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How to Reglue Your Climbing Skins | Sisters, OR United States | 12/31/08, by powderjunky

ready to reglue your backcountry skiing skins.


After about five good years of skiing and skinning, I find myself having to reglue my Black Diamond Ascension Skins. It is definitely a time consuming process, but not difficult and saves you at least 150 bucks.


Video on how to reglue your skins. Be patient for the buffering.


Average Time from start to finish: 3-4 hours

What You Need:
  1. Gold Label Glue
  2. Scissors
  3. Brown Paper Bags (about 3-4 medium sized bags should be enough)
  4. Masking Tape
  5. Old Credit card/Hotel Key
  6. Iron
  7. Newspapers
  8. Old Skins with correlating skis.
  9. Beer

Step 1 Preparation
  1. Throw some newspapers down to protect against glue damage.
  2. Attach skin to ski upside down so the adhesive is facing outwards.
  3. Put newspaper between the skin and ski to protect the ski from glue.

Step 2 Cleaning the Skins
  1. Cut paper bags into strips just wider than your ski.
  2. Place strip on skin and run iron over to soak up old glue.
  3. Run credit card over skin for final clean up.
  4. Do this for the whole� length of the skin, until all the dirty glue is gone.
  5. The cleaner the better.

Step 3 Apply the Glue
  1. If you have Black Diamond Skins that have a covered center strip, put masking tape over it to protect it from getting glued on.
  2. Very thinly apply the glue.
  3. Make sure to get the edges and do one thin coat. Go as thin as you can.
  4. Let it dry for half an hour and apply a second coat.
  5. Let it dry for half an hour and apply a third coat.
  6. Let it dry for 12 hours.

That's it- you are now good to go!

Things to remember
  1. Put the glue on thin. It is too easy to go too thick and get globs.
  2. Make sure you do not bend the skin when it is drying.
  3. When feeling frustrated have a sip of beer.
  4. Although the glue comes with a brush, and I use the brush in the video, I would recommend applying the glue with an old credit card/Hotel Key only. It goes on faster and smoother and the brush leaves hairs on your skin.

If you have any other questions, better ways, ideas, let us know in the comments section, we are by no means the experts on this and want to hear your ideas.� Happy New Year!






That's Our Opinion. What's Yours?

awesomepatrol wrote on 12/31/08 at 10:29:18 pm pst:

I have also heard warming the glue in a pan helps it go on smooth.


rick wrote on 03/16/09 at 3:02:05 pm pst:

I found another trick somewhere on the web. ie. use PARCHMENT paper (i.e. cookie sheet paper) as release paper after you have put on a thick coat of glue and it has dried. Use strips of parchment paper and your iron to smooth out the glue. after it cools, the parchment paper nicely peals off. I tried it and it works..


Editors wrote on 03/16/09 at 9:03:05 pm pst:

Thanks Rick for the great tip!


christopher pearce wrote on 06/03/09 at 1:06:40 pm pst:

Have you tried cleaning the glue first before re-gluing? I used cellulose thinners containing toluene (care, rubber gloves etc)on Ascension skins which have good,thick glue and which were well covered in pine needles(lower stretches of alps) and heather (Iceland)and other junk. Lay skin flat, wipe with a clean, lint free rag soaked in thinners/toluene, maybe twice to ensure top surface of glue is runny and then scrape with a craft/stanley knife to remove junk on top layer. Wipe knife frequently with another lint free cloth. Finally wipe again with thinners/toluene soaked cloth and allow to dry- glue comes up all shiny and sticky again!!


powderjunky wrote on 06/04/09 at 09:26:30 am pst:

Sweet! Thanks christopher! In the video, we cleaned the skins by ironing a paper bag on top of the skins, which works really well, but you have to reapply glue afterwards, usually anyway.

Your method of not having to reglue, sounds interesting,I'll have to give it a try!


Editors wrote on 01/27/10 at 09:01:58 am pst:

Check out these great tips on Andrew McLean's blog! Evidently, if you take your skins to a dry cleaner they will clean your skins and stip the glue for about $5!

http://straightchuter.com/2010/01/glue-renew-guru/



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