Why Wax a Snowboard?

Series Summary

Skiing has always been a relatively popular sport. It's fun, exciting and a great workout. As all things do, however, skiing evolved into other forms of snow fun. Snowboarding is one of those offshoots. It became popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of men like Dimitrije Milovich, Jake Burton and Tom Sims. They were just a few of the early snowboarding pioneers that took a hobby and turned it into the gigantic sport it is today. It was not until 1985 that it was officially declared a sport but it was always in the hearts and minds of adventurers in the 70s. Waxing a snowboard makes it go faster and turn more smoothly. In this series of snowboard care videos, an experienced snowboard tech will demonstrate how to wax a snowboard. Learn how to prepare the board by scraping all of the old wax off of the base and edges. Watch the tech melt the wax onto his board and smooth out the wax with an iron. Follow the steps in this video and speed down the slope like a pro.

Video Transcript

"In this section I'm going to show you guys why you need to wax your snowboard. As you can see here, the base can get pretty dry and if it gets too dry, your base can actually shrink. And it can get water between the edges and the base and it can rot out your core and rust your edges. As you'll see here, the base is pretty dry and there's some old wax buildup and like the dirt's all stuck in the wax and that's going to slow you down definitely. And all the dry spots, can cause your base to shrink and that needs to be scraped off and waxed over it. Another way you can tell other than just looking at it is to run your fingers across and feel where it's dry and where there's some wax. Another thing is sometimes you'll get minor scratches which can slow you down and if you wax over those, you'll fill them in for a little while and it's good to do. Another thing is your old wax will get dirt stuck in it and it will slow you down and if you want to go faster, you should get that cleaned off, scraped and re-waxed."