This is how my glue job turned out because I yam sofa king we ta did. Sad.

But, my faith in Glue Renew (strips of skin glue that you iron on) was renewed over the weekend when I saw the factory-perfect job that Ron Smith was able to do.  Check this out:

Now we're talking! Ron shows off his glue job.

Aside from reading the instructions and being patient, Ron had some excellent little tricks of the reglue trade.

1. Take your skins to a Dry Cleaner and have them remove the old glue for five-ish dollars.  This is a brilliant trick and the skins come out looking brand new and apparently unharmed.
2. Before applying the Glue Renew, lay down a coat of Gold Label adhesive using a scraper to get a nice, thin, even coat.  This soaks into the backing and helps the Glue Renew adhere.
3. Ron got the Glue Renew cold, then cut it into strips so that he could put a strip down each side of the skin and leave the center blank (except for the Gold Label).  This eliminates the need for a piece of nylon cloth and also allows you to get two complete skin reglues out of one set of Glue Renews.
4. Ignore the recommended heating temperatures and keep the iron “just ahead of the bubbling point” which is hotter than it might seem.

I can’t wait to try it again, or maybe I’ll see if Ron wants to do a another pair while I watch.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and lay down a sticky base with Black Diamond Ascension Gold Label Skin Glue from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Separating your skins has gotten even tougher as many of them are getting so wide nowadays.  My usual technique for overly sticky skins was to press them onto our dog-hair infested carpet a few times, which took some of the initial tack off, but last spring I saw an even better technique from Heather Paul Featherman.  Having nearly separated my sternum many times by using the brute force approach, I loved the brains vs. brawn simplicity of this.  As Heather said “Why not use the strongest muscles in your body?”

Starting with your skins stuck together, grab the tops as normal...

... place the skins between your legs and wrap them over your thighs...

... then use your leg muscles to pull them apart in a series of 2-3 segments.

It works great and is so embarrassingly simple I’m amazed I’d never seen it or thought of it before.  Thanks Heather.

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Help support StraightChuter.com and strip some uber-phat Black Diamond Ascension Nylon STS Skins from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Deep, dry, fine grained snow with steepish skin tracks favor nylon skins.

That said, it is possible to make almost any skin work in almost any condition.  The reason I like nylon skins with a tip & tail kit for the Wasatch is that we often have fine grained, dry snow which the courser nylon material tends to bite well in.  We also don’t have very long approaches compared to other places and they tend to be steep, so glide (like you get with mohair) isn’t a big issue.

For cruising on sticky snow with lower angle tracks, mohair can't be beat.

On the mohair/nylon hybrids, I’ve tried two different brands of them and while they are billed as “the best of both worlds” I personally thought they were the worst of both worlds.  They don’t climb very well compared to nylons or glide well compared to mohair, which is frustrating.  Personally, I’d rather use a skin which is really good at one thing or another (like climbing or gliding) rather than one that merely doesn’t suck too much in most conditions.

An excellent little technical skin primer can be found here.

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Help support StraightChuter.com and ascent through the fluff with Black Diamond Ascension Nylon STS Skins from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Although I designed the BD ClipFix and used that system for years, I’ve now gravitated towards the STS system (shown below).  I liked the ClipFix, but as Martin Volken said about it, “It’s an expert system.” meaning if you spent the time to get it perfectly dialed, it worked great, but if not, they’d fall off. I didn’t mind getting mine dialed in, but that often meant widening the tail slot, which is/was kind of a pain.  The STS system is not only totally bomber, but it fits most of the standard issue tail notches.  If you don’t have a notch, most skis can stand one being filed/cut in and it makes a huge difference in keeping your skins on.

I use a pair of Channel Lock pliers to crimp the camming cleat down to a lower profile (less chance of it getting hung up on things) and then thread the tail back through the tip, as shown above.  Tucking the tail up makes for cleaner, faster uphill kick-turns where you are less likely to step on your tail dingle.  Plus I hate having those things flapping around.

As a final skin set-up step, I keep the skins attached to the appropriate ski with a Voile strap so I never grab the wrong skins, or worse yet, forget them, when heading out the door for a big powder day.

 
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Help support StraightChuter.com and pick up a pair of the light & compact Black Diamond GlideLite Nylon STS Skins from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

One of the most important parts of trimming out a pair of skins is to hold them back about 3/16″ from the edges.  Many people just trim them “neat” to the edges (as much out of laziness as anything), but that makes it much harder to get the skins on the ski and you lose your sharp edge when you need it on firm snow.  The tiny bit of extra grip you’ll get by going wall-to-wall is irrelevant compared to the problems it causes.

On the tip, if I think there is any chance I might adjust the length of the skin, I use a rounded end.  This gives a bit more adhesive-to-adhesive contact, plus it allows the sides of the skin to grip a bit more, which helps to keep snow from packing in there (the beginning of the end).  As most of my skis have dedicated skins, I cut the tip off short and sew it tight with some beefy thread.  This ensures that the tip loop never comes off, gives a nice smooth contact profile to the skin and saves a bit of weight & bulk.

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Help support StraightChuter.com and pick up my current skin of choice, the Black Diamond Ascension Nylon STS Skin from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…