Approaches to Brushing
Gene Goldenfeld
brushing, structure, flex and all. I'm still not clear about brushing
and hear different opinions about how much to brush, with which brushes
and when.
My uncertainty seems mostly about the initial brushing. Typically,
after scraping well, I make 20-50 passes with the Toko copper brush
(and/or a soft brass brush) on each third of the ski, more when it's a
colder wax. Depending on the coldness, I'll finish with a horsehair
brush, noncoarse fibertex and the Swix blue polishing brush. In warmer
temps, I'll add some structure with the Toko rolling tool. I've been
steering clear of the nylon brushes because their bristles seem too hard
and thick to be effective for my skis relativelly fine structure, and I
haven't been impressed with the results. Generally, I find my skis have
been faster since I started using the brass brush and thus more passes.
I'm interested what others do or recommend and why.
Gene Goldenfeld
Chris Crawford
especially the relative merits of stone grinding vs. rolling tools, vs.
brushes. Can one skip stone grinding if one uses rolling tools? Do
brushes and rolling tools give a more "temporary" structure than stone
grinding? If one has recently stone ground may one dispense with
rolling and or harder brushes? thanks in advance for any tips.
Regards
Chris
Chris Cline
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Hi Again Chris-
I feel like I'm exceeding my posts per day limit today. But your questions are basic and easy to answer, and I hope I'm helping by giving you some feedback. Besides, I ain't doin' anything else this evening!
Anyway-
Stone grinding and rolling tools are not interchangable-- they perform two separate functions.
Stone grinding is a permanent treatment of your ski base that involves cutting a very fine (essentially microscopic) struture into the ski base. The process actually removes plastic from the ski. During the process, it also flattens your ski base and removes old, oxidized (and possibly burnt/sealed) p-tex that has suffered the ravages of time, oxygen, and too-hot waxing irons. Stone-grinding results in permanent structure-- or at least until waxing, skiing, and scraping wear it down and it's time to send 'em off to Zach Caldwell or Nat Brown again (two stonegrind artists of note who grace this newgroup with their presence).
"Rolling tools" are actually rolling "Rilling" tools-- you use them to *press* (or sometimes cut) a coarser structure onto the surface of the P-tex. Unless you really bear down, or are using a tool that is designed to cut deeply, rilling is usually more temporary-- the plastic relaxes and returns back to shape somewhat after a couple of repeated waxings and ironings. So you're right-- rilling tools give temporary structure. Rilling is typically used in conditions where there is high humidity and or outright water present in the snow-- the coarse structure helps to channel water off the ski and/or break up surface tension (or something much more physically/mechanically complex-- but this is how my conceptual picture looks).
Finally, brushes have *almost* nothing to do with structure. Instead, they are used to remove as much wax _from_ the structure as possible (since you're skiing on the wax IN the base, not ON it). I think that there may be some brushes, such as a harder metal brush (steel, not brass or copper) that can actually cut into a ski base, therefore giving some structure, but you pay for this structure with a lot of microscopic cuttings ("hairs") that will slow you down. Here is where the Zachs, Nats and other gurus in the group will have the highest quality information.
So finally, if you have recently stoneground your skis:
great!
wax them (with both cold [hard] and warm [soft] waxes) and ski them a lot--this will polish the stonegrind and impregnate the P-tex with a lot of nice, slick wax.
Brush the heck out of the skis after you wax them. If you really want to get ALL the wax out, use a fine, soft metal brush (copper or brass). This is particularly important with fine structure and hard waxes (equivalent to cold conditions). Responding to Gene's original post, I don't think that the bristles on a nylon brush are too hard so much as they are too fat to fit inside the fine grooves of a cold-snow stonegrind pattern-- this is my mental picture of why a brass or copper brush works better for the hard wax/fine structure combination.
Rill when a) the snow gets wet and sloppy towards spring; and/or b) the skis you're rilling are your warm/sloppy snow skis. If you only have one pair of skis, my general logic is get them ground at the beginning of the season with a cold-snow pattern, ski them, then start rilling in the spring, figuring that I will have them ground again at the start of the next season (I think you can generally grind a ski 5-6 times in its lifetime-- Zach and/or Nate?)
have fun!
