Preservation of mountain skis for the summer

Simply putting downhill skis in the pantry after the winter season without paraffin treatment is an extremely bad idea. In order to fully preserve their technical characteristics of the sliding surface, it is necessary to perform their preservation for the summer. It would be a mistake to subject the skis only to lubrication, to leave the edges sharpened before the start of skiing. In a few months, they are impregnated with a lubricant, which significantly improves their properties, and if you prepare skis for skiing immediately before going to the mountains, the sliding surface will be spoiled when the master begins to level the edges.

In addition, preservation for the summer saves the ski owner’s time. He will have to spend only a week on equipment maintenance at the end of the season – that's how much a master in a service needs to clean and dry skis, repair them if necessary, put the edges of it in order and cover base with paraffin. And before the start of skiing, your ski preparation process will take literally half an hour and will consist only in removing the lubricant.

What is the procedure?

After the end of the skiing season, you need to carefully inspect the skis and, if necessary, repair them, polish the sliding surface, sharpen the edges and lubricate with a special compound – «close», as experts say.

You can preserve the equipment yourself at home or contact a special ski service – such workshops work at all ski resorts.

How is preservation performed?

Ski preparation for the summer season takes place in several stages. They are dried, cleaned of possible contamination and carefully examined for defects on their lower and upper planes. Serious damage of the subject is required to be repaired.

Processing begins with rough grinding and alignment of the edge. This operation is performed on the machine. It allows you to completely remove small scratches and make large surface defects less deep. The machine also performs the alignment of the edge from the side of the base, so that it becomes flat.

Then the procedure is repeated several more times, and each time with a finer grinding material. The grain size of the first and last skins, as well as the number of runs, is selected by the master; it depends on the initial state of the sliding surface.

After the last repetition of this operation, they start sharpening the edges along the face. She is given a certain angle, most often it is 87-90 °. Then the lower plane can be given a structure using a special machine.

After that, the equipment is thoroughly wiped dry and dried during the day. To withstand 24 hours before paraffin treatment is a prerequisite for proper preservation of skis. During grinding, they inevitably heat up, in addition, moisture can get on them in the workshop. If the wet slipper is coated with a lubricant, this will cause a greenhouse effect and lead to rust.

Working with ski fastening   

Before sending the skis for summer storage, the fasteners must be dissolved – «relax for rest». To do this, all springs are set to a minimum and left in this condition for the entire preservation period. The subsequent preparation of the fasteners for skating has some features. At the beginning of the season, their effort should be set to the maximum value, then after a few minutes - again to the very minimum. And only after that the desired degree of spring elasticity is set.

Paraffin treatment

Coating the lower plane of the skis with lubricant is the last stage of preservation. The purpose of the procedure is to block oxygen access to the base for the next few months. For processing skis, low–melting paraffin of special brands is used - for preservation or transportation.

The operation can be performed in two ways: mechanical and manual. In the first case, a machine is used, the shaft of which is heated to a temperature of about +180 ° C. Paraffin is applied to the shaft, and the master passes the lower plane of the ski over it several times. There is also equipment for non-contact deep impregnation of skis with grease after heating with an infrared lamp.

The manual method can be used to process equipment at home, it only requires an iron.