Thursday, May 17, 2012

Wax & Race Service

Stone Grinding & Waxing Services

Boulder Nordic Sport is a full-service ski shop offering premium stone grinding, ski and waxing services at our retail locations in Boulder, CO and Portland, Maine and now at events with our traveling race service shop, BNS Mobile. Top racers from across North America send their skis to us because we do the best quality work in the country. Have your skis prepared by the pros and see how much better they go!

BNS Mobile

The BNS wax crew hits the road in our new rig, BNS Mobile, pushing our goal of providing World Cup Service for Everyone at events across the country. BNS Mobile travels to races offering professional race waxing services and a mini-BNS store. It serves as a base for our testing and waxing operations and is a great resource wherever you are headed. Visit the BNS Mobile page for more information, including event schedules and the latest test results and wax recommendations.

Stone Grinding

Stone grinding flattens the ski base, removes burnt and damaged base material and provides important micro-structure. Bottom line, it makes your skis faster and easier to wax. We have advanced Tazzari stone grinding machines set up in our Boulder shop. Skis can be dropped off at our Boulder, CO or Portland, Maine stores. If you are shipping skis to us, please ship directly to our Boulder store. Click this link to see our Stone Grinding Menu and Service Schedule/Lead Time.

Hot Box Wax Treatments

Saturate your base with wax for durability and glide.

Basic Saturation $19: Basic Saturation involves applying a very soft paraffin wax to the ski and placing it in the heat box for 90-120 minutes at a temperature of about 55 degrees Celsius (131F). This ensures excellent saturation of the base. The skis will need to be hardened with colder wax for the appropriate conditions. This hardening can be done with 2-3 layers of ironed-in wax or hot box treatment.

Extreme Saturation $29 (Recommended): This is a two-step process with the first step being application of a very soft paraffin which is placed in the heat box at low temperature (50-55C) for a long time (6-12 hours). The skis are scraped and a harder paraffin wax is applied followed by the heat box at 60C for approximately one hour. This second step is still very safe for the skis, but the temperature but may hasten any inevitable movement of the base away from dead flat. We notice that some skis, especially older models, tend to get concave tips and tails after heat boxing, even after grinding. The same thing will happen over time and with ironing, but the heat box may accelerate the process.

This treatment will saturate the base and then harden it to a level where it can be race-waxed with high-temperature fluoros and cold waxes.

Race Ready $49: Extreme Saturation plus finish with the specified Swix race wax (LF, HF or HFBD). The skis are saturated, hardened and then two layers of LF/HF are applied, scraped and brushed, leaving the skis ready to race or for application of Swix Cera F pure fluoro. Cera F treatment can be added for $20.

Race Wax Services

BNS wax techs offer race waxing services out of the shop and on-site at several events each winter. We can prepare your skis for any race, just bring them in and we'll get them ready to go. $39 for High-Fluoro (LF & HF Layers) and $85 for pure fluoro (LF, HF + Pure Fluoro).

Weekly Nighthawks race special: $15 for a race prep LF wax. Drop your skis off any day by 3PM and pick them up the next day after 2.

Wax Recommendations

US Senior Nationals Skate Sprint - Report

Categories: Event Reports, Shop Blog, Wax Reports | Author: Eric Pepper | Posted: 1/10/2011 | Views: 1207

It was a Ski*Go kind of day

US Nationals Skate Sprint – It was a SKI*GO kind of day

SkiGo and Holmenkol waxes followed up their success in Thursday skate race with another banging performance in Saturday’s skate sprint at Black Mountain.

We arrived at the venue and got out on our test boards. For fluoro powders Swix Super Cera was the winner, ahead of Holmenkol Cold, and Ski*Go C105. We quickly made our rounds with that information and we began testing top coats. For top coats Holmenkol Speedblock Cold was the clear winner for us. The 1.4k loop featured varied conditions throughout. Not only did Holmenkol Speedblock Cold feel the fastest, but it was also the most consistently fast throughout the varying snow conditions and that was something we were looking for.

We have been assisting a couple of athletes this week with waxing so we got their skis prepped and sent them out to test pairs. After they selected their best pair, we brushed them out and applied a fresh top coat in order to provide them with the cleanest, fastest skis possible.

Their skis were prepped with:

Baselayer - Ski*Go LF Graphite, iron, scrape brush

Race Paraffin – Holmenkol Matrix Black/Blue, iron, scrape brush

Fluoro Powder – Swix Super Cera, iron, scrape, brush

Top Coat – Holmenkol Speedblock Cold, handcork, cool, brush

While qualifying took place we cleaned the top coat test fleet and reapplied those waxes. Our focus for the day was on nailing the top coats for the rounds. In Sprint racing top coats are an area where you can really make a difference. By hand corking in the top coats you get maximum speed out of the wax, we refer to this as cold application because it doesn’t involve an iron or rotocork. This works very well in sprint racing because you can easily test a lot of different waxes very quickly by feel and layers of block or liquid can be reapplied between rounds in the stadium area.

Prior to the rounds we tested:

Holmenkol Speedblock Cold, Holmenkol Speedblock Mid, Ski*Go C105 Fluid, Ski*Go C44 Fluid, Ski*Go C105 Solid, Ski*Go C22 Solid, Ski*Go C22/C44 Solids mixed, and Swix FC7 solid white.

The Ski*Go C22/C44 Solids mix was our best. We prepped up skis and distributed information to coaches and service techs.

One of the teams that we know does high quality testing came in and picked up a Ski*Go C55/99 Fluid. Their athletes clearly had excellent skis. For the second time that week I heard a coach say that Ski*Go C55/99 should be referred to a “The Rumford” because it works so well there. In retrospect that should have been in our test before rounds, next time you’re in Rumford you are probably going to want put that in your top coat test.

The Skate Sprint was another day where teams were able to find a lot of different solutions for top coats, but the common theme was Ski*Go. Included among them were Ski*Go C55/99 Fluid, Ski*Go C105 Fluid, and the Ski*Go C22/C44 solid mix. I even know of one tech knowing that the 55/99L was running laid down a layer of that, let it harden for about 20 minutes, brushed it out and then topped in with the C22/C44 solids.

It was great to pack up the wax room and load vehicles knowing we had another successful day. Many athletes and coaches stopped by to say thank you and we really do appreciate that. We would again like to thank the volunteers and all the people that put in so much work to make the week of racing happen and thank you for reading.

Return

Privacy Statement