Chris Cline
SLC UT
Regards
Chris
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<DIV>Hi Again Chris-</DIV>
<DIV>I feel like I'm exceeding my posts per day limit today. But your questions are basic and easy to answer, and I hope I'm helping by giving you some feedback. Besides, I ain't doin' anything else this evening!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Anyway-</DIV>
<DIV>Stone grinding and rolling tools are not interchangable-- they perform two separate functions.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Stone grinding is a permanent treatment of your ski base that involves cutting a very fine (essentially microscopic) struture into the ski base. The process actually removes plastic from the ski. During the process, it also flattens your ski base and removes old, oxidized (and possibly burnt/sealed) p-tex that has suffered the ravages of time, oxygen, and too-hot waxing irons. Stone-grinding results in permanent structure-- or at least until waxing, skiing, and scraping wear it down and it's time to send 'em off to Zach Caldwell or Nat Brown again (two stonegrind artists of note who grace this newgroup with their presence).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Rolling tools" are actually rolling "Rilling" tools-- you use them to *press* (or sometimes cut) a coarser structure onto the surface of the P-tex. Unless you really bear down, or are using a tool that is designed to cut deeply, rilling is usually more temporary-- the plastic relaxes and returns back to shape somewhat after a couple of repeated waxings and ironings. So you're right-- rilling tools give temporary structure. Rilling is typically used in conditions where there is high humidity and or outright water present in the snow-- the coarse structure helps to channel water off the ski and/or break up surface tension (or something much more physically/mechanically complex-- but this is how my conceptual picture looks).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Finally, brushes have *almost* nothing to do with structure. Instead, they are used to remove as much wax _from_ the structure as possible (since you're skiing on the wax IN the base, not ON it). I think that there may be some brushes, such as a harder metal brush (steel, not brass or copper) that can actually cut into a ski base, therefore giving some structure, but you pay for this structure with a lot of microscopic cuttings ("hairs") that will slow you down. Here is where the Zachs, Nats and other gurus in the group will have the highest quality information.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So finally, if you have recently stoneground your skis:</DIV>
<DIV>great!</DIV>
<DIV>wax them (with both cold [hard] and warm [soft] waxes) and ski them a lot--this will polish the stonegrind and impregnate the P-tex with a lot of nice, slick wax.</DIV>
<DIV>Brush the heck out of the skis after you wax them. If you really want to get ALL the wax out, use a fine, soft metal brush (copper or brass). This is particularly important with fine structure and hard waxes (equivalent to cold conditions). Responding to Gene's original post, I don't think that the bristles on a nylon brush are too hard so much as they are too fat to fit inside the fine grooves of a cold-snow stonegrind pattern-- this is my mental picture of why a brass or copper brush works better for the hard wax/fine structure combination.</DIV>
<DIV>Rill when a) the snow gets wet and sloppy towards spring; and/or b) the skis you're rilling are your warm/sloppy snow skis. If you only have one pair of skis, my general logic is get them ground at the beginning of the season with a cold-snow pattern, ski them, then start rilling in the spring, figuring that I will have them ground again at the start of the next season (I think you can generally grind a ski 5-6 times in its lifetime-- Zach and/or Nate?)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>have fun!</DIV>
<DIV>Chris Cline</DIV>
<DIV>SLC UT</DIV>
<DIV><BR><B><I>Chris Crawford <cjcra...@idcomm.com></I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">I too am still trying to come to grips with ski base structuring, <BR>especially the relative merits of stone grinding vs. rolling tools, vs. <BR>brushes. Can one skip stone grinding if one uses rolling tools? Do <BR>brushes and rolling tools give a more "temporary" structure than stone <BR>grinding? If one has recently stone ground may one dispense with <BR>rolling and or harder brushes? thanks in advance for any tips.<BR><BR>Regards<BR>Chris<BR><BR>Gene Goldenfeld wrote:<BR>> After the City of Lakes Loppet there was a thread about waxing,<BR>> brushing, structure, flex and all. I'm still not clear about brushing<BR>> and hear different opinions about how much to brush, with which brushes<BR>> and when. <BR>> <BR>> My uncertainty seems mostly about the initial brushing. Typically,<BR>> after scraping well, I make 20-50 passes with the Toko copper brush<B!
