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How To Repair Your Ski Base

6 April 2020 No comments

Unfortunately, with the season cut short due to COVID-19 our skis have been packed away sooner than we had anticipated. For those that did manage to get out, it might be the perfect time to give your skis some TLC.

We're sure that some of you will have picked up a few scratches/gouges on the base of your skis or snowboard. Not only do they look messy, but an uneven base slows you down and no one likes have to push on cat tracks!

Repairing your ski base isn't a dark art, it just requires a few simple pieces of kit and a bit of know-how. EB Ski Workshop guru Pete takes us through a step-by-step guide to creating a smooth and therefore fast base.

Note: the same technique can be used on both sintered and extruded bases.

Tools needed:

Knife
P-Tex candle
Lighter
Metal scraper

Method

1. Clean the gouge

Cleaning out the ski base gouge

Carefully clean out any gouges with a knife or scraping instrument so that they are free from dirt and wax. Also cut off any loose slivers of base material as they will fall off in the future.
If the ski has a black base use black P-Tex candles (these black P-Tex candles have added graphite in them which make the repair last longer, due to the higher density of graphite). For all other coloured bases use clear P-Tex candles to blend the repairs in.

2. Light the candle

melting P-Tex Candle

Hold your candle at one end and set alight the other. As soon the candle is lit, hold a metal scraper next to the flame, this should stop the flame turning orange. It is important to do this or the oxidisation of the candle produces carbon (little black bits) and this in turn weakens the material filling the gouge.
Hold the candle over the gouge you want to fill and let it drip in until the whole gouge is covered.

3. Let the P-Tex set

$melted p-tex$

Let the P-Tex cool to form a solid bond in the gouge (approx 10 mins).

4. Scrape off the excess P-Tex

$Scraping P-Tex$

Take your metal scraper (holding at 45 degrees) and starting from the middle of the gouge (this helps to not rip out the new P-Tex) pull towards yourself till you reach the end of the gouge. Repeat this for the other half of the gouge

5. Look smug

Et voilà! You have filled and scraped your first gouge. Repeat this for all the gouges in your skis and you will be back up to top speed.

If you don't have the time to fix your own gouges you can always bring your skis into one of our stores and opt for a Standard or Premium service in which our expert ski technicians will repair your gouges using professional grade P-Tex.

About the Author:

Pete Fletcher - Outdoor Expert

Pete grew up hiking most of the trails in the Lake District before being introduced to skiing. A decade later and you're most likely to find him snowboarding, skateboarding or making a mean coffee.