Hotbox Backlash

Last week the SkiPost e-newsletter had this item about the practice of saturating ski bases with wax by the slow-bake method known as hot boxing or heat boxing. The term heat boxing has emerged recently to differentiate the ski prep technique from the pot smoking technique also called hot boxing, in which smoker or smokers indulge their habit in a purposely confined space.

How to Hot Box?

[A reader wrote]"You referred to proper & improper hot boxing. I have a hot box of my own construction but I have never seen any real guidelines for how to best use it. I keep the temperature at 120 - 130 degrees (Fahrenheit) for about 6 hours. It has a fan that continually circulates the air. How does this sound?"

[Ski Post answered]First of all most ski manufacturers do not suggest skier hot box their skis. [emphasis mine]

While an iron exerts heat to the base, the hot box exerts heat to the entire ski. It can do nothing to improve a ski, over normal waxing done properly and with patience, but can weaken the epoxy and alter a ski camber if the heat gets out of control.

That being said many people and ski shops hot box.

To do it with the least risk
1) The base needs to be open and not sealed so it can accept the wax easily. (Stone grinding to achieve a fresh open base is another issue)
2) The max temp at any point in the box should not exceed 55C (130F). Some boxes have great fluctuations in their temps throughout the box.
3) A wax with a melting point at 55C needs to be used. Not many waxes are actually molten at this low temp. They may be soft but they are not molten. Start suggests Service Wax LF for its unique double molten points one just below 57 and one at and one at 120C.
4) Melt wax onto base.
5) Leave in hot box for as short a period as possible. Less than 2 hours should be sufficient. The base is only a couple of mm thick and will absorb wax quickly or not at all.
6) Realize this is speaking from the standpoint of the ski manufactures.
7) This is not speaking on behalf of the Hot box and Hot bag manufactures who would argue differently.

I hope this helps.

Andy

We try to respond to new information to improve the service we offer at our shop. So far, our research has not turned up any service providers who have cut their heat box times significantly. Many recommend warming the skis for as much as 12 hours. Most agree on the temperature range, averaging 50-55C and never exceeding 60C. According to SkiPost, one should never heat skis as high as 60C, let alone leave them there for 50 minutes to an hour, as some service centers advertise.

Many heat box providers do acknowledge that extended heating can affect some skis.

I was initially skeptical of the heat box compared to ironing. Even when I accepted the idea of heat boxing, it was more as a time-saver and basically harmless rather than outright superior to ironing as some proponents were saying. I still feel that way about prepping new skis. Much of the time spent prepping new skis would have been spent ironing in and scraping off numerous applications of wax just to achieve maximum saturation of the base material.

As with most technical arguments in skiing, there's a lot of opinion and very little real science. Experts apply some general principles based on one or two variables rather than all possible variables and then issue blanket statements. For instance, SkiPost cites the fact that the base material is only a couple of millimeters thick to support the statement that less than two hours of heating should be enough for complete wax absorption. There's no consideration of base density, which can vary with the quality level of the ski, and no supporting experimentation to test whether the wax penetration really is complete. Toko did provide data on wax absorption based on actually shaving down the base material to see how far the wax had gone at different times and temperatures. Another tester claimed to have weighed the skis to determine how much wax had been added by a box versus an iron.

In the end, the statement that ski manufacturers do not recommend hot boxing may come from the legal department rather than anyone in the company who actually skis or develops equipment. If the manufacturer gets behind a procedure that might damage some skis they could face possible aggressive warranty claims. I don't see how it would turn into a very expensive problem for the ski company, since the cases would never involve a big enough damage award to interest much of a lawyer, but why not nip it in the bud? It only takes a short verbal statement to protect the ski company from ANY such claims. So there it is.

All this fog leaves the individual skier and the small shop to decide for themselves about the relative risks and merits of letting your skis get baked. I still lean toward the "mostly harmless" theory.

