How To Wax Your Skis

For many skiers, learning to wax your own skis is a bit of a rite of passage, a milestone of dedication to the sport. It might seem like a messy, difficult endeavor at first, but follow these six simple steps and your bases will be smooth and fast in no time.

So, why should you wax your own skis? If you ski a lot, it not only can save you a lot of money and trips to the ski shop–it allows you to choose your wax preference for any given conditions and get your bases in tip-top shape for that big powder day ahead. Besides, it’s a fun way to learn a simple skill that will keep your gear in fighting shape all season long.

How Often Should You Wax Your Skis?

There's no such thing as waxing your skis too often. In fact, professional ski racers will often freshly wax their skis for every single run in a race. However, if you don't have a full-time pit crew working for you, that's going to seriously cut into your ski time. We recommend waxing your skis every 5-10 ski days, or whenever there are significant changes in temperature and snow conditions.

If you notice that your bases have a dry, white look to them, or your skis feel noticeably slower on-snow, that means it's time for a fresh wax.

What You’ll Need To Wax Your Skis

Ski tuning equipment doesn't need to be super fancy, but it’s worth investing in dedicated stuff and keeping it clean and tidy. We’d recommend doing this either outside or in a well-ventilated garage or shop area, as wax fumes aren’t great for your health. Here’s a short list of what you’ll need to wax your skis:

• Waxing iron (invest in a dedicated ski waxing iron for this, as clothing irons won’t keep a constant temperature)
• Heavy-duty plastic wax scraper
• Ski wax (It's good to keep various temperature waxes on hand, but all-temp works fine for most uses)
• Ski vises for your workbench
• 2x thick rubber bands
• Base brushes
• Base cleaner and rag

How to Wax Your Skis

Step 1: Prep your work area

Before starting to wax your skis, it’s important to prep your work area. That means cleaning up any junk on your workbench, securing your ski vises properly, and making sure there aren’t any objects around you don’t want to get wax scrapings on. That means things like your favorite ski jacket, hat, goggles, copy of Powder magazine, or even your curious dog.

Step 2: Clean and prep the bases

Before clamping your skis into the vises, use a rubber band to secure your ski brakes in the retracted position. Since most vises only have room for one ski, you’ll have to do the whole rest of the process twice. Clamp a ski into your vises, bases up, and make sure it’s secure by tightening the clamps.

If you visibly see wax, road salt, or other junk like skin glue gunked up on your bases, go ahead and use the scraper to clean off the large chunks. This is also a great time to fill in and smooth out any gouges with P-Tex, but that's for another

Then, grab a rag or sponge and squirt a few drops of base cleaner into it and wipe the bases off, making sure to cover the whole base from tip to tail.

Step 3: Apply wax to the bases

Now let’s get to the fun part. Heat up your wax iron to the correct temperature for whatever wax you are working with. If you touch wax to the iron and it starts smoking, it’s too hot. Keeping the iron 6–8 inches above your ski bases, touch the wax block to the iron, letting the wax melt and drip onto your bases. Run a thin line of that from tip to tail.

It’s easy to accidentally drip too much wax in this part of the process, which is fine, but you’ll just spend more time scraping it off later. With practice, you’ll figure out the appropriate amount of wax to use here.

Once you’ve dripped a thin line of wax along the length of the ski, use the iron to spread it evenly from edge to edge. Take care not to let the iron sit in one place for more than a few seconds, or you’ll risk melting the bases. This works the wax into your base pattern, right where it needs to be.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other ski.

Step 4: Let the wax cool

After you’ve applied wax to both skis, you’ll need to let the wax cool to room temperature. This usually takes 20–30 minutes. Go call your mom. Or grab a beverage and watch an episode of Powder TV.

Step 5: Scrape the excess wax

Once the wax has cooled, it’s time to scrape! Clamp one ski at a time back into the vises, again making sure they are secure. Grab your scraper, place the edge flat on the ski base, and tilt the scraper at about a 45-degree angle towards the direction you will scrape. Then begin making passes from tip to tail. This will pull off wax shavings along the entire length of the ski. Repeat the process until you aren’t removing any more wax. Depending on the type of wax you used, this can take quite a few passes. Warmer temperature wax comes off easier, while cold-temp wax takes quite a bit of work.

The point of waxing a ski is to fill up the tiny pores and crevices in your ski bases, and scraping removes all the excess wax that didn’t make it into those tiny cavities.

Step 6: Brush your bases

After you’ve scraped both of your skis, the final step involves brushing your bases to finish the surface of the wax. This step is what determines ultimately how fast your skis will be going on snow, so take to do this properly! We recommend having two different brushes on hand for this process, a coarse-haired and a fine-haired brush. Most coarse brushes have copper or hard plastic hairs, while fine-haired brushes are typically made of horsehair. If you just have one, that will also work, but on your final pass, make sure to use a little less pressure.

Use the coarse brush first, pulling it along the ski from tip to tail. Use both hands on the brush, but don’t put your weight into it. You are brushing now, not scraping the bases. Divide the base into 4–5 sections that you will cover with a single brushstroke, overlapping each one slightly to ensure to cover the whole base. Small dust-like wax particles will come up during this process, wipe those away with the brush. Do 3–5 passes with the coarse brush, then finish with two passes on the fine brush.

You’re ready to go skiing!