I'll be teaching you how to wax your skis.

waxing your skis is a great way to save money in the long run

and then it also allows you to get a lot better performance out of your ski.

you'll notice that you'll glide a lot longer and faster on the flat surfaces

and you'll also have an easier time with turning and things like that.

so let's get started

the first thing you'll want to do when waxing your skis is to take a rubber band and

loop it around the brake and then go around the binding

and loop it around the other arm of the brake and that just holds the brake back

so you don't have to deal with it while you're waxing

From there you'll want to take a nylon pad

and uh...

clean up the basis of the ski so you'll just rub it

To get all the dirt off and then you'll want to take a

rag and just

kinda wipe it down from there

and then after you're done with that

you can apply

the first coat of wax

now the goal with this first coat of wax is to clean the ski

just like with a car, you don't want to apply

the final coat of wax on something dirty. So is what this does, is it just gets

all the dirt and grime that your ski may have picked up on the slope

off of the base

and prepares it for the final wax.

so for this step it's good to use a universal wax that's really soft because it'll penetrate

the base and just

get rid of the dirt a lot better.

so to start out with you just take the bar of wax and touch it to the iron

and then you'll drip it on to the base of the ski in a zigzag pattern

after you've dripped the wax on

the base in a zigzag pattern

you'll take the iron

starting at the tip

and slowly go over the base to iron in the wax.

as you may have been able to tell, this step will take

maybe more than

one pass and the same is true for scraping the wax off.

you'll want to scrape this wax off

while it's still hot. So you start with your scraper at the tip

Hold it at a forty five degree angle to the base

and begin pulling the scraper back.

now some people prefer to push

the scraper

and really it's personal preference

i prefer to pull it

just because it's easier for me

but it's completely up to you which method you prefer

and then after you scrape it twice

you'll want to take a nylon brush

and just

brush from tip to tail

just to

uh... polish up the

wax a little bit

and completely finish the cleaning process

and then also this prepares the base so it'll soak up more wax.

in the final waxing.

so after you're done with the nylon brush

you're going to take the rag

and then just wipe down the base to get rid of any of the wax particles that are left

laying on top of the base

and then from there we move into the final wax

and for the final wax you have a little bit of choice. You can either stick with the

universal wax which will be good for a wider range of temperatures or you can get

a temperatures specific wax, which will perform better for a given

temperature

But the drawback is usually you have to have

several temperatures specific waxes so

that when you find out what the conditions are going to be like in the morning

you can grab whatever wax

and apply it

and be ready to go

but in this case i'm going to just use the universal glide wax

that came in the tuning kit I

got from Swix

and uh...

start applying it.

during this step

it's very similar to the first wax

uh... you apply it

in a zigzag pattern

A lot of people who are just starting out waxing skis

I've noticed

apply too much wax

They think that you need

a lot

to do a good job but it's not necessary.

if you put too much wax on

it's kind of a waste because you just end up scraping it off in the end

after you're done

dripping the wax on

you'll just take the iron

and go over really slowly again

and melt the wax into the ski.

you want to make sure that you don't stop the iron

you want to keep a nice fluid motion going

because if you stop in a certain spot of the ski

for too long, you risk damaging the base

so while we wait for the wax to cool

i want to hit a couple of points

the first is that when you first start out you'll want to preheat the iron to the

temperature that's listed on the box of the wax

so in this case the wax says that the iron needs to be set at one hundred

thirty degrees celsius and so I did that

before i got started

and you'll know if the iron is too hot because the wax will smoke and you don't want that

so make sure that

there's no smoking when you're melting the wax

and uh... you should be good to go

that brings me to my next point which is

it is very helpful to have a waxing iron.

People ask me if it's necessary,

and no it's not absolutely necessary

but the problem with clothing irons is that they have holes in the bottom

for the steam to come out, which can present a problem when applying the wax

and then also those holes make it harder to spread the wax evenly on the base of the ski

The next problem is that clothing irons don't really have

precise temperature control

and uh...

a waxing iron has a lot better control in that respect just because you can control the

temperature

and make sure that you're not

applying the wax to hot which actually will break down the chemical

structure

of the wax

and you'll lose performance there

so now that our ski is done

cooling off and the wax has had a chance to set up, we'll take our scraper and start

at the tip

and scrape it

and you'll want to make sure that you're not pressing too hard.

you'll want to press just hard enough to get the wax to come off.

and it may take

a pass or two

After that you'll take your nylon brush

and uh...

You'll start rubbing it tip to tail.

Then after you've gone over the base of the ski with the nylon brush a couple of times

you'll want to take your scraper

and just clean all the wax off the edges

so after you finish cleaning up the edges with the scraper you're all set

That's all it takes to wax your own pair of skis

If you're looking for more ski related how-to videos be sure to click on

the ski icon

in the bottom left corner of your screen

or if you want more information

about the Swix Ultimate alpine ski tuning kit, that I've used in this video

I've included a link in the description

so you can check that out

I'll also link to all the other

waxing and tuning

products that we offer.

That's it guys. If you have any of your own

ski waxing tips that you'd like to share, be sure to leave those in the

comments for the benefit of the community

and uh...

I hope to see you out on the slopes.