Kid next door got a board for Christmas and his parents asked me to store it here until last night. I laid it out for them last night so they could get it and I threw in a bar of wax for him since they didnt have any or know he needed it. They asked this morning "how do we wax this thing?" so I described it and gave up, and just googled it to send them the surfing 101 interwebz description with pictures. every site I saw said to use a basecoat. wtf is a basecoat? I just throw on warm wax in the summer and top it off with cold stuff in the winter, and in the spring I strip it because the cold stuff will be all gooey in the warm temps. basecoat? sounds scammish to me
base coat normally doubles as tropical wax. It gives you a base layer and makes the bumps form a lot better when you put it down first and top it off with some cool water or cold water. This is because the consistency of tropical/basecoat is different than that of cold/cool water wax when you apply it in a colder temperature. Definitly not a scam, use some and compare sometime if you don't believe. If your in water above 70 degrees base coat is usually not necessary. If i'm surfing everyday I usually scrape my board and apply new base coat every three days or so, or as soon as the black wetsuit cancer starts to build up.
I didn't notice much difference down here but our water rarely gets colder than 70. I will have to reapply next time I go out and see if it works in the cold water.
Can't even imagine putting in this amount of effort! I like basecoat or a tropical wax bottom coat as well but I might strip off wax once or twice a year at most, usually once around the time of year where the booties come off and maybe a second time if I'm lucky enough to be packing boards for a trip.
Many moons ago we used Gulfwax, or old candles, as a base coat-put sex wax on top-opinions vary http://www.surfinghandbook.com/2010/07/an-east-coast-surfer%E2%80%99s-quest-for-gulf-wax/
I use it when I lay down a fresh new wax to a clean board, helps the wax bump up better and it lasts longer so don't need to reapply as much, seems to work, give it a try
Without basecoat my wax will barely stay on the board. I end up using 10 bars of wax when 2 bars would be fine
yea, that's excessive. that said, i am definitely a basecoat believer. never used it until about 10 years ago when i was living out west & was given a bar of it w/ a new board purchase. tried it out, figuring "what the hell?" & liked the result. as others have said, it keeps the wax from smearing around on the deck & lessens the board-to-body transfer of wax as well as making it bump up quicker.
basecoat is gay i use candle wax and napalm.[video=youtube;bPXVGQnJm0w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPXVGQnJm0w[/video]
Think of it like primer before painting a wall or car. Apply the base coat, then apply the tropical or cold water wax on top of the base coat. For added grip use a wax comb to put a crisscross pattern in it, like grip tape when done properly. If the wax gets slippery after a while, run the comb over it again and it's like new as far as grip is concerned. I don't go through too much wax these days.
