Base Edge "Graying"

[Tom K.]

I've been juggling too many balls in the air lately, and got a little lazy with waxing my MB 89tis.

This, combined with hero-carvable-at-high-speed spring corn last week, resulted in a wee bit of "graying" on the edges of my bases.

I would love some input from the experts as to where I should head from here. Can this be remedied with a rigorous hot wax, or is something more needed?

 

[Jilly]

Picture?

 

[jt10000]

Can this be remedied with a rigorous hot wax

Try this first.

 

[SlideWright]

Any change to the base burn with a 'rigorous' brushing first? Regardless, hot waxing ought to help, ideally starting with a saturating, soft wax followed by hard. If it persists, some light base work might be needed.

Some will wax along the edges with a hard green to minimum base burn while carving on abrasive snows or racing.

 

[James]

Hard wax along the edges is commonly down in the east. Man made snow and cold temps really do a number. In the super cold of Pyeong Chang for the Olympics, ptex was actually bubbling up on the bases of some speed skiers in training. They had to throw the skis out.

 

[scott43]

Is this just discolouration? Or delamination of the base? If it's just surface colour that happens all the time to me. I just wax and brush.

 

[Sibhusky]

First run your nail across the grain. Leave a mark? If so, probably wax. But, this late in the season and knowing your ski preferences, probably base burn. It can be prevented by occasionally running/adding some super hard wax along the edges pre-season and maybe again just as spring freeze/thaw starts up. You can try waxing now with a warm soft wax for penetration, then add that hard wax to the edges and see if it helps at all, but you may need a light base grind to get to new P-tex. Some P-tex basis seem more prone to this (or maybe over time I've gotten better at fighting this. I haven't had it in a while, but one old pair this was a constant issue.)

 

[Tony S]

Some P-tex basis seem more prone to this

Matches my observation.

 

[cantunamunch]

Any of you ever seen a high crystallization base? Gray areas from the factory?

 

[SlideWright]

I have not seen that before. Is that from the ski manufacturing process or the sintering process do you suppose?

 

[cantunamunch]

I think it's from before any sintering. The stuff takes like zero wax, but, on the upside, it ablates instead of taking a gouge from a rock hit. It's almost like a kayak hull.

 

[oldschoolskier]

I have seen this with less expensive skis as the base material is a different plastic and ages.

 

[Swiss Toni]

Some P-tex basis seem more prone to this (or maybe over time I've gotten better at fighting this. I haven't had it in a while, but one old pair this was a constant issue.)

Greying is more pronounced on skis with less expensive ski bases. The more expensive bases have more carbon black in them and the carbon black used is finer than that used in cheaper base materials. Smaller carbon black particles improve abrasion resistance and blackness as they are better dispersed in the UHMWPE resin.

The ski base manufacturers make a range of bases from cheap extruded HMWPE up to expensive UHMWPE bases designed for race skis. The company that manufactures p-tex branded ski bases has 8 black UHMWPE base materials in its range. Unfortunately, the ski manufacturers seldom tell us what make and type of base material they use.

 

[Tom K.]

Some will wax along the edges with a hard green to minimum base burn while carving on abrasive snows or racing.

Is this just discolouration? Or delamination of the base?

Some P-tex basis seem more prone to this

Late update due to my computer needing a "spa day".

Definitely a spring corn carving-induced thing. Before the bottom fell out of our season, there was some serious, ego-stoking fun to be had!

Skis are my (so lovely) Mindbender 89tis. The graying is only on the slightly different -- and different color -- base material on the ski forebody.

I did an oh-so-gentle scrape with my razor-sharp Bahco woodworking scraper, then a very thorough hot wax with soft first, then harder on edges.

They look like new now, but we'll see how they hold up on Monday.

Thanks to all for all the tips. I hadn't seen this since about 10 years ago on a Sun Valley trip, which also included numerous days of Hero Carving Corn.

Note to ski mfgs: Nobody sees the bottoms of my skis. At least not anymore. You can go ahead and just use the highest-quality black ptex available. No fanciness needed or desired!

 

[chris_the_wrench]

@Tom K. Slaying corn and burning skis? Sounds like little has changed!