Summer storage and the "natural" hotbox

[tpalka]

I'd like to know if anyone has hotboxed their boards themselves. I'm thinking of building one later this year, but in the meantime experimenting with the solar variety. It's dry and sunny where I live, so yesterday I cleaned up the edges and then put graphite wax on the base + edges. As recommended here earlier, I started crayoning the wax on for normal waxes, but this time I crayoned and then dripped -- wanted plenty of wax for the max penetration.

It looks as if this method worked well -- I still have wax on the base, and it stayed liquid for the 5-6 hours I left the boards outside. I'd guess the topsheet was about 110-120F to the touch.

The first time I did it, with regular wax, the base looked almost dried out -- that was with crayoning only. That's why I put more wax on this time.

Questions:

1. Would this damage the boards in any way?

2. In normal hotboxing, how long should the boards be exposed to it? I'm guessing overnight+, 12-24 hours at around 140-150F. Is that about right?

3. I'm using the Dominator Graphite wax. Is there a better choice?

4. Any way to gauge how deep the wax went in, or any other benchmarks to compare this method to others?

Thanks,

tom.

[bobdea]

might not be a good thing

[Gleb]

don't know much about hotboxing or waxing in general, but if bob is right, you should just send me those boards. No use in keeping them if they're ruined.

[Justin A.]

I just soak my gear with an iron for the summer. no point in dragging the process out.

________

Washington Dispensaries

[Istvan]

I think it is way more important how you store the board. Don't keep 'em flat on the base as it might lose camber.... sorry if this was too obvious for you guys.

Best,

István

ps.: I do not really like the idea of heating them under the sun for long hours....

[Hans]

Hi, Tom

Just use the search function and fill in 'hot box'. There are some extended topics about this subject and your waxingquestions will also be answered.

Your boards in the sun is not a very good idea, that's not good for the base all that hot UVA/B light. The sort of plastics used in the base will last less longer then. But if you need new boards, well than you have a good reason to give them a brown tan in the sun :D :D

Greets, Hans.

[lonerider]

Questions: 1. Would this damage the boards in any way?

tom.

Lol, this probably would have been a good question *before* doing it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't very good for your boards consider the standard thing to do with your boards is store it in a "dark, cool" place - so I would think doing the exact opposite (sunny, hot) wouldn't be that great for you boards. If said 120 degrees max that's well below the melting point of the base or the epoxy in the boards though.

Heh, went from zero to five boards in two years... and almost back to zero boards. As Hans said, it's a good way to rotate the quiver quickly :) Jk I don't really think you did anything *terrible* to your boards... just don't do it again.

[Guest Alan]

Keeping the decks in the sun or attic for that amount of time is not a good idea.

Hot-Box times have come down from 2 hours to 45 minutes at 135-145

I use mine for conditioning for new decks and newly structured bases.

A properly/often waxed deck should not need it in season.

Dominator base-prep is a great wax, I like the purple (non-graphite) for conditioning.

Graphite in season.

Just .02

Alan

[Steve Dold]

A friend of mine left her Ultra Prime base-up in the sun for about an hour once on a warm spring day, and when she came out of the lodge it had a big delamination bubble about 6" diameter in the base material. It might have been a defect waiting to show itself but after that I won't leave my board in the sun base-up anymore.

[tpalka]

Thanks for all your comments.

I did do a search on the forum before posting, found some interesting info on building a hotbox, but nothing quite on using the sun to keep the wax liquid. I also found comments from people who do precisely that, keep them in the sun... Seems hard to believe that 6 hours would be enough to ruin them -- wasn't planning to do it more than once a year, i.e. at storage time. It was maybe 60F outside, the boards got warm, but hardly hot.

The more I read about hotboxing, the more it seems (like Alan wrote) that it's mostly for prepping new bases and post-grinding. I'll stick to just regular hot waxing.

I bought a waxwhizard earlier this year and have been thinking about different possibilities for maintaining the bases -- something like a hotbox every 4-5 days of riding, and a waxwhizard before others of those 4-5 days. So that's partly what motivated the question.

I do store the boards in a cool basement, on a horizontal rack, base up :)

Thanks,

tom

[D-Sub]

I still dont buy that faff about boards losing their camber. if there's no wait in the middle, I highly doubt it

in fact, someone once stored a board a whole summe with weights in the center, just to see, and reported back that there was no camber loss.

[C5 Golfer]

I still dont buy that faff about boards losing their camber. if there's no wait in the middle, I highly doubt it

in fact, someone once stored a board a whole summe with weights in the center, just to see, and reported back that there was no camber loss.

