Race Ski Service £60.00

Base Inspection & Set Up: Firstly as a new racer to E2W if we do not have your current details on our files we will take a complete 'Set Up' of your race skis. This includes placing your skis on our flat patch and taking various measurements e.g. Depth measurement to base, Bevel Angle / Side Angle / Ski Flex / Sidewall step down to name a few. We also make various notes on structure, condition, manufacture of race ski and binding, year, DIN setting - the list goes on.

Why do we do this?

As a racer it’s important to keep continuity - from when your receive your new race skis from a manufacturer and you have your first base grind and cut in your own specific edge angles, this ski then becomes a baseline. Each time you use E2W we then have a record of the service, this is then uploaded onto an excel doc which we can e-mail you at any time - this becomes your own personal history record for your SL, GS, SG or DH ski.

This is a unique facility that no other race ski service provided does (due to time) but we here at E2W believe it’s paramount to keep a baseline record together with the race skis. This is very similar to a F1 driver setting document which goes to his engineer for his 'Seat Fit' into his own race car.

Below are a few details of the Race Service we provide - as a racer viewing this page you should know the majority of the steps below.

Base Sand: The base of the ski is run through our Winterstiger machine, to remove any P-Tex repairs and smooth up any imperfections in the running face. We must emphasize that the belt we use is a 1000 de-tuned grit, this will not remove structure and we keep the revs very low to make sure the flatness of the base is in no way compromised. Post machine the base is measured again with a true bar on our surface table. We do not stone grind as we believe this is a process that should only happen once a season due to the wax cycle being totally wiped out from stone grinding and hence slower race skis - once a year we do send out an e-mail to interested racers to take all race skis to be ground locally.

Side Edge Removal: Side edge is removed by hand and blended in for a smooth finish - we find too many racers do not pay enough attention to the side wall and this could in a worst case scenario cause drag.

Bevel Edge Polish: As a rule we tend to keep the base edge as per manufacture spec but we do polish up the base edge to remove existing machine cut marks or any existing marks due to training/racing.

Ceramic Edge Cut/Polish: Side edge cut through our machine and then polished out using a Winterstiger polisher, this enables us to reduce cut marks which in turn cause drag on side edges. Basically the machine does the hard work of what we racers normally do by hand - the finish is mirror like - the machine does tend to leave an overhang which we then remove via an ark stone.

Pre-Wax Preparation: Base Preparation Brush / Hotscrape / Scotchbrite - process carried out 3/4 times to remove any existing wax / dirt and base hairs.

Pre-Wax Brush: Ski base is brushed out for first stages of the waxing layup.

Hot Boxing: Hydrocarbon wax layered onto ski base with an iron and set into out hot box for 3 hrs at 60'.

Hot Wax: Post hotboxing ski is cooled and then - 2 coats of Holmenkol Hydrocarbon wax added to Ski base as a base wax, and then brushed out between applications. 2 coats of Holmenkol Hybrid Fluorinated Race wax (Customers can spec temp range).

Rotor Brush: Ski is now ready for the wax to be brush out to leave the running surface of the race ski smooth with no wax inconsistencies; this is done several times for optimised finish. We put the base through our workshop rotor machine first and then finish off using the handheld brushes for a more accurate finish and as a finish we spray the base with water and lap in using a cork to remove static build up.

Edge Paste: Holmenkol Hydrocarbon paste added to side edges and polished out to limit snow pick-up.

**Top Speed Products** We have an extensive range of Holmenkol Top Speed concentrated fluorinated products, from paste to block sticks and spray. This will be at no additional cost on top of the Race Ski service, but please bear in mind that if you will be using these skis for course inspection first the top speed product will be removed before you race. (Please ask)

Binding Check: Bindings checked for fatigue and to ensure all mechanical moving parts are sound. All bolts torque checked.

Water Beading Formation Check:

After the Race Skis have had their final Top Speed finish layered on we go through a process to check for Bead Formation.

Firstly we set our workshop cold storage unit at a temperature roughly the same as the conditions the base will be gliding on.

The Race Skis are then left inside the unit for approximately 30-40 minutes for the base temperature to adjust.

The Race Skis are then removed from the CS unit and fixed in our vertical jig, this enables us to carry out a baseline marker to make sure all race skis are accurately measured at a set degree.

Base is then cleaned using lint free cloth and brushed out to mimic the pre-race stint that your technician would carry out before you click in before the start gate.

We then use an accurate fine water spray directly at the cross sectional area of the base – this is where the profile changes at the tip of the race skis.

The water beading formation and contact angle as illustrated above will then tell us how hydrophobic the base of the race skis are - the bead contact angle is the most important information we can visually see as a race technician, the more pronounced the contact angle the more hydrophobic the base is resulting in maximum glide properties.