Fiberlene or Shop Towels?……or Both?

(FAQ)
Fiberlene (or lint free) towels are excellent for removing dirt and old wax after using wax remover to clean the base or absorbing wax and dirt in base when placed between iron and base. It is also can be used as a final polisher and cleaner after waxing and scraping because of it’s slight abrasiveness.

Heavy duty shop towels are also durable, absorbent, readily available and handy to have around. They do not, however, stand up to heat as well as fiberlene towels. Though lower in lint (and more durable) than household paper towels, they are not ‘lint free’. If you are looking for those extra little performance enhancements, fiberlene is generally your better choice. If you are more pragmatic, the shop towels are a very good option for most cleaning tasks. If you cut the rolls in half, the 5 1/2″ (140mm) sections are a handier size and fit the width of skis and scrapers nicer.

Using heat from a temperature controlled waxing iron is one method used to reduce scraping and mess since excess wax can be absorbed. Couple that with crayoning, and you can get down to little or no scraping, depending on preferences. This also can be very helpful or desirable if you don’t have time or energy to deal with extra scraping and brushing required for hard waxes.

You could argue that it may be best to let the skis or snowboards cool so the wax hardens. Then when you reheat and use the fiberlene/wax removal approach, you might be more likely to draw the top layer of liquified wax.

This also can be used in lieu of hot scraping where theoretically, old wax, dirt and gradoo can be drawn off versus using base cleaners.

This entry was posted on March 19, 2008 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Bases, Bench and Shop, Waxing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.