When we are done with skiing at the demise of winter we just dump our skis or a snowbord in a closet or some place where they are not in the way and don’t care about the thing any more until the next winter. As soons as the first snow comes and we are foreaging our skiing stuff again we are faced with the following sight: a grey, oxidized ski base, mainly alongside the edges under the boots, rusty edges. No matter how many times we got out skis or snowboard serviced through previous winter. The solution is to preserve your skis or snowboard in wax throughout the off season edges included.
Off season is usually quite long, especially in the recent years of the mild winters with rare snow, and so during seven or eight monhs the ski base dries out to a considerable extent, even if you keep in mind that base must be waxed through regularly through season and had got it done. The edges get rusty presuming that the skis or snowboard are not dried properly and edges polished upon each use, and it will tell on significantly after long off season downtime. For those reasons the post season service is nearly more important than the seasonal.
The skis or snowboard get polished as usual, the gouges are repaired if there are any and optionally we might restructure the base, edge polishing follows and the service is completed with hot waxing. Unlike usual seasonal service the wax is not being scraped off the base and edges either. The wax works as preservative which ensure that the ski base will not go greyish or oxidized and the edges will not get rusty. At the beginning of the following winter you get the base scraped off the wax and polished. But there’s no call for you to do it, because the wax will be wiped off anyway through two rides down the hill.
Such a post season service brings one inarguable benefit: your skis or snowboard will be ready just to grab them as soon as you make up your mind to go skiing again. You will avoid the usual stressful looking for any available ski service at the last moment and at any price just before the departure or on the hill.