# I'm terrible at waxing my board....



## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

I am about to attempt one final try at waxing my own boards. I

I've watched countless videos but they are all pretty repetitive (because it's really not that complicated).
*My specific issue is getting all the excess wax off.* I use my plastic scraper from tail to tip in long strokes. I do this for a long time. Then I use a green pad, then a nylon brush. Then wipe with a rag.
When I'm all done it still has patches of wax. Once when I was riding and frustrated at my speed compared to my buddy he looked at my board and "it's your wax job". I saw a bunch of flattened out wax.
Recently a guy said I should use a spatula. I've searched for an attachment for my drill for buffing (like I saw a guy in a shop use).

So....how the heck can I get all my wax off and end up with a smopoth, glassy looking bottom?

Thanks !


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## zk0ot (Nov 9, 2009)

Your not going to hurt it. Press down, flex the scraper and scrape it off. 
The areas where wax likes to stay is, right under the bindings. 

Also wax has temp ranges. Use wax per the snow conditions.


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

It helps to sharpen your scraper before every scraping. Put a sheet of sandpaper flat on a table, and sand the scraper using something with a square edge like a book to keep a consistent angle on the edge. Even just a couple of passes on the sandpaper cleans off the old wax and gets the scraper edge factory sharp. 

I also like to do some light passes with a brass and nylon brush right after scraping. You can feel and remove spots of excess wax this way, and it brings some of the base structure back out.


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

Honestly, maybe he's just faster than you. Except for some crazy extreme cases technique over wax any day.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

f00bar said:


> Honestly, maybe he's just faster than you. Except for some crazy extreme cases technique over wax any day.


Probably. But still my board was dragging and when we looked it had white, wax residue on the bottom. Supposedly, excess wax is no bueno.


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## chomps1211 (Mar 30, 2011)

This whole subject gets SOOOO much _OVER_ thinking done around it.?‍♂ ??.

I Seriously doubt your leaving enough wax ON the board to _noticeably_ slow it down. Wrong wax for snow conditions? That could be. But residual wax...? Nah!

Either way, Stop melting a bunch of wax onto your board and scraping it off.

Search for the "Crayon" method of waxing. It's fast, it's easy, it works & you don't even need to scrape. And your block of wax will last damn near _FOREVER!!!! ????_


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

chomps1211 said:


> Search for the "Crayon" method of waxing. It's fast, it's easy, it works & you don't even need to scrape. And your block of wax will last damn near _FOREVER!!!! _


I'll check out the reviews and if they look good I'll try it.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

crayon method....but if you want the full Brazilian do a metal scraper and a roto brush.


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## tanscrazydaisy (Mar 11, 2013)

Keep scraping.

Maybe the base of your board isn't flat, which is why you have spots of wax left over.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk


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## lab49232 (Sep 13, 2011)

If that's all true and you really do have pockets of wax visible on the board you're not using too much wax, you're DROWNING your board. Like 6-7+ times the amount of wax you need. Scraping is really only necessary to get rid of extreme excess wax. You need very little wax one line of small drips down each rail boom done. Crayon does sound liek the easiest way for you to instantly fix your problem as you can't really over crayon a board. But you should be able to figure out a drip wax still.


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## 16gkid (Dec 5, 2012)

This last season, ive started just doing crayon method, going a little heavier near the edges, and then just skipping the scraping, by the end of the day the edges are all smoothed out and theres some residue in the middle, not the fastest out there, but I would say I bomb pretty fast and can keep up with most people. some people are in love with the whole waxing experience, while im just into the riding and HATE hotwaxing.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

I hot waxed both my boards. The white bottom board looks great but the real result is on my board with a black bottom.
I sparingly dripped the wax and spread it. You can see the photo from before I scraped. As usual I end up the white (wax I guess) all over the board. Mostly the bottom feels smooth. Any spots that were sticky I scraped again. I stopped scraping when I wasn't yielding much. I then used a green scrub pad and finish with a poly brush. I feel like if I had an attachment for my drill to buff it out I could get it to look great.

