. Remember the conventional wisdom about picking up a garage-sale steam iron to drip on the wax? Well, forget it. The steam holes get clogged and the whole thing becomes a ridiculous mess. For $30 you can get a Proctor/Silex Dry Iron with a
smooth surface that won't get fouled.
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SWIX XACTOR
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After you've applied the wax, let it come to room temperature and scrape off the excess with a straight-edged scrap of Plexiglass (you should be able to scrounge one from the shop). Then buff the bases with a horsehair or nylon brush, such as those made by Holmenkol ($40 to $45). An even easier approach is to attach a nylon brush to your drill.
Spirakut offers a 100-mm rotary handle attachment ($30) that is particularly handy.
Now for those edges. They'll need attention after every five days on the slopes. The basic idea is to sharpen the full length of each edge and then "de-tune" the tip and tail so they don't catch when you're not expecting it. (This, of course, always occurs when you're trying to stop on a dime near a lift line.) You can use a traditional 12-inch handheld
Chrome File from Swix ($8), or to make sure you don't create a poor bevel, try Swix's Xactor ($39), which will create the sort of edge most recreational skiers want. To finish up, I like to polish the edges by hand with a Black Arkansas Stone (Spirakut, $14.50). One last thing: Now that you know how to keep your gear shipshape, you won't be able to blame
your next cartwheeling yard sale on dull edges.
WHERE TO FIND IT
Black & Decker, 800-544-6986; Bondhus, 800-328-8310; Columbian, 800-519-7381; Delta Cycle, 508-698-0606; Finish Line, 800-969-4123; Milwaukee, 800-729-3878; Oxo, 800-545-4411; Park Tools, 651-777-6868; Proctor/Silex, 800-851-8900; Craftsman Tools, 800-776-8666; Spirakut/Holmenkol/Ski Man, 800-621-1657; Stanley, 800-782-6539; Swix, 800-343-8335; White
Lightning, 800-390-9222; The Wrench Force, 800-369-8735; Velo Press, 800-234-8356
Former carpenter Kent Black is a hiker, biker, and skier who lives in Madrid, New Mexico.
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