Forget everything you knew about brushing

According to the latest issue of The Master Skier, all those groovy metal brushes we've been accumulating are mostly useless. Just keep the copper and one medium steel and use the rest to strip loose hair off of the cat. Take the nylon brush you tossed in a drawer back out and return it to a place of honor.

The article assumes you will be using fluoro waxes, powders and liquids. The powders and liquids do not penetrate the base material, so metal brushes will merely strip away your excessive investment in speed. Nylon will stroke those tender substances gently into the surface of the ski, reducing (but not eliminating) the costly sloughing of fabulously expensive magic pixie dust.

For those of us on Planet Budget, skiing almost entirely on hydrocarbon waxes (yawn), metal brushes are still great. If you want to spend all afternoon trying to get a nicely cleaned base structure with a nylon brush attacking Swix CH6, be my guest. In fact, the block fluoros, like Swix HF, also penetrate the base and will benefit from the kind of soft, super-fine steel brush you can't buy anymore.

The blue nylon brush is still the brush of choice for final polishing in any wax regime. The fluoro-addicts approve. We shop grunts have never abandoned the blue nylon for a nice streak-free shine.

I've picked up some good tips from the Master Skier over the years. I also invariably come away deeply grateful that I never succumbed to the deep neurosis necessary to take up Nordic racing. You most emphatically do NOT have to turn yourself and your skis into a set of science experiments to have a rockin' good time going fast enough. Conversely, if you want to do really well at Nordic racing you WILL have to take on the science experiments.

You will need several sets of skis. Skis are disposable items to the real racer. The real racer will get base material milled away by the stone grinder to renew the structure and strip away the layer clogged with fluoro residue and heat-sealed from hot ironing after inadequate shaving of micro-hairs. The real racer will have several sets of skis in both classic and skate, to be ready for all conditions. Your race skis need to have the right flex, which is built in, as well as the right structure and wax, which are applied, but not always easy to change.

I haven't noticed anyone talking about the need for several sets of poles of slightly different length for different snow conditions, but maybe that's this year's secret weapon, to be revealed next fall in time to stimulate pole sales for the manufacturers.

"If you don't understand what I'm saying, I'm not talking to you," the saying goes. The articles about arcane training methods, nutritional supplements and massive investments in equipment and chemicals are aimed at the skier who is that obsessed. On the plus side, the magazine is free, so a recreational skier can peruse it for useful tidbits. Who knows? You might develop an obsession and become another good customer for the high end ski market.

Because recreational Nordic touring has lost most of its participants to snowshoeing, the cross-country ski industry needs to make more and more money off fewer and fewer people. Some in the bike industry feel the same way: develop the high end, get people in a higher income bracket hooked on buying continuously-obsolete, ultra-sophisticated equipment, and let the dirty-footed masses go somewhere else. Even though such an approach invariably leads to diminishing returns, it keeps getting tried.

I suggest a different approach to racing: Make everyone wax identically. Y'all can argue about it for as long as you want beforehand, but in the end you have to settle on a wax and use it. If one skier missed the wax, relax: everyone missed the wax. The winner will be whoever did the best they could with the conditions that day.

That'll never happen. But maybe we can introduce it as a novelty race and see if anyone else enjoys the logic of it.

The Knights of Old had Squires

In days of yore, the chivalrous heroes who dashed around on quests and crusades, rescued suitably wealthy damsels and duked it out for the local earl had little sidekicks who took care of the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of arms and armor. These breastplate-polishers and horse-waterers dealt with the mundane details of the chivalry business. I can only imagine what they said to the knights while performing these vital but unheralded tasks.

"What do you do with this f#%^%$%^ing sword?! Chop f$%^&^%$ing rocks with it? Do you lie in the salty surf in this armor? It wouldn't hurt you to OIL something once in a while!"

In the present day, the knight has been replaced by the athlete. Take cross-country skiers, for instance. Most of the racers pay lip service to the concept of thorough, frequent and meticulous waxing, but the majority of them have used a lot more quickie smear-on crap than they might admit.

