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Atman
and the Art of Snowboard Maintenance, Part 2 |
Part 1 can be found here.
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After cleaning the board, repairing the scars, and sharpening the edge, a
quick wax job is all you need to get you up and running – it’s just like
bringing up kids! Hot-wax is kind of like clothing, you put it on and then the
next thing you have to do is take it all off again - except wax is not quite as
pointless as clothing and I know I am not the only member of the ‘board who
feels this way! So what is the point of waxing your board if you are just going
to scrape it all off right away? The same thing that makes clothing so annoying
in the first place, static electricity! If you don’t believe it, try rubbing
your bare board repeatedly with felt or toilet paper and you’ll soon have a
158-centimeter Van de Graff generator pumping enough static through your house
to run the toaster. Waxing your board neutralizes it against the adverse
effects of static electricity creating about as frictionless a surface which
will, in turn, have you flat on your back an average of three times faster than
ever before!
Any trip to your local shop will show you that there is a huge variety of
waxes available, so what do you need? The most appealing and hottest selling
items is spray or aerosol wax because you just rub it on and hit the slopes.
This is about the fastest and most useless 2000 – 4000 yen you can spend on
wax because, if it doesn’t rub off entirely on your first morning, it will
certainly be gone at the end of the day leaving you exactly where you began.
Iwata-san couldn’t exactly come out and say that it was worthless because he
was selling it out the front door by the truck-load but, he was certainly
having a hard time finding the words to describe any benefit aerosol wax really
provided.
Base wax, running wax, racing wax, candle wax, what is a board owner to do?
You don’t need to know how the stuff is made, where the electrons go, or
which color wax is sexiest to get your board lightning quick but, what you do
need to know is:
Applying base wax to your board
before applying the running wax is like putting primer on your garage before
you paint it – it doesn’t have the desired effect of paint, but if you
neglect the primer than the paint simply isn’t going to work. Fortunately,
you only need to apply base wax two to three times during the season. Base wax
will have your running wax, the stuff that really makes your board slick,
suppressing any excess electrons with the greatest of ease. Many pro-shops also
use a combination all-in-one wax that takes care of everything in one shot but
I don’t think this is available on the retail market.
Many brands of running wax try to sell themselves as racing or starting wax
but, you’ll know if have the real thing by the price tag because this stuff
goes for about 10,000 yen for a 10 gram bar – more expensive than crack!
Unlike running and base wax, which is scraped off after application, racing wax
is applied just before a race and requires extreme expertise. Racing wax wears
down after the first few moments in the snow and is meant to provide that extra
burst of speed at the start to lead to a decisive victory. If you’re not
dedicating your weekends to racking up decisive victories then don’t even
give racing or starting wax a second thought.
Which are we doing, a
color-sensitive load of laundry or an extreme sport? You may have read that you
must choose your wax by it’s color-coding in order to reach the desired
effect. In the west, where waxes are colored according to their temperature
thresholds, color may be important but, the wax makers who produce Japanese wax
provide a variety of colors that have nothing to do with their designed
temperatures. So, when shopping for wax, look for a wax that targets the
temperature of the snow at the resort you are going to visit. How are you going
to estimate the snow temperature if you have not buried your nose into it a few
times in the first place? Simple, Iwata-san suggests -10 for Hokkaido and 0 for
the rest of Honshu.
I’m not a big one for
brands, especially when it comes to wax but, if you really are concerned, ask
your acquaintances and find out if there are any sensible suggestions.
Iwata-san recommends Gallium but, for those of you who are interested in saving
up their money for lift tickets, you could happily settle for Conquest. There
are also some brands that offer graphite wax, which is meant to be good, but it
is also fairly expensive and leaves an unattractive black residue if you use it
on your legs…I heard.
OK, enough details, let’s get this stuff on (and off) the
board. First of all, before you use your mother’s iron for this wax job,
realize that the steam holes will clog up – oh well, at least she won’t
have to settle for that embarrassing static electricity, right? Special wax
irons are available for about 5,000 yen but any iron set to low heat will do
– you just won’t be able to use it on your clothes again. Press the wax bar
against the iron and melt drops of it in a thin layer across the base of your
board. After you have wax spread along the board, beginning at the nose, press
the iron flat to the base and slowly and evenly slide the iron towards the
tail. Keep the iron moving because you may burn your board if you stop it on
the P-Tex base. Once at the tail, return to the nose and smooth out another
path of wax toward the back. Do this until a thin layer of wax has been
smoothly spread upon the board. Feel free to put on as much wax as you like
but, after about 30 minutes, when it is all dry, you are just going to have to
scrape it all off again so, just try to cover the base evenly as best you can.
Let it cool for at least 30 minutes, bust out your trusty scraper, which is
plastic ruler-looking thing – and get scraping. There are wide snowboard
scrapers available but Iwata-san prefers the smaller ski scrapers because they
are easier to maneuver over the surface of the board. Hold the scraper angled
forward and bowing out slightly in the center. Run the scraper along the board
from nose to tail until no more wax comes off the surface. You don’t want a
trace of wax left on the board – ZERO.
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Don't let mom
catch you |
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The question you
want to ask yourself is, 'Do you feel lucky, Punk?' |
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Off like a
hot-wax Prom dress |
Thus Norika was completely remade and just as beautiful as
ever. I could not resist the urge any longer so I packed her up in my bag and
whisked her off to Furano for the weekend! Though Iwata-San had only spent
about 90 minutes touching up my board, it has never felt better! Angling the
edges, even by a nanometer, trimmed down any violent falls caused by catching
an unwanted edge to almost zero. The wax job increased my speed to the point
where I was able to keep up with my Swiss skier friend for one vision-blurring
high-speed chase down the mountain! I have never really bothered tuning up my
board before but, since my shop-job at Powers, I have completely changed my
religion. From now on I’m going to stay in touch with Vishnu, and I strongly
urge you to do the same. The God of Maintenance opened up the doors of
snowboarding creativity to me in Furano and also helped Shiva to destroy my
previous speed record. Norika, Vishnu, and I can ’t wrong this season - it is
going to be a BIG winter!
Have a great first run and I will catch up with you in a couple
of weeks!
Saviour of a multitude, Iwata-San