That was me D Sub... The guys who don't believe it should also store their car overnight on jackstands so that the springs don't lose their camber too! :lol: :) :rolleyes: :D :o

[D-Sub]

LOL!

always cracks me up that people think a boards own weight, even with bindings, could truly kill the camber.

maybe on a crap foam core board, dunno. ever try it with one of those?

any idea where that thread was? the one with your experiment?

[skatha]

That was me D Sub... The guys who don't believe it should also store their car overnight on jackstands so that the springs don't lose their camber too! :lol: :) :rolleyes: :D :o

Hmmmmm, getting new springs and shocks can be expensive...if I just sling my car up by the frame....oh wait, then my house will lose it's camber....

I store my boards upright because they're easier to hide from my husband that way

[D-Sub]

oh wait, then my house will lose it's camber....

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Galen]

A friend of mine left her Ultra Prime base-up in the sun for about an hour once on a warm spring day, and when she came out of the lodge it had a big delamination bubble about 6" diameter in the base material. It might have been a defect waiting to show itself but after that I won't leave my board in the sun base-up anymore.

From what I understand (and this may not always be the case) bubbles are from trapped moisture. I had a Nitro that would get a few quarter size bubbles in the topsheet when ever I went above 7000 ft. They would mostly disappear at sea level. I suppose prolonged heat could have the same effect on trapped moisture.. guys at the shop thought I was pulling their legs, but gave me a new one at the beginning of the following season.

[Dave ESPI]

Am I the only one who saw this thread and thought of "HOTBOXING" as a referance to smoking a big fat blunt or fully packed bowl in a gondola ride up to a summit with like 20 minutes worth of time to rebreathe the smoke while sitting in the lift ?

Not that I smoke anymore, but I found the thread title hilarious in such a way.

As to Heating boards, I never cook my boards. I keep them at around 70 and often hang them upside down by rope or on my wall rack to keep them in shape.

Wax ? meh, I don't know much about that aspect....... I just take it to the shop, and tell them "soft, mush, or hard surface for the kind of wax I want"

[bobdea]

a guy from volkl told me that it usually due to being flexed allot and also that many manufacturers use a processes that may want to straighten out over time, something about steaming cores or something instead of milling the camber in forgot the details though

hotbox makes me think of two things, one when you puff the hell out of a cig or joint and make the cherry all long or when one side does not burn also often called canoeing

the other refers to to a girls coochie usually those of women who get around,

in use something like this would be said, drunkened college kid 1 says "damn that bitch fine I wanna get a peice of that" his more sober buddy says something like "no, dude, she's got the hotbox, everyone's hit that, better wrap it if you do go there."

Also see Paris Hilton

here we call what Dave was refering to fishbowling

[Gleb]

Bob, thats hilarious!!! I'm defintly using that when something like that comes up.

I'll ask my friends what they think hotboxing is. 3 out of my 4 room mates next year smoke morning noon and night so it'll be interesting. On every trip to the mountain they always ask to fishbowl my car, never let them do it. I can't smoke because cvs drug tests and also i prefer to spend money on snowboarding and kiteboarding now.

[FTA2R]

i do not smoke anything but a number of my frat brothers in college were potheads and would always go to "hotbox" in the car. and yes, the title of this thread, IMO, is a direct play on that word. "natural hotbox" (sun) vs. "human / artifical hotbox" (smokin' pot). of course pot grows natrually someplaces. maybe the threadstarted can clear up the confusion. "far out, dude" haha sorry had to inject that corny phrase

[D-Sub]

[quote name=bobdea

here we call what Dave was refering to fishbowling[/quote]

and we called it chambering. usually in reference to my 81 accord hatchback.

[RDY_2_Carve]

Wow this got off topic in a hurry....

Tom:

The way you ride I wouldn't worry too much about wax penetration on your boards...

Just take a 2x4 and throw some metal edges on it and drill your bombers to it. I bet you'd still rip!

:)

[BDZal]

and we called it chambering. usually in reference to my 81 accord hatchback.

That's funny, from a mathematical perspective. We just called it "bonging out the car," but I grew up in a suburb in southern Alabama. If I grew up in Alaska or another cold place, maybe then I'd call it hotboxing.

[Pow]

Im not sure i would store a swallowtail upsidedown like that though... might damage the tip. perhaps you should put it on top of cardboard boxes or something? that even might be an overprecaution. other than that theres absolutely nothing wrong with keeping the boards like that.