These knights need squires. Racers on a well-supported team might get products and services for periods of time, but every one of them has to fall back on their own resources eventually.

Big bike races rely on squads of mechanics who keep the machinery running. Cross-country ski teams rely on wax technicians. Freelance racers have to polish their own bases or live with the consequences. A lucky few manage to get someone else to bring the love.

A couple of days ago my associate in Nordic technical matters undertook the full prep on our own noble knight's two sets of skating skis. Sir Smears-a-lot had been resorting to the wishful-thinking paste a bit frequently of late. He IS a busy man. So squire G put the racing sticks in the lovin' oven for a rebirth of speed. A few hours in the sauna with the base prep wax was followed by an overnight rest. After that Big G laid in a coat of moly-fluoro base wax followed by some XIMS HF6.

Our skating champion paced and fretted for hours as he waited for Big G to finish the meticulous process. It did involve a lot of ironing and scraping. It was worth it, though. The knight came back bursting with enthusiasm. Now squire G has a permanent assignment as Minister of Speed.

A Freebie that's Actually Worth It

I have hated the "free hot wax with purchase of new skis" for many years. In its original form I still do. One quickie ironed-in layer is a waste of everyone's time.

We've entered a new era. At Nordic Skier we now offer school ski team racers who purchase new skis a free hotbox treatment.

Hotboxing takes the place of the time-consuming multi-layer prep jobs we used to sell. A hotbox more effectively heats the ski over a period of hours to soak the prep wax deeper into the base. The procedure actually takes MORE of my time than a singler ironed-on layer, but I feel like it doesn't WASTE my time, so it doesn't bother me at all.

The issue with me was never the time. It was the illusion that we had actually done something and the impression we created that glide waxing was some trivial thing that could be thrown in. Too often, that token splash of wax was all that ski ever saw for the rest of its life.

Even if the recipient of a free hotbox treatment never does any more to the bases, at least we know that a respectable amount of wax went in on that first day. Anyone who does not develop good waxing habits is being wantonly wasteful of their investment in gear. To encourage skiers to take up better waxing habits, the hotboxed ski will reward them with better glide. You absolutely cannot say the same for the one that got the token rub with an iron and a block of whatever was handy.

School team members who already purchased their skis somewhere else can still bring them to Nordic Skier for a $5 discount on any of the hotbox treatments the shop offers.

Binding Placement

For a few years, Salomon and other authorities have been recommending mounting their bindings on high performance skis a centimeter behind the balance line regardless of whether it's on a skating or classical ski.

Folk wisdom had held that skate skis should be mounted neutral or tip light. Classical skis should be mounted neutral or with a slight tip drop.

As usual, it turns out to be more folked-up than you thought.

If you look around for advice on placement you get a range from dead on the balance to 1.5 centimeters back. You'd think that 1.5 cm back would make the tips thud to the snow, but that placement still makes them light at the tip.

It turns out that the weight of the binding plate has always overcome the inherent balance of the ski. The only way to make any ski tip heavy would be to mount the binding far enough back to overbalance the weight distribution of the binding itself. This generally shows up around two centimeters. We've been skiing tip light all along.

Experts advise moving the binding back to improve gliding performance. The amount is negligible, but supposedly quite noticeable. At the most, it probably won't do any harm to fudge a half or a whole centimeter back.

The only advantage to the NNN NIS plate is that neurotic or phenomenally sensitive skiers can tweak the binding forward or back to suit snow conditions and their mood. The overwhelming disadvantage, of course, is that the plate requires an NNN binding.

How about a universal plate to return binding choice to the marketplace? That way we can return to the freedom to mix and match brands instead of getting trapped in yet another monopolistic product line.

Hotbox or Hot Air?

Reading the explanation on one ski shop's website advocating hotboxing of skis to enhance wax penetration, I can't help wondering if this is yet another lucky rabbit's foot to help people feel faster.

According to a Peltonen tech rep at a ski tech seminar several years ago at Great Glen Trails in New Hampshire, under the best of circumstances wax only penetrates about two THOUSANDTHS of an inch into sintered base material. Maybe three, but what's an extra thousandth of an inch among friends?

