Waxing Irons

Excellent tip. Thanks. Do you think it matters if the ski sits outside while the wax hardens? I seem to remember someone mentioning that you should let the ski sit for a half hour in a room at room temperature before scraping.

You can buy wax irons on backcountry.com right now for (relatively) cheap. Dakine has one for $34. The nice thing about smaller, wax-specific irons are that they are flatter and smaller. My snowboard isn't perfectly flat nor is my goodwill iron. It may not matter for skiis, though, since they are not as wide.

As far as letting the ski sit for 30 minutes? That should be the least amount of time to let it sit. The wax needs time to absorb into the microscopic pores in the base. If you scrape too early, you end up "cleaning" the wax out of all the pores. A good rule of thumb is to wait overnight before scraping (leaving board/skis at room temp). If you cant, wait at least 30 minutes.

I found this at a thrift store for $5.  It's actually electric, but I simply put it on the wood stove.  It's cast iron so it holds heat long enough to do 2 skis.  I haven't used any other irons so nothing to compare it to, but I love it!

A cheapo travel iron works great too.

I ended up getting a Swix using part of my dividend from REI. Thanks for all the waxing tips.