Roto Brush Qs

[Muggydude]

After a season of tuning 6+ pairs of skis, I'm over hand brushing. Way too tedious. Wish I would have just bought roto off the bat-

So right now I have brass, nylon, soft copper, and horsehair hand brushes. What should I get for roto? Can I get away with just a medium 7mm~ nylon and that's it (use brass hand brush before waxing, horsehair/copper to finish)? Or should I get a horsehair too? Or even a brass.

Also- SVST 150mm worth the extra $$ over their or other brands normal 100mm brushes?

[Soups]

Roto brushing is the shiz, you'll love it. You'll do all six skis in the time it took you to do maybe two originally. Make sure its a variable speed drill. I only had the nylon and horsehair. Would do the nylon first and finish with the horsehair for every type of wax but cold. I found cold wax, especially maplus, was retarded hard and thats the only time I wish I had a brass brush. No need for one if you use softish waxes.

Don't know the difference in price between the 150mm and 100mm but if its only $20 or so I'd say yeah. Especially if you're doing snowboards or a lot of fatties.

[Muggydude]

Should have mentioned I wax with briko maplus- soft race base for saturation and medium race base to finish. Few other temp specific waxes but I rarely use them

[Soups]

Unless you use a lot of cold hard wax I wouldnt worry about the brass. Also forgot to mention crayon on the wax so you use less and you won't have to scrape with the roto.

[RShea]

I have a horse hair and nylon brushes and a cork roller. The horse hair actually is a short bristle and takes more wax off than the nylon brush. Only advantage I can see on brass is if you want to use it to clean out structure or like mentioned to do a better job on harder cold waxes that tend to have more left behind after scraping.

As for the wider brushes- can help if you are skiing powder skis or wider skis (fewer passes or single pass)- and also can help with snowboards if you tune them (there also are double wide brushes and handles too) The double wide handle actually can be pretty nice if you use it like a ski buddy- he mounts both the brushes on it and does not have to switch out each time. I solve that by having 2 shafts/handles and only need to switch off to the cork.

Like this on Slidewright: http://www.slidewright.com/prodimage...ump04_500x.gif

[Muggydude]

Bump- anyone else? Horsehair & nylon? Just one of those two? And is the 150 mm worth it, considering almost all the skis I wax are over 100mm?

[Shorty_J]

Unless you use a lot of cold hard wax I wouldnt worry about the brass. Also forgot to mention crayon on the wax so you use less and you won't have to scrape with the roto.

Heat with iron and then rub on?

I'll admit that the main reason I haven't gone to the roto is I figured I'd still have to scrape so this is interesting to me.

[Brianskis]

Heat with iron and then rub on?

I'll admit that the main reason I haven't gone to the roto is I figured I'd still have to scrape so this is interesting to me.

If your doing it right you will always scrape before brushing... Unless your using an infrared wax machine. That being said 2-3 quick passes with a roto horsehair is worth double any hand brushing you might do.

[Soups]

Heat with iron and then rub on?

I'll admit that the main reason I haven't gone to the roto is I figured I'd still have to scrape so this is interesting to me.

Sure you could do that I guess, but you would still need to iron it in. I've always just rubbed it on vigorously then ironed. No scraping needed with the roto, which was always my least favorite part. Only really works with softish waxes (swix purple, most tokos). Still need to drip on the harder waxes as they don't really rub on that well.

Saves on a lot of wax too. The drip method just wastes so much.

[Alpinord]

Some random notes:

You won't regret having the brass, hard horsehair and soft/universal nylon (especially with the RB Medium)

• The SVST roto system is nice but has a proprietary shaft cross section and will not be interchangeable with typical 10mm hexagon shafts and brushes
• Ideally, 12 to 15cm brushes would be nice to have for fatter boards, but the time savings isn't huge vs 10cm
• KUU has shortened their 11.5/12cm brushes to 10cm and now include a rubber spacer to take up the slack on their longer shafts
• Dual 10cm brushes on a 20cm shaft works great for narrower carvers and xc or skate skis but not so much on fatter boards
• My used 10cm Briko-Maplus Quick Grip handle and 10cm shaft is available as are used brushes that still work fine to get you in the door.
• Tools4Boards makes a sweet quick grip handle and very nice longer, German brushes. I can order them (and will be for next season) if interested.