So...some responses said not to worry about some excess wax. Is that white stuff excess wax? Is it harmless as far as not slowing me down? Is that "good enough" or should it be completely black like after I bring it to a shop? Could the white be dry spots with no wax? Will that slow me down? Any tips on how to not have white when I'm done?

Thanx!


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

That's a ton of wax, use a sharp scraper...infact use a thin metal scraper and pull it (don't push it). If you want a shiny black base like a shop, get a roto brush





__





Roto Brushes for Skis Snowboards


Roto-brushes with nylon, horsehair, brass and cork for ultimate race quality wax prepping.




www.racewax.com


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

deleted


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## Scalpelman (Dec 5, 2017)

Seems ok. Not sure why there’s white. I wax my sons black based skis and never looks like that (white). But I don’t use scrub pad. Straight to nylon brush and use it like a buffing pad. It gets glossy. Maybe skip the scrubby next time and tell us your results. 

As far as what the white wax does for performance—probably nothing. But imo the last step helps keep the wax on the base. If I scrape and ride as others have suggested, the wax just seems to wear off faster. In fact, I will often re-buff with nylon brush after one day on the mountain and it shines right back up. So I’m waxing every two days.


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## freshy (Nov 18, 2009)

Old-Boarder said:


> I am about to attempt one final try at waxing my own boards. I
> 
> I've watched countless videos but they are all pretty repetitive (because it's really not that complicated).
> *My specific issue is getting all the excess wax off.* I use my plastic scraper from tail to tip in long strokes. I do this for a long time. Then I use a green pad, then a nylon brush. Then wipe with a rag.
> ...


I don't worry too much about the long tip to tail scrapes, I do smaller scrapes and work my way down the board. Then look for those stubborn patches and scrape them some more. You should pretty much have no more shavings coming off then hit it with the scotch brite pad. The pad should give you that smooth glassy look and your done. Go ahead and brush but know after about a minute of riding the structure the brush made is gone, so unless your racing and can brush before each run there's little point.

I also agree with WigMar about the sharp scraper. I just got a plastic one and it does dull pretty easy, but I just use my edge file and a few scrapes later it's good as new.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

The white wax makes me want to cry. There's either too much on there or it's not being absorbed into the base. The only reason it's white is because there's enough wax where it's built up and clowdy. You'll see that same thing at the binding inserts if you leave the bindings on while waxing.

Will this slow you down? Not if you're doing a few steep runs at high speed. That'll scrape that excess right off. Some guys I know that do a lot of spring and summer riding don't even scrape the wax, they just iron and go fast and let the snow and rails do the work.

But any white on a black base means you haven't scraped the wax off, or there are divots in the base that are getting missed.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

Hey guys thanks for the replies

The yield on the wax I was getting so minimal it didn't seem like continuing to scrape to get tiny amounts of wax would make a difference in the amount of white. I focused my scraping to the problems areas and re-did them a couple times after initial scrape. I used a file to sharpen my scraper then I used sandpaper. I did that a few times and did notice it helping. If an incredible amount of scraping in each problem area is what it takes to not have any white then I'm just gonna have white. Especially since what I'm hearing from almost everybody is that it is not gonna slow me down. 

I love the efficiency of power tools and would buy a rotary buffer but you guys are sayin it doesn't matter plus I read somewhere you can damage your base with it and finally there are a million choices nylon, horse hair, etc. I get overwhelmed and don't buy one. If I someone on here uses a specific one and likes it, I'd probably try it. But it sound s like all its gonna do is quell my OCD desire to have a nice lookin bottom.?


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## tanscrazydaisy (Mar 11, 2013)

Just buy a nylon roto brush and axle for it.









RaceWax Snowboard White Nylon Rotobrush 300 mm


Ski snowboard wax and tuning tools with video instructional help for the do-it-yourself tuner.




www.racewax.com





Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

tanscrazydaisy said:


> Just buy a nylon roto brush and axle for it.


That looks like a good one for what I want to do.
Do you use this or have you seen it used? 
Would it get rid of the white on my board and should I even care (about a little remaining wax) ?

Thanx


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## Midman03 (Mar 12, 2018)

I just got finished scraping one of my boards and have the same white spots. I've scraped so much and there is barely any wax coming off. Also, there appears to be black specks coming off so I stopped scraping. Seeing others saying it will come off after a couple runs is reassuring.