R>>
(and/or a soft brass brush) on each third of the ski, more when it's a<BR>> colder wax. Depending on the coldness, I'll finish with a horsehair<BR>> brush, noncoarse fibertex and the Swix blue polishing brush. In warmer<BR>> temps, I'll add some structure with the Toko rolling tool. I've been<BR>> steering clear of the nylon brushes because their bristles seem too hard<BR>> and thick to be effective for my skis relativelly fine structure, and I<BR>> haven't been impressed with the results. Generally, I find my skis have<BR>> been faster since I started using the brass brush and thus more passes. <BR>> I'm interested what others do or recommend and why.<BR>> <BR>> Gene Goldenfeld<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE><p><hr SIZE=1>
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Laurent Duparchy
discourage to use metal (brass) brushes. They damage the base.
Anders Lustig
> Anyway-
> Stone grinding and rolling tools are not interchangable-- they perform
> two separate functions.
> Stone grinding is a permanent treatment of your ski base that involves
> cutting a very fine (essentially microscopic) struture into the ski base.
> The process actually removes plastic from the ski. During the process,
> it also flattens your ski base and removes old, oxidized (and possibly
> burnt/sealed) p-tex that has suffered the ravages of time, oxygen, and
> too-hot waxing irons. Stone-grinding results in permanent structure--
> or at least until waxing, skiing, and scraping wear it down and it's
> time to send 'em off to Zach Caldwell or Nat Brown again (two stone-
> grind artists of note who grace this newgroup with their presence).
> "Rolling tools" are actually rolling "Rilling" tools-- you use them to
> *press* (or sometimes cut) a coarser structure onto the surface of the
> P-tex. Unless you really bear down, or are using a tool that is designed
> to cut deeply, rilling is usually more temporary-- the plastic relaxes
> and returns back to shape somewhat after a couple of repeated waxings
> and ironings. So you're right-- rilling tools give temporary structure.
> Rilling is typically used in conditions where there is high humidity
> and or outright water present in the snow-- the coarse structure helps
> to channel water off the ski and/or break up surface tension (or some-
> thing much more physically/mechanically complex-- but this is how my
> conceptual picture looks).
> Finally, brushes have *almost* nothing to do with structure. Instead,
> they are used to remove as much wax _from_ the structure as possible
> (since you're skiing on the wax IN the base, not ON it). I think that
> there may be some brushes, such as a harder metal brush (steel, not
> brass or copper) that can actually cut into a ski base, therefore giving
> some structure, but you pay for this structure with a lot of microscopic
> cuttings ("hairs") that will slow you down. Here is where the Zachs,
> Nats and other gurus in the group will have the highest quality information.
> So finally, if you have recently stoneground your skis: great!
> wax them (with both cold [hard] and warm [soft] waxes) and ski them a
> lot--this will polish the stonegrind and impregnate the P-tex with a
> lot of nice, slick wax.
> Brush the heck out of the skis after you wax them. If you really want
> to get ALL the wax out, use a fine, soft metal brush (copper or brass).
> This is particularly important with fine structure and hard waxes
> (equivalent to cold conditions). Responding to Gene's original post,
> I don't think that the bristles on a nylon brush are too hard so much
> as they are too fat to fit inside the fine grooves of a cold-snow stone-
> grind pattern-- this is my mental picture of why a brass or copper brush
> works better for the hard wax/fine structure combination.
> Rill when a) the snow gets wet and sloppy towards spring; and/or b) the
> skis you're rilling are your warm/sloppy snow skis. If you only have one
> pair of skis, my general logic is get them ground at the beginning of the
> season with a cold-snow pattern, ski them, then start rilling in the spring, > figuring that I will have them ground again at the start of the next season
> (I think you can generally grind a ski 5-6 times in its lifetime-- Zach
> and/or Nate?)
A folk belief is that, unless you´re a first wave racer,
you can do with just a nylon brush - and that it´s worth
investing in a natural hair brush to give the final touch
even if you aren´t:-)
FWIW rilling for wet conditions can also be done after
applying (the layers of) glide wax.
Lustig (who found the line length of the original a bit
too long)
John Forrest Tomlinson
> After the City of Lakes Loppet there was a thread about waxing,
> brushing, structure, flex and all. I'm still not clear about brushing
> and hear different opinions about how much to brush, with which brushes
> and when.
I've been using a copper brush (by Toko) a lot. Not sure what it does
to my skis -- I guess I should look at them with a magnifying glass to
be sure it's not raising hairs but the fibers are not very sharp so
I'm not too worried. It certainly gets the wax off quickly.