The hotbox promo goes like this: heat your ski to 55C (131F) for 6-8 hours with a warm wax on there, then do a coat or two of something rated for a skiing temperature of 10-21F and it's equivalent to 25 waxings! The unit cost for this service is much less than if you had the friendly wax grunt actually do 25 waxings. It is slightly less than we charge for a new ski prep using iron, scraper and brushes.

Why not just blow some Swix CH10 or BP99 on your own skis and then lean them up by your furnace for a couple of days?

Racing is such a neurotic activity. How many of the processes related to it have sprung up just because someone with a pack a day habit and a shop apron figured out how to exploit that? A confident racer is a happy racer. A happy racer is a fast racer. At least you want any anger and aggression to be directed up and away from the racer's equipment and support staff. Assure them they're on The Good Stuff and then tell them what that other racer just said about them. Arrgh! I'm a stone ground, hotboxed killin' machine!

Hard waxes for cold conditions melt at higher temperatures than soft waxes for warmer ones. Thus they do not penetrate as easily into the base. But their job is to condition the running surface of the ski to withstand the drag and abrasion of icy conditions in wicked low temperatures. As such they're more of a surface treatment than the softer waxes, which need to saturate the base material more to assure that free water is excluded. Those soft ones melt readily under a moderate iron temperature. You may realize some gain by stuffing your skis in a hot crevice for a few hours, but is it worth what the tech wizards need to charge you to pay for their time and the loan they took out to pay for the box?

Racing and Touring

The difference between racing and touring is science.

The racer will follow carefully designed plans for nutrition and exertion in order to achieve maximum performance on race day. The racer will pay meticulous attention to ski base preparation and waxing on a molecular level.

Some would say that's the difference between racing and fun.

Some racers are more devoted to details than others, but all of them seem to be able to sling the lingo.

It does appear that the more focused you are the better you will perform. So if that is your idea of fun, you will enjoy it.

I hate to be forced to choose very specific activities all year long just to improve performance in one season. A season like we're having right now shows that you can't count on getting to do what you've trained for. Skiing evolved where warm or snowless winters were rare. We've simply transplanted it to places that seemed wintry to us at the time, but are pale imitations of skiing's ancestral home. And as the climate changes they are getting even more feeble.

New England used to boast of "eight months of winter and four months of poor sledding." It was probably always an exaggeration. Now it's more like "two months of summer and ten months of challenging biking."

Of course I hope it gets better. There's certainly room for improvement right now.

Racer Tweaks

Every year there's a new hot technique or equipment change in the Nordic racing scene. During the development of skating as a separate discipline, these changes were often drastic and meaningful. Some were doomed experiments as weird as anything from the Age of Dinosaurs. Others reflected the evolution of gear and technique to make skating genuinely more efficient.

The period of skating evolution got people in the habit of expecting change. It slopped over into classical technique and equipment as well.

Some changes have been more or less permanent. Skate skis settled in to a fairly consistent set of lengths and flexes. Poles grew to ridiculous heights and then settled back to a reasonable one. Classical poles grew, too, and settled back slightly longer than they were at the start of the process.

The funny thing is, within the narrower band of what has proved to work well, fashions seem to change from year to year, a centimeter or two one way or the other. Most of this is just fidgeting. It works better because people think so. It isn't different enough to be noticeably worse. It's still within the usable range.

If a racer tweak makes you cut your expensive poles short one year you'd better hope the trend doesn't favor longer ones next year. That's a good reason to have a couple of sets of poles for each discipline, so you can ski according to fashion without butchering something you have to replace for the next trend.

One benefit to racer tweaks is that they get hard-core skiers moving slightly differently from one year to the next. This might actually help reduce the chance of repetitive strain injuries. No one with coaching credentials has said so officially. I'm just pondering the notion. On the plus side, even if they don't do any measurable physical good, they probably don't do any harm.