The official start of winter is usually on December 21st or 22nd. It begins when the sun is furthest south. This is called the winter solstice (great band, look em up). But here in Colorado, we only have winter and July. So now that it is halfway through September, it's already starting to cool off. At least snowboarding will be starting up soon. And that is why now is the time to start tuning your snowboard and/or skis.
1. Clean, clean , clean. You need to wipe down the base of your board with base cleaner. Remove all debris from the base and let it soak for about 15 minutes. This is also a good time to identify damage to your board such as rust on the rails and gouges in the PTEX (the plastic of the base).
2. Tuning. Use an edge tool to remove rust from, and sharpen the rails on your board. It's a cheap tool and is the easiest way of getting a real 90 degree angle on your edge. There is more you can do in this phase if you want to get technical, such as de-tuning the tip and tail to prevent catching an edge, but that's up to you. Now for the important part.
3. Waxing. Warm up your iron. And don't use your clothes iron. You want to either get a waxing iron, or dedicate a clothes iron to your snowboarding tools. After you use it once, it will ruin your clothes. Clean up and debris that made its way onto your board during tuning, and drip wax all over the base. If the wax smokes then turn down the heat. Once the base has drops all over you can start to iron the base, melting the wax and smearing it around. Keep a hand on the other side of the board to make sure it isn't getting to hot. Stop and let it cool down occasionally. Once the entire base is coated, scrape off all the surface wax. The base should have absorbed enough wax for about 3 days of riding.
Bye,
Ruben
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