Ski waxing bench


Herman "Jackrabbit" Johannsen is one of my heroes for having introduced skiing to North America.  During the great depression, Johannsen settled in the Laurentians region of Quebec and was a patron to the rugged Canadian Ski Marathon.  The Canadian Ski Marathon (CSM) is a two day endurance event, where skiers follow trails beginning outside of Montreal and ending up on the outskirts of Ottawa, some 160 kilometers later.  My wife has skied this annual event many times and has been eager for me to join her.  So at long last,  on a cold February morning in La Chute, Quebec, I entered my first ski marathon.

We started training in the fall, with hikes and longer bike rides while waiting for the snow.  Once the ski trails opened, we skied at every opportunity.  My wife usually took care of our ski waxing before every ski outing.  Occasionally, I would prop our skis on a couple of chair-backs and iron on new base wax.  Not very sturdy.  I had already made the mistake of using my wood working bench to hold skis while I ironed on wax, only to find wax everywhere, ruining future wood finishes and making the bench top too slippery.  At the CSM, I saw lots of people using commercially made wax benches which seemed very effective.  After getting home, I set out to make my own version of the fancy portable ski wax benches I had seen in use in Quebec.

Most homemade ski benches don't look very portable to me.  They use a heavy wooden beam cut in the upside-down profile of a ski.  I wanted to copy the style where the ski rests on two long pads and is pulled down in the centre, where the ski binding is used to clamp the ski in place.  For this I needed some sort of "U" shaped piece of metal, into which I would drill holes to slide in a pin for the binding to grab.  In my scrap metal pile, I found the ideal implement; an oarlock from an old rowboat!  All I had to do was drill a thru hole to allow my 1/8" steel pin and mount the oarlock in my new ski bench.  The youtube video shows the ski bench in action.



Copyright 2013 Paul Larsen

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