Why do you scrape the wax off your ski?

Answer 1

When you iron in the wax the heat from the iron allows the some wax to absorb into the ski base. The excess wax is then scraped off and ski base polished to expose the waxed base that has been tempered by the wax and is very slippery and fast.

This is somewhat similar to waxing your car once the wax has dried it has a rough finish and is gritty. The excess wax needs to be removed to expose the shiny, slippery finish.

Same thing on the ski base the shinny waxed base is fast.

Dan Meyer

Fast Wax Tech Service

Skifastwax.com

Answer 2

The wax on top of the surface of the ski slows you down because it causes over effective friction. The wax that is important and best effective is in the ski's pores.