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## Midman03 (Mar 12, 2018)

Just got finished scraping my other board and noticed it was much easier to scrape and I don't have the white spots. That being said, my older board (the one with the white spots after scraping) is an extruded base and my new board (no white spots after scraping) is a sintered base.

I know these bases soak in different amounts of wax, does that make a difference in the amount of scraping needed? BTW, both board received approximately the same amount of drip wax. (Don't mean to hijack the thread; thought this would help the OP since I was dealing with the same issues)


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## tanscrazydaisy (Mar 11, 2013)

Old-Boarder said:


> That looks like a good one for what I want to do.
> Do you use this or have you seen it used?
> Would it get rid of the white on my board and should I even care (about a little remaining wax) ?
> 
> Thanx


I use a nylon roto brush, but not that one. I use a different one (toko brand) they used to sell.

Keep scraping, then you use the nylon rotobrush to clear out the base structure and polish. If you need to use the shorter edge of the scraper, use it. Rotobrushes don't perform miracles.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

A nice looking bottom...that you don't even see...I'm guessing that you have more than OCD. 

Tip about plastic scrapers; presuming that you have already sharpened your metal edges of the board, as you are scraping the wax, every few swipes, just take the plastic edge and scrape the plastic edge perpendicular on your board's metal edge. This will just shave a tad off the plastic edge of the scraper to keep it sharp. No reason to stop and file the plastic edge down.


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## freshy (Nov 18, 2009)

Also make sure you guys are giving the base enough heat to open the pores and let the wax in. If the top sheet is a little warm your doing it right.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

wrathfuldeity said:


> I'm guessing that you have more than OCD.


Fair enough. But pointing that out to the internet, thus attempting to humiliate a stranger and newcomer to a forum says what about you? 
Self-deprecating humor or a comment like that from a friend is one thing, what you did is something altogether different.

To everyone else that gave their input. Thank you! After years of not caring much about waxing my board, I've finally taken an interest to care more. 
And the takeaway is my result is fine. If I figure out how to finish a board lookin as good as a shop does, great. If not, that's cool too.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

Old-Boarder said:


> Fair enough. But pointing that out to the internet, thus attempting to humiliate a stranger and newcomer to a forum says what about you?
> Self-deprecating humor or a comment like that from a friend is one thing, what you did is something altogether different.
> 
> To everyone else that gave their input. Thank you! After years of not caring much about waxing my board, I've finally taken an interest to care more.
> And the takeaway is my result is fine. If I figure out how to finish a board lookin as good as a shop does, great. If not, that's cool too.


Apologies, no offense or humiliation intended, was just giving some shit. Figured with an alpine background, you'd have all the wax and tuning stuff down.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Apologies, no offense or humiliation intended, was just giving some shit. Figured with an alpine background, you'd have all the wax and tuning stuff down.


Except for the title of my thread "I'm terrible at waxing" I can see how you drew your conclusion. Now I gave you some shit, lol. NP, all good.??


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

That wax isn't going to hurt anything, if you want to go faster it's on you to improve your form. Not saying you have bad form just saying that reducing drag is the best way to get faster. The air resistance of a rogue hand or sticking out butt, or micro speed checks, far exceeds that of a bit of wax over snow. My guess is if you were to trade boards with your buddy he'd still be faster.

I will say I think the wax is originating from the tip of the board and working it's way down, which is natural. Concentrate a little more on the tip where it curves. It's easy to neglect scraping there as well because of the shape and lack of leverage as the board flexes.


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

Plastic scrapers are pretty lame. Get a metal scraper, dull the 4 corners and try to wax with the least amount of wax you need to get full coverage. Then scrape as much wax as you can from the surface... if you want, get a cheap brillo pad and take a bit more wax away after you have scraped. Any effect from a bad scrape should be gone by your 2nd run at most.... so even if you do a shitty scrape, it won't stay terrible for a whole day.

I hate waxing and scraping, but I love a freshly waxed board. If it was a 0 effort thing, I would definitely wax before each day.... but because it's a hassle, I wax every once in a while but at least aim for a reasonably fresh waxed board before solid pow days or a trip.


