Talk:Ski wax

Klister

Does klister derive from the Norwegian word klister? In that case, it is understandably that it is sticky, since it literally means "glue" (or "paste"). I think it's very likely that this is the case, but for the moment, I'm trying to find hard proof.

The norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published an article about the history about klister in 2003, see the google cache Aftenposten:An ode to Klister (in english) --Berland 15:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

There's no need to insert links to ski wax manufacturers' websites. Lowrydr310

I edited the kick wax preparation section, but now I realized it's already discussed early in the article.

WaxFax

WaxFax An Article by Terry Hertel explaining research and development of the most high tech ski waxes available.

Why is my link to the WaxFax article continually deleted? There is a lot of valuable information in there. I'm not spamming the Wikipedia text with references to my wax. Although the article contains references to our company, it is more an informative article discussing the most advanced ski wax in existence. When describing the science and advancements in ski wax, its almost impossible not to mention our technology and achievements in the field. -Hertel Wax

-while I wasn't the one deleting your links, I think its entirely plausible to talk about ski wax technology without mentioning your company. Ultimately wax is a pretty simple animal, a hydrocarbon chain with temperature specific saturation (anyone that has taken a semester of organic chemistry can tell you that). Yes you put surfactants in there, but so does everyone else, there is nothing surprising or revolutionary contained in your pdf that demands it be a matter of public record. I'm not going to remove your links (I'll leave that to people more accustomed to dealing with such matters), but I will defend their decision to do so.--FlamingoChavez (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Instructional Content

I've removed a great deal of instructional content from this article. Please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not an instructional manual, it's an encyclopaedia. Content that gives step by step guides is not appropriate here, there are other websites specifically for this. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 23:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I would have greatly appreciated the instructional content and find deleting it to be incredibly counter productive. Some of the best uses of technology are when it's used for objectives not originally considered by the designer. Encyclopedia or not, why remove good information? 173.32.165.193 (talk) 03:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That would be a question of policy which you might want to take up on the talk page of Wikipedia is not an instructional manual. FWIW, I agree with your POV. I beleive the oposition's position is based on the belief that wikipedia may incur liability if someone followed the directions and tehn ended up ruining their skis.Plhofmei (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Plhfmei's statement "wikipedia may incur liability if someone followed the directions and tehn ended up ruining their skis" made me laugh, and it is not just his spelling, it's his litigious paranoia!

There is a wikimedia wiki that focuses on instruction and research: the Wikiversity. Rather than deleting material, wasting it forever, and making enemies in the process, just create a parallel stub on the Wikiversity and paste the material there :) --John Bessa (talk) 01:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Conflict

Under Hot Waxing:

This method, albeit tedious, offers the best performance.

versus

Liquid and spray waxes in particular provide better coverage than solid wax applied with an iron, however to achieve the same durability as hot waxing an iron is used after liquid or spray wax application to maximize penetration of the wax into the base.

Can anyone clean this up and add references? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plhofmei (talk • contribs) 02:35, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Science of Ski Waxes

I read this, and I have real problems with its assumptions. Talbot, the author, separates kick and glide waxes; my experience for thirty years (OMG!) is that cross-country ski wax does both depending whether or not you are pressing down on it. Talbot also claims that the camber of the ski prevents the middle of the ski from touching the snow when weight is evenly distributed; this easily proves he has never cross-country skied!

To clarify, I use the wax rated for the temperature range for the entire ski, then add the next higher temperature-rated wax to the underfoot and, optionally, the ends; this latter is the "kicker." If snow is fresh and cold, kicker is probably not needed. Older icy snow and/or higher temperatures require higher temperature-rated waxes and often a very liberal smearing of soft, sticky kicker wax.

The theory, as it has been explained to me, is that cross country skiing depends on water for grip, that water has a higher coefficient of friction on wax than snow does. Pressing down on the snow, or compressing it, creates the thin layer of water for grip that Talbot claims allows slide.

Either way, the above waxing strategy has worked for me for longer than I can remember! I will further attempt to clarify the phenomena, and if Talbot proves to be wrong as I think he is, I will remove the link.--John Bessa (talk) 01:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Kick and glide wax

Kick wax is used to create friction to allow classic cross country skiers to push off the snow with one foot and glide with the other. Kick wax is designed have a high static coefficient of friction and a low kinetic coefficient of friction. The soft, tacky wax embeds the show crystals in its base through the force of the skiers downward kick. When the kick is finished, the skier transfers his weight to the other leg to make the next quick. Without any downward force, the forward motion of the ski lightly wipes the wax clean and ready to glide.

— Tyler Freeman [1]

The difference between a kick and glide wax is temperature and, to a lesser degree, other snow conditions. A glide wax at warmer temperatures is a kick wax at lower temperatures. A wax that is a kick wax at a lower temperature is useless at a higher temperature as it will "ball up" the snow under the skis, and has to be scraped off.

