Skins

Wow I wish I got new skins for free every year even tho people seem to complain about G3 the most

Coming clean on your affiliation is classy shirk

http://ca-store.genuineguidegear.com/collections/clearance

25% off on 2014 skins is pretty good for this time of year

I have a pair of Black Diamond Ascension and a pair of 4FRNT (rebranded Gecko glueless mohair skins). I much prefer the 4FRNT/Gecko mohair:

- Lighter (I should weigh them, they feel massively lighter, especially when the BD get some snow on them)
- Superior glide, not even close
- Ascending grip is close to the BD Ascension, not quite as grippy but more than adequate

Haven't had any problems with them getting wet. My skis have a notch cut into the tail so the tail clip of the glueless skins can provide additional tension and keep them on the skins. To be fair, I use the BD skins on skis with frame bindings (Guardians) and the Mohair on skis with Dynafit bindings, so I'm sure the comfort of touring on the better setup impacts my observations to a degree.

Touring is almost all WB slack with a few Duffey and interior days thrown in depending on the season.

I'm the worst with my g3 alpinist skins, don't use the glue saver piece cause it's annoying, put em away wet, use them fairly frequently, never re-glued, never had them let me down yet.

Perhaps I should try your technique, sounds like I'm doing it all wrong!!

Funny how body position does not matter when it is the most important part of classic skiing and essentially that is what you are doing when you are walking up a track, kind of like saying when you smear on a rock while climbing that body position does not matter. If fact it is the most important part and why many people slip and those with good body position do not. But yeah I gues body position does not matter in any sport, just blame the equipment. I have used G3 skins and many others for over 15 years and never had to reglue or work on my skins, never store them inside my jacket, always in my pack, dry them out at the end of the day and store them through the summer with the red carpet between them, pretty simple, I usually run new pairs every year but have several pairs that are going on 4-5 years and work fine. The way I see many treat their equipment I am not surprised by problems

G3 skins work well and the guys at G3 are great. But They Do have Glue issues on at least Some of there split board skins at least. Myself and a few of my friends have experienced it. Body position is important but it won't help if your skin is pealing off on your second lap.

Glad your GS skins have worked great for you Dave. Some of there skins have had glue issues and that is good to know if you are someone who actually has to shell out 200 bucks for your next skins.

what do folks like for re-glue … tubes or the sheets of glue?

I've used both the sheet stuff is about 4 X more expensive than tubes of gold label

how many tubes do you use for a set one or two ?

I'm in the middle of a reglue using the sheets of G3/ drinking wine/ and rocking zepplin 4

I think I like getting tubed better, I notice body position is really important when pulling the cork from a bottle of Rioja

I'm the worst with my g3 alpinist skins, don't use the glue saver piece cause it's annoying, put em away wet, use them fairly frequently, never re-glued, never had them let me down yet.

I have a similar experience with assentions. I have a pair of 10 year old bd's I use with my split board. I have abused them every way you can. have re glued them once and touched them up a couple times. they have 100's of days on them. still going. though due for a 2nd re glue. not the glide of clotex but unless your doing a mega traverses who cares. for banging out 5000 plus (some time plus plus) foot pow days they are work horses.

:deadhorse:
FYI, Black Diamond Ascensions are on sale as well.
http://blackdiamondequipment.com/en/search?cgid=skins
Yeah, I'm still flogging that horse cuz I'm pissed at G3 for not warrantying my binders the second time they fell apart.

Dude they probably broke cuz you had the wrong body position eh?

http://www.larryscascaderesource.com/weird/weird_files/skins.html

B4 you try re-gluing this is something to try when yer skins start leaving glue on the bases or glue starts balling up especialy at the tips n tails

larry sez try lower heat to start but ime you need higher heat than say you would use for waxing, as much heat as you would use for regluing (you do iron in your new glue right?), I just crank my digital wax iron to 320 heat, G3 sez medium/hot or cotton on most clothes irons

note that buddy is talking about using both a naked iron or parchment paper (NOT wax paper) I like parchment or the backing sheet that came with the skins is great

note where buddy sez "Cold is your skins' best friend" if you got the room storing skins in the freezer makes them very happy

what do folks like for re-glue … tubes or the sheets of glue?

Tubes.

Second what shirk said about Colltex. They are simply amazing. Both the mohair and mohair synthetic. I know guides who pay full pop for them and they are cheap bastidges. Only downside is they are thin and might go 100-150 days.

My G3s and BDs are workhorses and i've had good luck with them. Sure the G3 glue gets patchy but i reglue with the tubes. Sure the BDs are bulky and don't roll up so well but i can skin over rocks with them without feeling bad. Bottom line is skins have compromises - like all gear

I might be going into the skin regluing bidness, one or two tubes to fully reglue a set of skins?

who uses glop stopper wax on their skins to stop snow clumping on the bottom?
http://www.nikwax.com/en-us/products/productdetail.php?productid=257[HTML_REMOVED]itemid=-1[HTML_REMOVED]fabricid=-1

I still carry the wax but if I use this ^^ once a year I will have NO glopping issues and the skins seem to not get as saturated …highly recommended

yeah it really doesnt take much to dry skins they will get dry enough just at a comfortable room temperature, that NiK Wax ski skin proofer in the link I posted is great stuff for keeping your skins from wetting out … they just get less wet

If you are not having fun you should have a drink the heady mix of tolulene and alcohol always ensures a fun job

IME its way easyier to heat gun the old glue and scrape it off with a putty knife and a key thing would be to scrape towards the center of the skin so you don't get glue on the edges of the plush.I heard about using the iron and brown paper bags to soak/remove old glue, my buddy (an MD ) was trying this method which appeared to work Ok till he ran out of bags, tries newsprint which makes a big fucking mess, so I went over to scrape it all off with my heat gun and tell buddy … he was lucky that at least I still make house calls

the thing about the sheets of glue is they cost 45$ whereas a tube of Gold label costs [HTML_REMOVED]11$, a tube will pretty much do a set of skins, just spread the tube stuff on the skin with a putty knife, overlay with baking parchment paper (NOT WAX PAPER!) and heat the glue up to 320F

Btw you realize the glueless strip is just a piece of ribbon stuck into the glue SO you can pull it off the skin to reglue and stick it back down after the new glue job

sorry I am terrible at links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok-OupCTyK4

I haven't done much Yoga but yoga instructors are great!

The pomoca glue I had replaced not so long ago fucked up and was migrating to the ski base so I heat gunned/scraped/reglue/hotiron this time with a tube of Gold label, so I have tried a tube of pomoca (20$), sheets of G3 (45$), and a tube of Gold label (11$)

I have only used the reglued skins once and they seem fine, in fact all the brands of glue stick ok to begin with and they all seem to fuck up SO I recommend gold label (BD) … go cheap