Cessna26

Do you need to wax aluminum skis? I have heard some people do, and some people don't. Does it depend on the snow.

I used to be a ski racer so I waxed mine after every day of skiing.

ifixairplanes

My Feedback: (9)

maybe to keep snow from sticking to the Al, but if it disnt then there is no need for it.

sean

CafeenMan

I really doubt that it makes a difference, but we're due for some snow here in Florida so when there's enough on the ground, I'll try one waxed ski and one unwaxed ski and see if there's a difference.

balsa1

Hi I've flown off snow quite a lot and find wax or no wax not the issue. but that comb. of moisture and temp sometimes makes alum. a poor performer our best luck over the widest rang of conditions was to use abs plastic for the skis.

Cessna26

Ya I just finished making my skis. They are getting painted and hooked on. I think I will try waxing then try not waxing on the different skis like you said. I will try and post pics of skis tommorow.

barto

I have flown in the snow last weekend with aluminium skis.
The snow wasn't perfect at all, it was smelting and that made the skis really stick to it.
Result: nose over on landing and one rudder hinge broke of.

So: when it's cold enough and the snow is of good quality you don't need wax, I really think it would make a difference when the snow is bad.

smokingcrater

I was out flying with my abs skiis on my ucando .46 last week. no wax, and snow was not sticking. (although I decided it was just easier to fly off the pavement, the skiis actually slid remarkably well on it!)

barto

So its better to make skis out of abs.
Sounds logic because real skis (the ones used by us, man) are make of some kind of 'plastic'
I wonder if wooden skis, painted or covered with fiberglass will work, I'm thinking of making some.

bhole74

I make all my skis out of 1/2" balsa and paint them with DuPont ChromaBase. Bugs won't even stick to them, not to mention snow. ha ha

Cessna26

Ya if these break, I will make my next ones out of ABS or wood. How do you bend the ABS to form?

Scott McCrory

barto,

Here's a link to make your own skis with wood and lots of great info to set them up correctly.[link]http://www.stenulson.net/rcflight/skikits.htm[/link]

Our club Pres designed them and they work great. I've got them on several planes and have had no problems. Instead of wax, give them a light spray of WD40 to prevent snow from sticking to them.


Scott

Cessna26

You think I could put WD40 on aluminum?

barto

Nah, it will slip off immediatly.
You can use candles, just scrape some of on you skis, works like waxing.

barto

Thanks scott for the link

Jeremyb574

My Feedback: (2)

Snow sticks to skies because of unequal temps (or some consequence of). Kind of like the old playground trick--get someone to lick the metal flagpole. Warm and wet snow makes better snowballs, etc... This is the reason that alpine and cross-country skiers do not take their equipment into the chalet with them when they go to warm up.

After the skis cool off the snow will stop clumping to the bottoms, you can scrape off what has accumulated and get on with the business of flying.

As to wax: I used to wax my downhill equipment to make them more slippery, and thus faster. (It worked amazingly well too!) From my experience flying on snow--that is about the last thing you want. They tend to "roll out" forever. On one particular set of Aluminium skis I went so far as to sand the bottoms perpendicular to the direction of travel. It helped a little, but not enough-still endless overrun.

Hope this helps.

skier

What'd u race? (SL, GS, Super-G, Downhill, X-country)
How long ago?
Interesting to find another ski racer on here

I suggest waxing with high flourocarbon wax

Cessna26

Did SL, GS, and SuperG. Like SL the best. Did it for 2 years, stopped last year. Skiing 70 days a year. Little had with school and 4 days skiing a week. Plus RC. I started RC planes the year I quite. I did not quite because of that, but maybe subconcesly it could have been a factor. Ya i think I have some of that wax. Do you recommend mixing in graphit?

Cessna26

Just finished with skis!!!!! Aluminum siding from scrapes of the house. Painted and waxed. Painting is not to good because masking taped leaked paint. Hooked up with pinewood, rubber bands, and leaders of fishing thingies. Have any comments questions post here.

Cessna26

More Pics

By the way back skis 3 by 10 and front ski is 3.5 by 8

barto

That looks goooooooood

skier

Cessna26, I don't know about waxing skis for airplanes (however I went to a ski tuning clinic this year for downhill ski racing), but High Flourocarbon wax is mainly for wet snow and is very expensive and doesn't last long. It comes off very quickly. It might make the skis fast, but there is probably no need to use that expensive of wax (unless your racing on the ground). You would have to reapply it very often.
If You want to try wax some general all mountain or candle wax would probably work and would last much longer, also it is not temperature specific. The High flourocarbon waxes are temperature specific, so unless you want to check the weather channel every night before a flying day, I would recommend staying away from that.
Having said all that it would probably work fine if you have it laying around.

Have fun experimenting... and what I said is just knowledge is from a ski tuning clinic.

Cessna26

Ya i just used what was laying around. I used a high temperature yellow wax because i did not want to iron yet in risk of the paint. I just rubbed it on and corked it then brush.

Cessna26

I finally tested the skis out this weekend. There was about .5 to 2 feet of snow on the ground. There was a little crust and about 1 inch of powder on top. The skis worked great. The only thing I adjusted was a little longer fish lead in the front. The only time the thing crashed was when it hit a 1 foot deep foot print and endo'd.