How Often Should You Wax or Tune Your Skis or Snowboard?

Freshly waxed and tuned skis and snowboards just work better. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. They glide faster and more smoothly, their edge hold is better on hard snow, and the fluidity of your turns is enhanced in all conditions. Overall sking and snowboarding on well tuned gear is just a lot more fun! 

But why does waxing and tuning make such a big difference? Is it worth the hassle? And why is it a job for the professional ski technicians at Outside Sports? Let’s take a closer look... 

The bases of your ski or snow board are made of a plastic material - Ultra High Molecular Weight polyethylene (UHMW) which is constructed using a process called Sintering that makes it very slightly porous.  

When hot ski wax is spread onto the base the sintering allows the wax to key in and adhere to it. Scrapping off the excess wax when it cools creates a smoother ride. 

The wax works for you by creating a low adhesion interface between the base and the snow (which is sticky), helping the base to glide over the snow instead of trying to grab hold of it. ‘Grabbiness’ is a clear sign that you need a fresh coat of wax. It’s especially noticeable (and very annoying) on warmer late season days when the snow can be slushy, especially in the afternoon. 

Your wax coat is really only in good condition for two or three days. But if it’s icy it will be worn off even faster. So if you want to maximise the enjoyment your days on the snow make sure you see us at Outside Sports regularly for a fresh base wax. 

A lot of skiers and boarders seem to have a ‘one and done’ attitude to edge tuning – they get their ski or snowboard edges tuned at the beginning of the season and call it good. But it’s not really. They’d have a much better season if they kept on top of their edge tuning. An edge tune every seven or eight days on snow is a good rule of thumb for recreational skiers. By the way, we also do a lot of race ski tuning in our workshops in Queenstown and Wanaka for international ski teams, and for them tuning and waxing a daily exercise! 

A base grind is the foundation of a professional tune. During normal use skis and snowboards pick up a lot of little dings and scratches, which end up making the base uneven. A rough, uneven base won't run as smoothly. Basically your skis or snowboard won't feel as good when the base is worn. Running your skis or board through a base grinding machine removes a fraction of a millimetre of the base material and makes them good as new again. 

Every edge tune won't require a base grind, but every base grind must be followed by an edge tune as the grinding process removes some of the steel the edges are made of. A base grind will also be need if any repairs have been made to the base, such as a 'core-shot' where the base material has been ripped away by a rock to expose the inside layers of you ski or snowboard - aka the core.

Your wax and tune depends on the type of snow you’re skiing on and the individual ski. The best wax to use can change throughout the season, according to the temperature and the snow surface. 

Fully cambered piste skis like this Atomic E Redster require a different tune to these rockered Atomic Maven 93C all-mountain skis. Giving your skis the correct tune for the takes know-how, and experience.

You can see there are a lot of variables, which is why ski tuning is a job for the pros who know the science behind it and have the right tools to do it properly. 

All our workshop team are either course assessors, have qualified, or are completing the Level 4 Te Mahi Ako Ski Workshop Technician course. 

Keeping your skis and boards in peak condition is easy – just book online and drop them off and we’ll do the rest using the world’s finest ski tuning technology from Montana of Switzerland. 

Make sure your gear is good to go on opening day.

30% off all pre-season tunes, waxes and small repairs (repairs will be quoted upon inspection). Limited Time offer: Drop in your gear anytime from 19th May through to 11th June for guaranteed pick up by the afternoon of 13th June. 

If bigger repairs are needed, like core-shots and damaged edges, just bring in your gear in for a free quote.

Book your skis or snowboard into our workshops online now.