Thursday, May 17, 2012

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Stone Grinding & Waxing Services

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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

BNS Mobile - Professional Race ServiceThe 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

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World Masters Waxing Service and Recommendations

Categories: Announcements, Wax Reports | Author: Nathan Schultz | Posted: 3/8/2011 | Views: 1471
Wednesday 3/9 Update

 

Nathan Schultz is at World Masters in Silver Star and will be testing waxes and offering a race waxing service to athletes competing in the MWC.  Click here to sign up online for the Waxing Service.

Ski drop off can be made by dropping skis off at 270 Monashee from 2-5PM or by arranging a drop-off at the venue with Nathan by emailing nathan@bouldernordic.com or calling 303.818.2365.

Forecast: Click here for the latest Silver Star weather forecast.

Click here for the detailed MWC Schedule.

  • Wednesday Relay 4x5km CL/SK
  • Thursday Long Distance Freestyle: 45/30/15km
  • Friday Long Distance Classic: 45/30/15km

Discussion

The weather forecast is calling for unstable weather with relatively mild temps and flurries off and on through the weekend dropping 2-4cm of snow each day with high temps of -2C and lows of -6C.  Unless it gets much warmer than expected, this should make for relatively easy waxing.

Recommendation

Thursday Distance Skate Races: SkiGo LF Graphite as a base layer, scrape, brush well with a fine steel brush. Holmenkol Matrix Red or Swix HF8, scrape, brush.  Fluoros were again faster in testing today, but not by as much as in previous days.  But they are faster, and for a long race, the added durability will make the skis much faster at the finish.  Today C105 was winning slightly faster than Holmenkol Mid Powder.  I think either of these is a good bet.  For fastest results: iron in the powder, let cool, scrape, brush.  Apply hand structure as needed at the venue and then hand-cork Holmenkol Mid Block or SkiGo C105 solid, let it cool, brush.

Test Results

Wednesday: Glide waxes were again tested by feel.  Results:

  1. Holmenkol Matrix Red
  2. HWK Blue tied with Holmenkol Matrix Green
  3. SkiGo HF Blue tied with HWK Green
  4. Holmenkol Matrix Blue
  5. SkiGo HF Orange
  6. Toko HF Blue

Kick waxes: we tested a large selection of Blues and Greens.  I felt that the colder waxes were a better choice as they had solid kick and were much freer, but I know a lot of people went with Swix VR40 covered with either VR30 or some other green.  Here are my test results:

  1. Guru Green Straight
  2. Rode Green Straight
  3. Rode Multigrade Blue
  4. Swix VR30 straight
  5. Swix VR40 covered with Rode Green
  6. Swix VR40

Tuesday: Glide waxes were tested by feel due to the falling snow.  No kick waxes were tested.  The top waxes in this lineup were much, much faster than those at the middle and bottom of the list.  Glide test results: 1. Holmenkol Matrix Red  2. SkiGo HF Orange  3. Holmenkol Matrix Blue 4. SkiGo HF Blue 5. Toko HF Blue 6. SkiGo C380

Fluoro Powder Test: 1. Holmenkol Mid  2. SkiGo C105  3. SkiGo C44  4. Holmenkol Cold

The Matrix Red and Mid Powder were clear winners.

Monday tests:

Kick waxes tested by feel at 8:30-9:30AM: SkiGo Violet, Guru Green, Rode Multigrade Blue, Rode Super Blue, Rode Green, Swix V40, Swix VR40, Guru Blue.  The Rode waxes felt the most free among the group.  Swix waxes felt slow, although several people said they really liked VR30, which I did not try. SkiGo Violet had the best kick and was one of the favorites when covered with Guru Green. Racing choices were: 1. Rode Multigrade Blue  2. SkiGo Violet with Guru Green Cover  2.5 Guru Blue.

Glide waxes: no tests Monday, but Nathan raced on SkiGo LF Graphite underlayer, Holmenkol Matrix Red with Holmenkol Matrix Mid Powder ironed with Mid block hand-corked. Skis were the best among the group he was skiing with.

note: BNS imports Holmenkol and SkiGo waxes, and also sells waxes from Swix, Toko, Rode, Solda, Rex, Guru, Innovax, Magnar and others. We search for the fastest waxes for our customers and our testing is professional, objective and transparent. We make our best effort to test what we think is the best from each brand.  However, given that we are testing more options from Holmenkol and SkiGo, there is a bias toward those brands.  With this full disclosure, you can assess the legitimacy of our testing yourself. Visit Swix and Toko for their official recommendations. If you have any questions please contact us.



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