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## Scalpelman (Dec 5, 2017)

One last thought. Are you scraping excess wax off before laying down new wax? That may account for buildup in spots.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

Scalpelman said:


> Are you scraping excess wax off before laying down new wax? That may account for buildup in spots.


No. I plan to next time though. I doubt it will give me a shiny black bottom though. I scraped until there was barely any yield, can't imagine a lot coming more coming off. Plus the previous wax/scrape was done by a shop and looked great so I doubt there was much build up before I applied wax.

I just finished my first two days of riding of the season and my board felt plenty slick and felt the same as when I get it from a shop so I think whatever I did was good enough.
I was noticing the bottoms of people's boards plenty of them had the same amount of white stuff I did those were probably the homemade wax jobs. As I stated before based on the responses on this thread I'm thinking it just doesn't matter much and I'm pretty much over it. On the small chance it's my wax which is very old I was going to buy new wax cuz all use it anyway. When I'm in a shop and there waxing I'll try to watch and see what they do and see the result but other than that I'm done trying to get any better. 

Here's a pic of my board after riding. Pretty much looked the same, maybe slightly less then when I started;


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## Craig64 (Jul 16, 2015)

Tap the wax for a second on the iron base and then chalk/wipe/rub it over the base. Do this repeatedly. This will leave a thin smear of wax over the base before ironing in, leaving the maximum coverage with the least amount of waste.

Then get a SHARP scraper. This is the most important thing. You need to sharpen after each board you do as perspex will dull on the scraping edge. I put my 5mm scraper in a woodworking vice and file the edge with a medium file. This is quick. You want to have a crisp 90 degree edge on the scraper. A sharp scraper gives the quickest easiest way to take excess wax off.

I have a 300x120mm firm scotch pad that is on a handled grip that takes all the loose wax off after scraper.

Next hit it with a 300mm rotor brush. They are a little $$$ to initially set up but it's the best money you can spend for tuning.

Then finish off with a horse hair brush to polish up base. Looks brilliant when finished.

Another really important thing is to have a decent work station set up ie vices. I have a waxing station as well as a scraping set up which I do outside so any wax debris just goes on grass (No clean up). Buy good tools ie Toko, Swix, Diaface etc) They will last a long time.

I started about a decade a go doing this for my own gear and now do about 50 customers as a small business on the side.


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## Rip154 (Sep 23, 2017)

If it's still white after a couple runs, it's not even touching the snow.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

Rip154 said:


> If it's still white after a couple runs, it's not even touching the snow.


That's how it looked when I was heading home as well. 

I got a lot of good advice from everybody. If I still cared about producing a fully black, glossy bottom, I'd follow Craig51's advice as well as a lot of other tips in this thread. But the boards performed well and not one respondent said that white will slow me down and most said it didn't matter. 

I will buy some new wax that I've seen recommended on here, maybe a tool or two and I'll try and use less wax (I'll try Craig51's tip about smearing before ironing) but I'm no longer fixated on getting a perfect result.


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

This season I've been cleaning my base with dish soap, water, and a scotch-brite sponge before waxing. I've never used base cleaner before because I'm sketched out by the solvents. 

Cleaning the base this way stripped more wax than I was expecting. I usually do hot scrapes, and I felt like this cleaning was more effective. My bases were chalky for sure.

I've been waxing way less often. It's been six or seven days on one of my decks, and it looks like one or two. I think the wax penetrated deeper into the base without old wax in the way, and it bonded to the base better. 

I've also been using cold weather wax along the edges where the wax gets rubbed off the fastest. This isn't new for this season though. I also like to keep the iron as cool as I can, and avoid heating the base as much as possible. I don't think the wax needs heat beyond the melting point to melt into the base. Extra heat can't be good for a core formed under heat and pressure, right?


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

WigMar said:


> This season I've been cleaning my base with dish soap, water, and a scotch-brite sponge before waxing. I've never used base cleaner before because I'm sketched out by the solvents.
> Cleaning the base this way stripped more wax than I was expecting.


Thanks. l'll try this before I wax again.


