​Contact angles of ski bases waxed with different waxes

The swix "7" series of waxes were applied to a fisher skate ski.  Six samples were measured for each of the following waxes in the order Listed

1. Swix PS7

2. Swix CH7

3. Swix HS7

4. Swix HF7BW (discontinued line of Highly Flourinated "Black" wax with solid lubricant)

5. Swix HF7 (discontinued line of Highly Flourinated wax)

​6. Flouro Powder topcoat, corked in

Results Discussion:  

A higher contact angle indicated more hydrophobic behavior with the claim of reduced friction, especially in high humidity conditions.

The BW and powder flouro waxes clearly beaded up more indicating more hydrophobic behavior.  Surprisingly the HF7 "highly fluorinated" paraffin wax was no different than the standard paraffin wax.  Also, the new HS7 (more expensive "high speed") wax had the lowest contact angle.  Given the surprising nature of these results the entire experiment was repeated on a different ski base and the same results were obtained.

Water Contact Angle

test data

Procedure:  

Between each wax treatment a chemical wax remover was used to return the ski base to a baseline condition.  

Three application of the wax to be tested were ironed in, allowed to cool, scraped and brushed.

Six droplets of distilled water were placed on the ski base and photographed​

Contact angle measured using the ImageJ software package

HF7BW

Powder

HS7