I use a horsehair brush afterwards sometimes -- it gets out a little
more wax from inside the structure.
I've got a Swix white nylon brush that doesn't seem to do much at all
-- so little wax comes off with each stroke that it seems truly
pointless. The bristles are too thick to get into the structure at
all.
One question I have about brushes relates to different waxes. People
say you should have a separate brush for pure flourocarbons. OK. But
what about waxes for different temperatures? If I brush out some
warm-temp wax, and then use the same same brush to work on cold wax,
isn't there some substantial contamination of the latter wax job? At
home I use boiling water a lot to clean the copper brush, but when
travelling it's not so easy to keep brushed clean other than running a
scraper accross them. Any thoughts on this? Do really fastidious
people have brushed for different temperatures?
JFT
Zachary Caldwell
worth, is my "professional" opinion:
Brushing does two things to your skis. As long as you understand what you're
trying to do, it's easy to make a determination of what brushes to use.
#1 reason to brush: remove wax. Clearly a brush with smaller and stiffer
bristles will remove more wax than a brush with larger and softer bristles.
Brush choice really pretty much comes down to getting a feel for what brush
works the best on what wax. I do close to 90% of my brushing with a very
soft copper brush from Swix. The Toko copper brush also works well. A note
of caution: A lot of stiffer bronze brushes are, in my opinion, aggressive
enough to impart a brush structure to the ski and to raise some hairs. For
that reason I really tend to stay away from these brushes. I usually test
and unknown brush by running across the back of my hand. If it scratches my
hand aggressively then I figure it'll do the same to the ski base. A soft
copper brush doesn't really hurt the back of my hand.
The brushes I use frequently for wax removal are: Soft copper, horsehair,
blue nylon. I don't have a fixed method or order - it really depends on the
wax I'm working with and the ambient temperature (warmer temps cause softer
waxes to smear and require different brushes).
#2 reason to brush: to work-harden the base material. This is what a white
nylon brush does. Several people have correctly noted that the nylon
bristles seem too big to effectively clean out structure. That's true. I use
a white nylon brush AFTER I've removed all the wax to condition and harden
the top surface of the base. In some conditions this can make a biig
difference. It can help give that really fast-looking shine to a cold wax
job, and it can harden off a warm wax job to help resist dirt and to
generate good speed off the bench. There are plenty of conditions where this
doesn't make a ton of difference, but the effect of work-hardening the base
material should not be discounted.
Brush technique: Any metal-based brush I use in one direction only - from
tip to tail. I generally find that even the soft metal brushes end up having
a directional bias and I try to always run them the same direction. Any
synthetic brush can be run in both directions. Generally I tend to run in
one direction when I'm removing wax (unless I run into a pocket where I
didn't do a good job with the scraper and have some catch-up work to do).
When I'm finishing the base I'm happy to run in both directions. In fact, I
think it's good. Synthetic brushes won't alter the "grain" of the base
running backwards. So get right after it and brush like you mean it.
Remember that there is very little voodoo involved with ski tuning. You can
see pretty much every desired brush effect with the nacked eye. You want
your skis to be free of surface wax and shiny when you're done brushing.
Don't be afraid to experiment with your brushes. Just be careful of the more
aggressive metal brushes.
Finally - with regard to JTs questions on specialized brushes - I'm as
fastidious as anybody has any reason to be and I don't specialize my
brushes. I usually don't even set-aside a "fluoro-only" brush. Good brushes
are hard enough to find that I like to keep them in action once I've found
them. In general, if you keep your brushes clean and free of really soft
paraffins (that will smear the base) you can use any brush on any wax with
no adverse effects. At least no adverse effects that I've been able to
measure.
Happy brushing!
Zach
http://www.engineeredtuning.net/
"John Forrest Tomlinson" <usenet...@jt10000.com> wrote in message
news:84314734.04022...@posting.google.com...
Gene Goldenfeld
>
> Remember that there is very little voodoo involved with ski tuning. You can
> see pretty much every desired brush effect with the nacked eye. You want
> your skis to be free of surface wax and shiny when you're done brushing.
> Don't be afraid to experiment with your brushes. Just be careful of the more
> aggressive metal brushes.
Thanks, Zach! I come back to my original question and a couple more:
1)About how many passes do you typically find yourself making with the
copper brush? At that stage, assuming you are using it first, what are
you looking for before you move onto the next brush?