Edit to add:

User Guide For Toko-Red Creek Rotating (Roto) Brushes
Important:
To protect the eyes we recommend the use of protective glasses whenever working with rotating brushes. Make sure no one is standing close to the drill without eye protection.
With the exception of the brass and horsehair brushes having a rotating speed of approx. 800 per minute -the normal working speed is between 2500 and 3000 rpm without using any pressure on the rotating brushes.
Brushing out like professionals:
Before waxing:
Brass brush: To be used before waxing for the pre-cleaning of the ski base. The recommended rotating speed is approx. 800 per minute. Please work only with single shaft with plexi hood without using any pressure.
- After drawing (scraping) off the wax layer using the acrylic glass blade (plexi-scraper):
First step: Remaining wax is brushed out of the base using the horsehair brush. This gives the base a matte surface whereby wax-residues remain at the depth of the base structures.
Second step: The remaining wax of the base structure is brushed out using the nylon brush until no wax particles are visible anymore. Now the base has to be polished for getting a perfect High-Glass finish.
The black nylon brush is especially suitable for polishing with optimum finish for all waxes. Can be used as a universal brush.
_______

I have found using the brass after scraping can reduce the amount of scraping and the overall brushing time, especially with the quick grip handles and shafts.

[1000-oaks]

I'd be interested in an economy roto rig for next season.

[Shorty_J]

If your doing it right you will always scrape before brushing... Unless your using an infrared wax machine. That being said 2-3 quick passes with a roto horsehair is worth double any hand brushing you might do.

Thanks. Soft wax usually equals warms temps, yes?

[SB]

Brass, nylon and horsey over here. Still use my old steel hand brush on occasion. I drip and iron the wax, not using $125 a gram wax so not worried bout waste. Sometimes a low fluro which I crayon and cork in.

Wisht Idunit soonr.

[XXX-er]

top side gopher/slipcrew at the national ski crosschamps I had nothing to do but watch/talk to the ski techs, buddy said they waxed for conditions down in town at the satrt line they crayon in the expensive wax which they roto brushed really well, buddy said thatalso heated it into the bases, I don't remember seeing them corking

[Alpinord]

I'd be interested in an economy roto rig for next season.

Depending on MD's interest, the used roto kit (fair to good condition) is listed here. Otherwise, drop a line and we can work something out.

[Muggydude]

Sorry about the delay, sent you another pm

[Conundrum]

I've had a nylon and then a nylon/brass mix which has gotten me by for years. I don't see the mix on SVST anymore. I would like to get a horsehair but I have some really nice hand brushes there that I still use occasionally to keep it real. Once you go roto, it's tough to go back though.

[skimaxpower]

NOTE: always wear eye protection with the roto brush. Especially if you go for the brass brush.

Rotobrush rules. I miss it from my shop rat days.

[mfa81]

bumping this one, MD what did you end up with?

thinking of buying svst myself at race-werks which is in town, seems to be the only place that has that available as well.

[Muggydude]

I ended up with svst 150mm, I love it. Works very well. Typically use my hand brass before waxing. After scrape and maybe a few hand passes with a nylon burns, I go to horsehair roto - Horsehair is my favorite brush, does the majority of the work. Finish with 7mm nylon for polish. doesn't seem to do too much though, could probably live without it. I will say that having a narrower brush on my fat skis wouldn't make it that much more time consuming though, as mentioned above. But I figure these should last a good 5-10 years so why skimp out. Nice to get the whole base evenly, although a couple of my fats have tips wider than 150mm anyways.

[skiing-in-jackson]

Bump.

Good info. I purchased a good sized lot of roto ski brushes from a shop that is closing.

Brass, nylon, horse hair- I got ‘em all. Snowboard and ski.

Problem is, they are pretty dirty. I saw the other thread about cleaning brushes, but there was not a definitive answer. Some are coated with wax, others are just dirty.

What the best way to clean them without destroying them?

[Djongo Unchained]

Yo, SIJ - we should talk. I run a svst roto and would like to see what you got too. will holla

[dcpnz]

Maybe I got to get me a brass roto...

I hate scraping and brushing.
Horse hair roto does a decent job and is a huge time and effort saver but I find it doesn’t clean out structure very well.
Been combining with a hand brass brush when that matters but maybe a brass roto would do it?

[Alpinord]

Maybe I got to get me a brass roto...

I hate scraping and brushing.
Horse hair roto does a decent job and is a huge time and effort saver but I find it doesn’t clean out structure very well.
Been combining with a hand brass brush when that matters but maybe a brass roto would do it?

Depends on stiffness and wax hardness. I get more material using my Tools4Boards Spin (roto) hard horse hair brush than the brass for durable waxes.

Add a Light Hot Scrape while hot waxing to vastly reduce scraping.


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[Alpinord]

Like any dirty brush soapy water, spin, rinse, spin to dry might be all you need.

For wax covered, place on brown paper bag on cookie sheet in oven to liquefy wax and draw off. You can also try wax remover and rinse off, then wash with soapy water.