Skin Glue Touch-Up
Blown out skin glue is a very common malady and with our recent snap of cold weather, I’ve seen at least one skin track casualty per day due to *&^%’ing glue. I think this is especially common in the Wasatch where it is very easy to get a dusting of snow on your skins while stripping them, plus the skin tracks tend to be steep, which puts a lot of shearing pressure on your glue-to-base connection.
I’ve retouched almost 100% of my skins with Black Diamond Gold Label glue, and in some cases, like with Euro skins, I’ll do it before I ever even take the skins out. Bear in mind that this is a touch-up, not a complete regluing which requires you to strip all of the old glue off.
It is very easy to do and also very forgiving of sloppy craftsmanship. Here’s a 5:04 minute video of the process:
Executive Summary for all of you busy glue sniffers:
1) Place your dry skins on a flat work table
2) Clamp the tips down
3) Working from tip to tail, lay down a bead of glue
4) Using a flat edged spreader, spread it out as thin as possible
5) Hang them up and let them dry at least overnight, if not for 24 hours
6) Skin like a bansheee.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and stick’em up with Black Diamond Gold Label Adhesive from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…
Category: 05 Uphill, Gear Reviews, Wasatch Mountains
Any suggestions for how to reduce the infiltration of snow along the edges of skins at the tip and tail? It only seems to happen with my fatty rockered skies. Maybe they are need of a touch-up.
Do you reckon this would work for Dynafit skins? The Dynafit skins have a really low level of tackiness that decreases with accumulated gunge/time, but the glue side is also has a dimpled pattern. Very nice demo ‘tho!
As a PacNW skier which the last season has result some late season skiing I’m left wondering, what do you do about the f*#@king lichen and fir needles on your skins?
Glue over them? :) I’ve found that how skin glue looks and how it works are completely unrelated.
Kim – it definitely works on Dynafit skins and I’ve done it many times. From what I’ve heard, the toxic variety of glue is illegal in Europe, so in general, their glue doesn’t stick as well as good ol’ fashion toxic waste from the US.
Hi Cameron – I’ve seen that a lot with wide skins. You could try a bit of Gold Label to start with, or, I’ve seen people trim the flapper areas of their skins off in the tips and tails. Once you start getting snow in there, it just keeps creeping.
kind of unrelated
but, ive had a ton of trouble with blackdiamnds newer skins sticking very well at all.
and they are new this season. i could only get 3 transitions out of them before they fell off.
anyway, i fixed them by doing a touchup with the old gold label glue. they have worked well ever since.
anyone else been having this issue?
here is something that works too, to refreshen the glue heat it up wax iron and parchment paper works good too! use parchment paper, i set my toko iron to 284 f
below is from climbingskins direct.
Reactivating the glue is easy to do with a waxing iron. The method is the same for all the above problems.
1.Heat the iron to a medium heat.
2.Clamp the skin firmly to a flat surface.
3.Lightly place the iron on the glue surface.
•Be careful not to push the glue, but just let the iron gently float across the surface leaving a “wet look”.
•If the glue has a lot of water in it, you will see the glue “foam up” and sizzle as the water evaporates.
•If the glue has just lost it’s stickiness the melting will drive the contaminates into the glue, and bring fresh glue to the surface allowing the glue molecules to spring back to their original (tacky) shape.
•If the problem was just lumpy glue, this method will restore the surface for better contact and adhesion.
any tips on removing tree sap from the surface of the skins (not the glue side but the running surface)?
Richard – I don’t have any suggestions aside from rubbing it off with miles of use on snow. ;) Maybe some of that “Goo Off” type stuff they sell in hardware stores?