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## sfcarve (Jan 10, 2013)

This has been beat to death, but I have too much waxing experience as both my kids raced for six years and I had to endlessly wax their skis. I had to do their race skis perfectly, especially since they used them just for two runs, but their training skis and my snowboards I eventually optimized down to a half-assed wax job that still works fine.

As others have said, sharpen your plastic scraper with sandpaper everytime you wax. They literally go blunt from one good scraping.

It's also fine to leave some wax on the base. It turns out snow is really good at scraping off excess wax! I just lightly scrape my snowboards and after two runs the base looks like I brushed and rubbed it like I do my kids' race skis. There is no noticeable performance impact during those runs. The key is getting wax into the pores of the base, where it extrudes over time. Extra wax residue disappears almost immediately.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

I think it's entirely possible the white is because your iron isn't hot enough and the wax is cooling before it has a chance to be absorbed by the base.

The recommended temperature for the iron is on the box the wax came in. Make sure you don't mix up Fahrenheit and Celsius, but other than that it's unlikely you're going to have the iron hot enough to damage the base.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

sfcarve said:


> It turns out snow is really good at scraping off excess wax!
> The key is Extra wax residue disappears almost immediately.


 I believe you, others have said the same thing in this thread. The curiosity is why is the white stuff still on my board (thanx to drblast for your thoughts)






This pic is after 5 - 6 runs and pretty much looked like that at the end of 1.5 days on the hill. As I've stated, I'm over caring about a board devoid of excess wax. I'm ready to let the thread go off into the sunset, yet it lives on somehow, lol.


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## chomps1211 (Mar 30, 2011)

Once you have given birth to the _Abomination_ here..? You no longer have ANY control in how it grows & devolves. ?


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

Old-Boarder said:


> As I've stated, I'm over caring about a board devoid of excess wax. I'm ready to let the thread go off into the sunset, yet it lives on somehow, lol.


It's because there's no snow in the PNW yet and we're really bored.


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## tanscrazydaisy (Mar 11, 2013)

It would very well be that you have base burn. Which you need to get the base ground and re-waxed. First wax with a "base prep wax", then with your all-temp wax.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

tanscrazydaisy said:


> It would very well be that you have base burn. Which you need to get the base ground and re-waxed. First wax with a "base prep wax", then with your all-temp wax.


So I googled what "base burn" is. I ended up on an 8 year old forum addressing this guys white spots. The thread has almost identical responses as does this one. So many theories and possibilities why the white spots. So funny, I guess as long as there are snowboards and skiis, they'll be a white spot thread, lol.


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

I don't believe in base burn. I think you will find zero evidence that it actually exists other than people jumping to some sort of conclusion because they see white spots of extra wax appearing and don't know how it gets there.


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## Rip154 (Sep 23, 2017)

Base burn is pretty easy to prove, you just melt the base, but it still won't look like leftover wax.


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## sfcarve (Jan 10, 2013)

Old-Boarder said:


> I believe you, others have said the same thing in this thread. The curiosity is why is the white stuff still on my board 1.5 days on the hill. As I've stated, I'm over caring about a board devoid of excess wax. I'm ready to let the thread go off into the sunset, yet it lives on somehow, lol.


Sorry, just want to evangelize my lazy scraping philosophy!

I've had boards look like this as they get older, probably not this bad, but a base grind and restructure fix it for a while.


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

f00bar said:


> I don't believe in base burn. I think you will find zero evidence that it actually exists other than people jumping to some sort of conclusion because they see white spots of extra wax appearing and don't know how it gets there.


What if it looks like that and you've never waxed your board.


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## Old-Boarder (Nov 28, 2019)

ridethecliche said:


> What if it looks like that and you've never waxed your board.


IDK but I asked the guy that waxed my board( last season ) in a shop "How do I know when I need new wax?" His response was "when you start seeing white."
So...white is either too much wax or not enough wax. Did that help

In the case of my board the white came right after I applied the wax so I guess white can be too much or not enough, aaaghh. 
I'm so over caring about the white on the bottom of my board. The board performed fine. If I learn to wax my board and not have white, great if not great as well.


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