Infrared Ski Waxer

[KillerMonkey]

https://www.mountainflow.com/collect...rared-ir-waxer

Anybody try these out yet? Interested if its worth investing in. Found who mountainflow is probably sourcing them from on alibaba for cheaper but wanted to see if anybody else has any experience.

Thanks

[Core Shot]

Why?

Irons work.

And hotboxes are better (for long soaks) and easy to build. I really don’t get the IR benefit for all that money.

Edit. So yeah. You crayon. Then IR.
But you can crayon and then iron. Or crayon and cork.
The “time saving” is from not scraping if you don’t lay on so much wax that you need to scrape.

[Kopi_Red]

Interesting. I’ve never heard of an infrared ski water before.

[hoarhey]

I saw this at a Nordic ski shop 15 years ago


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[doubleeject]

Local shop has an infrared Wintersteiger waxer I was able to fool with once. The claim is it allows for better wax penetration, not sure about the veracity of that claim, but it was easy and fast to use. The price of that infrared deal in the alibaba link seems comparable to a lot of wax irons.

[spudbumkin]

DATOUBOSS Handheld Infrared Paint Curing Lamp 1000w Shortwave Infrared Paint Lamp Paint Baking Dryer Car Body Repair Tool 110V https://a.co/d/ad5gZLF


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[toast2266]

Local shop got one. It's way faster, and they say it cuts down on their wax usage by a massive amount. I think they said they get about 2.5X more skis done per bar of wax.

[jackattack]

I could see myself going for one of these. I like to crayon on the wax and then iron it in over a few passes. I usually start with a molybdenum bar then follow up with universal cold or warm for spring. I think it would improve the workflow to apply a small amount of wax in two passes and then follow up with the brush.

The unit in the OP is available on Amazon for about $100 less.

[wantriot]

https://www.mountainflow.com/collect...rared-ir-waxer

Anybody try these out yet? Interested if its worth investing in. Found who mountainflow is probably sourcing them from on alibaba for cheaper but wanted to see if anybody else has any experience.

Thanks

Pull the trigger on the Alibaba option and report back!

[ZomblibulaX]

Meh.

The boss landed one in our shop this year, it has some marginal advantages, primarily less wax usage and less scraping. I've worked with infrared waxers at a couple of different shops over the last decade. They're pretty damn cool. However:

-it's not a Wax Future, which has the advantage of getting the ski off your bench and running a program that you dial in while you work on something else, and is a million times more consistent than you can be with your hands. (And way more expensive)

-it doesn't get the same level of saturation as an iron unless you are doing a lot of passes at which point... an iron works pretty good.

-it works using primarily light, instead of just heat, so it requires the base to absorb rather than reflect light. Works good on black bases. Slightly less so on clear bases. Very much less so on red, orange or yellow solid-color bases.

Infrared waxing works great as a hot box alternative, when you're ironing in wax and letting the infrared continue to bake it in, or as a quick wax alternative to save on materials costs and reduce labor. It is a great add-on if you're doing a lot of waxing, but those little light bars aren't really a good stand-alone option in lieu of an iron. Particularly after grinding a ski, or using chemical base cleaners. It just isn't as effective at getting a lot of material back in to your base. SFB might argue with me on this, but unless you're running a pretty high-volume back shop, you're better off with just an iron.