Waxing Your Snowboard

Waxing your snowboard is a pretty enjoyable and brainless way to help stoke your excitement for your next trip.

Here’s what you need:

A Work Space
This gets a bit messy with shreds of wax turning your floor into a curling rink so make sure you’ve got a garage or basement or some place that can take some mess and clean up easy. I use my garage along with 2 saw horses. There’s a radio out there, plenty of light, all the tools I need and it sweeps out into the alley quick and easy.

An Iron
Pick one up used at a thrift store for a buck or two or buy one at Target for $15. Don’t waste your money on anything fancy (like this overpriced idiocy)
and don’t expect to use this to press your church clothes when you’re through.

Goo-Gone
You know the stuff, you can get it at just about any grocery store or pharmacy.

Wax
We used Cera Nova CH Wax 60g by Swix, it’s the medium grade or mid-temperature grade as we couldn’t get a good answer on what the temperature refers to, the ambient air temperature or the temperature of the snow. If somebody knows and could give a decent reason as to why the ambient air temperature would actually effect how your snowboard glides I’d love to hear it.

Paste
We used Dakine Snowboard Paste.

Scraper
I’ve used a CD case in the past and a ruler, any kind of hard straight edge that’s not terribly sharp should be fine.

Steel Wool
The cheaper the better.

Beer
I like a nice cold sessionable beer, most recently that’s been Half Acre’s Daisy Cutter.

Here’s what you do:

In good light, put your board on a long workbench or a couple saw horses. I find the saw horses work well as the bindings, nose and tail drop below your work level and don’t interfere. Scrub off any old wax with your Goo-Gone, just wet a rag with it and scrub.

Once your board is nice a clean take a chunk of your wax and rub it on the hot part of the iron until it starts to drip, then move your wax and iron across your board so you can get full coverage. An alternative way to do this is to cover your board with the wax like it’s a big crayon. This can help get you a more even coverage at the outset and may save you some time later.

Once you’ve got a decent coverage of wax go ahead and use the iron to spread it evenly all over the bottom of your board. Make sure every inch of your board that will be in the snow is covered evenly.

Take your scraper and, at about a 60* angle to your board start scraping off the wax in long strokes. Move from the front of your board to the back. Continue this until nothing but the bottommost layer of wax remains and all inconsistancies are smoothed out. You should be able to run your hand over your board and have it feel smooth.

Take your steel wool and buff it out good.

Finally, rub on your paste in circular movements. Wipe down real good with a soft towel.

There you go, just like that and you’re ready to enjoy a gorgeous mountain!