The question isn’t should or shouldn’t I have structure in the bases, it’s what kind of structure do I need. Accordingly, today’s bases are stoneground with very sophisticated fine or coarse structures - even with longitudinal and criss-cross patterns. This makes it all the more important to clean out all residual glide wax in order to "expose" the structure that has been completely covered with the application of glide wax.

Scraping will get rid of most of the excess wax but the all-important structure remains hidden. This will seriously impede the effectiveness of the stonegrinding job…the solution is to use relatively stiff brushes of nylon or metal to "clean out" any remaining wax in order to reveal the structure.

Figure 2.The trick is to apply very little pressure on the brushes…this pertains to rotobrushing AND hand brushing. The brush’s bristles are most effective when they are almost at right angles with the base. If exerting pressure, the bristles "lie down" and bend…and are thus ineffective!!!

Should I Use Rotobrushes or Hand Brushes?

There are two types of brushes that can be used to brush and expose ski bases. These are hand brushes (Figure 1) and Rotobrushes (Figure 2); both can be effective when used right. Whichever system you choose, it’s important that you do not apply too much pressure on the brushes. The brush’s bristles work optimally when at almost right angles to the base.

Rotobrushing is, on the whole, more effective than hand brushing; below are some explanations:

1.      Finishing and polishing with a fine nylon rotobrush is more effective than a hand brush and the job can be done in a fraction of the time.

2.      Rotobrushing with a fine steel or brass brush actually simulates skiing-in - thus greatly accelerating the "breaking in" of new skis. (The fine metal Rotobrushes "works" the bases and corrects/adjust small defects in the bases).

Of course it is possible to obtain good results with hand brushes too when paying attention to detail.

Figure 3. Shows three cross-sectional views of a ski base. They show the bases after hot waxing and scraping with a plastic scraper. Figure 3(a) is immediately after scraping, while Figures 3(b) and 3(c) after partial and complete brushing respectively.