2)Typically, I use fine fibertex (Swix white) somewhere after the copper
brush. Is there any benefit or problem created by that? To my eyes, it
helps clean up what the brush and a fiberlene wipe miss.
3)What is your most effective method for brush cleaning?
Thanks,
Gene
Zachary Caldwell
> Zachary Caldwell wrote:
> >
> > Remember that there is very little voodoo involved with ski tuning. You
can
> > see pretty much every desired brush effect with the nacked eye. You want
> > your skis to be free of surface wax and shiny when you're done brushing.
> > Don't be afraid to experiment with your brushes. Just be careful of the
more
> > aggressive metal brushes.
>
>
> Thanks, Zach! I come back to my original question and a couple more:
>
> 1)About how many passes do you typically find yourself making with the
> copper brush? At that stage, assuming you are using it first, what are
> you looking for before you move onto the next brush?
Hmm - I don't really count. I guess it's a little like sanding down a table
top. You work with the 150 grit until it's done all it's going to do, then
you move to 220 and work with that until it's done all it's going to do,
etc. I brush with the copper until it's done it's thing. Sometimes - like
with a hard wax, that's just about all the ski needs, and the work is pretty
quick. Other times, like with softer paraffins, I use it to quickly move a
bunch of material, but then stop when it just starts smearing wax, and go to
a softer fine brush like a horsehair or blue nylon. I suppoe the answer
would be that I look for the point of diminishing returns and then move on.
> 2)Typically, I use fine fibertex (Swix white) somewhere after the copper
> brush. Is there any benefit or problem created by that? To my eyes, it
> helps clean up what the brush and a fiberlene wipe miss.
The mild fibertex will do some of what the white nylon will do in terms of
work hardening and polishing the base. That's probably the effect you're
seeing and it's probably and effective treatment. It's not something I do a
whole lot.
> 3)What is your most effective method for brush cleaning?
It never seems to be too big a problem. I brush a couple of brushes against
each-other to clean them out. The only time I'm really concerned about
getting a brush clean is if it's loaded up with soft paraffin that'll smear
onto a harder paraffin or fluorocarbon finish. Aside from the soft paraffins
I find that the brushes mostly clear stuff off rather than leave stuff on
the base.
The one place that I'm more concerned with having a brush clean is when I
first start brushing fluorocarbon topcoats with the copper brush. This is
something I do pretty frequently, depending on the application process. If
it's a light application finished with a roto-cork which doesn't leave a lot
of residue then I'd want a clean brush to start the brushing process. But if
it's an iron-on application with a lot of powder to brush off then the
process of moving the powder pretty much loads the brush up with fluoros
right off the bat.
Incidentally - as a total aside related to almost nothing in this thread - I
have a couple of comments on fluoro powder application. I thought of this as
I was writing about brushing off lots of powder. Most of the big-time waxers
use quite a load of fluoro powder when they do an application. The USST
probably goes through more than 10grams of powder per pair of skis. That's a
whole lot of powder but it allows them to work quickly and effectively (nice
even layer of application) without much risk of burning the base. I reground
a bunch of skis for those guys at US Nationals and saw not a single burn.
They're really professional in the way they treat skis.
However, the 10gram application, at a cost of up to $40 retail, is a bit
much for most of us to swallow. I like to get close to 10 pairs out of a 30
gram vial, bringing the cost down closer to $10-12 per application. I have
come up with a couple of ways to do this safely and still get a very good
result. Corking is, of course, the safest application. And roto-corking can
give outstanding durability. It has almost become my default application
after a really quick pass with a hot iron.
But sometimes you need to iron the stuff in. In these cases I like to first
rub on some solid, or even just cork in a very little bit of powder until
it's evenly covering the ski and starting to work into the base. Then I
sprinkle a modest amount of powder on top of that and iron in one direction.
I find that the rub-on or corked powder underlayer acts as a sort of flux,
encouraging the powder to flow more easily and cover the entire base. This
eliminates the need for "directed" ironing - trying to spready the stuff out
with a dangerously hot iron and inevitably burning the skis. Give it a try
next time you're powdering skis. I'm particularly proud of myself for this
little trick...
Zach
John Forrest Tomlinson
Thanks (again) for more useful info.
JFT