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How to prepare your skis for winter

How to prepare your skis for winter

Whether you are cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, touring or snowboarding, it’s a good idea to make good use of the time before winter.

Product developer Jan Olav Bjørn Gjermundshaug

Here's three of our best tips on how you prep your skis before the season starts.

1. Remove old klister

If you're one of those who don't remove old ski wax when the season, you unfortunately have to pay now.

Here's how to remove old klister:

  • Put fiberlene cleaning paper on the klister on the ski
  • Drag the heated waxing iron over the fiberlene
  • Scrape off the fiberlene paper using a scraper
  • Clean the ski using Base Cleaner
  • Wipe off with clean fiberlene

If you have old kick wax under your skis you easily remove it by scraping off most of it, clean with Base Cleaner and then wipe off with fiberlene.

The grip zone is now ready for new ski wax, but first you need to clean the glide zone as well.

This is what you need to remove old klister and kick wax

2. Clean the glide zone

We recommend that you heat a layer of so-called storage wax when you put away your skis in spring. This saves you a lot of time when the first snow arrives, as you only need to remove the wax before skiing.

- If the skis have been left without storage wax since last season, we must start by cleaning them, says Gjermundshaug.

How to clean the glide zone on your skis:

  • Get out your Glide Wax Cleaner. This must not be confused with the Base Cleaner we used to remove klister or grip wax.
  • Clean skis using Fiberlene and a nylon brush. Make sure you get the cleaner well into the base so that you get rid of all dirt and contamination that has settled from the previous ski tour.
  • Wipe clean with Fiberlene.

What you need to clean the glide zone

3. Refresh the base of the skis

Once both the glide and grip zone have been cleaned, we recommend brushing the glide zone with Fibertex.

- By using Fibertex you get a fresher base material that more easily aborbs wax. This will result in better skis, say Gjermundshaug.

How to use Fibertex:

  • Brush back and forth over the base about 20 times
  • Do this with all grades of grain in the line (coarse, fine and extra fine)

When that's done, the base is ready for new glide wax.

4. Saturate the skis with glide wax

The advantage of doing a good job prepping your skis for storage when the season is over is that you spend less time in the waxing booth when a new season start.

When you put your skis or snowboard away for the season we recommend saturating the skis or board with glide wax. By doing that you avoid getting dry skis.

  • You need a waxing iron and a hard wax PS7.
  • Heat the glide wax into the base of the ski three times before scraping the wax off.
  • Heat PS6 glide wax into the ski. PS6 is a harder wax than PS7.
  • Scrape off and polish using a brush.

Recommended gliders

Not sure how you heat ski wax gliders into the skis? Here's how:

Have you completed all steps? Well done. Your skis are now ready for next season. Hope you're ready as well.