--John Bessa (talk) 21:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Response to John Bessa

Kickwax contains both grip and glide components. This is true for current and older kickwaxes (and klisters). The method of coating the entire ski base from tip to tail with kickwax is a method that was used with wooden skis to improve their glide. For competitive skiers prior to the early 1970's the glide zones of wooden skis were coated with a colder, harder kickwax to increase glide. With the introduction of synthetic (plastic) ski bases grip application was reduced to only the kick zone because the plastic bases had better glide properties than kickwax. The camber of the kick zone is to raise the kickwax out of the snow to further reduce drag -- this comment is applicable to wooden skis too. A properly selected ski, modern or wooden, will close the camber of a ski when a complete weight shift happens thereby physically engaging the kickwax.

Kickwax does NOT engage grip with liquid water. Glide is engaged with a very thin film of liquid water. The structure of solid water (snow) presses into the kickwax creating a solid physical interaction. When snow crystals cannot penetrate into the kickwax enough then the physical interaction will break free under load. When snow crystals penetrate too much then the crystals cannot be released from the kickwax leading to "clumping" or sometimes icing. The correctly selected kickwax to match the conditions will have enough crystal penetration depth for grip, yet be shallow enough to easily be freed during the glide phase. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barking (talk • contribs) 19:37, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Improbable assertion

I have commented out the following passage, pending discussion:

A University of New Hampshire undergraduate named Evelyn French estimates of the amount of PFOA in ski wax released to the environment at a ski resort approximates that 1 million skiers visit the resort in a year, each using ¾ of an ounce of wax, resulting in 46,875 pounds of PFOA deposited in the surrounding soil and water systems. To extrapolate to the US as a whole, the ~60 million ski visits each year result in ~2.8 million pounds of PFOA being released to the environment. French's arithmetic, however, has been challenged. Because of its expense, no wax company uses more than a 1% concentration of FHCs in any bulk wax, so even if all American skiers used FHC wax every day, the total FHC burden would be on the order of 28,000 pounds (about 13 metric tonnes). Moreover, the bulk of those FHC materials go not into the watershed, but onto the waxing room floor in the form of scrapings, to be bagged as landfill trash or recycling.

I find two things highly improbable: 1) that any X-C ski resort would have one million visitors, much less each one having that many and 2) that a significant fraction of them would have PFOA waxes on their skis. —User:HopsonRoad 15:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

PFOA is clearly an environmental issue, but the according to Norwegian research the amount to released to nature has resulted in negligible concentrations. Looks like one exception is Holmenkollen where there is notable pollution in the ground. The environmental protection authorities wants to ban PFOA. I have heard that in the Oslo forest (Nordmarka) some tons (maybe 10,000 kgs) of ski wax/klister are left behind in the tracks during the winter, Nordmarka is possibly the most visited "X-C resort" in the world. Most of the wax used in Norway is conventional Swix. I think this controversial calculation by an undergraduate student can safely be remove from the artilce.--— Erik Jr. 11:49, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments to article

@HopsonRoad: Some comments:

• substitute for grip wax - article mentions "wax-less" skis (fish scale), but climbing skins are also substitutes for grip wax
• history section: scope - seems to have a recency bias, very detailed about recent developments compare to early history (wooden skis), on wooden skis we also used some priming ("impregnering") to keep them dry - not sure if this counts as wax
• science of sliding on snow: the paragraph states that melting snow (because of friction) functions as lubrication, this is an important point but may be difficult to grasp for the general reader, perhaps make it more explicit how snow can melt during the fraction of a second the ski touches the surface
• ski friction properties: "plowing of snow out of the way" - this statement is a bit vague, in Norwegian "plowing" refers to the process of making a track in knee-deep snow (the strongest and heaviest guy should go first and do this task...).
• base material: first part of the paragraph is difficult to understand, seems only to cite one author's/researcher's judgement. The paragraph also mentions "textured surface" - should perhaps explain what is the function of a texture.
• grip wax: "a correctly selected grip wax does not decrease the glide of the ski" - I think this statement is somewhat misleading because it is primarily the camber (also called "wax camber" in Norwegian) that allows skis to both glide and grip, with XC skis the movement rather than wax quality is crucial. The function of the camber also depends on how wax is applied (only in the wax or kick zone) and how much. Quality of wax also matters for instance to avoid ice in the wax.
• klister: is correct to say that klister is semi-liquid? Perhaps also explain why ice can form in klister.

Regards --— Erik Jr. 12:26, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

{ping|Erik den yngre}} Thank you for your attention to this article. Here are some responses to your comments:

• substitute for grip wax – I have added a sentence about climbing skins.
• history section: scope – I did the least work in this section. History is your specialty, so I encourage you to be bold! There is mention of pine tar pitch, but not its purpose a binder for wax. I don't see a recency bias, since wax appears to be a 20th century development, whereas earlier generations tried different lubricants.
• science of sliding on snow – I have rewritten this. See what you think.
• ski friction properties – "plowing of snow out of the way" seems clear to me. Perhaps some other editor can weigh in. I rewrote this, as "resistance due to plowing of snow out of the way".
• base material – I restructured this. Actually, both Kuzmin and Giesbrecht agree on the properties of ski bases, using empirical studies. I tried to clarify the function of a texture.
• grip wax: I've re-worded it to say, "a correctly selected grip wax does not appreciably decrease the glide of skis that have proper camber for the skier and the snow conditions." Both of the bullet points mention icing.
• klister – I've now called it an "ointment."

I hope that these are satisfactory improvements. Cheers, User:HopsonRoad 19:38, 30 January 2016 (UTC)