Ski Waxing and Tuning Bench

I built this simple bench for waxing and working on skis this past weekend. It's made from about six board feet of 3/4" white oak.

The black pads are rubber drawer liner material that grip the skis and help keep them in place. They are glued down with contact cement.

The bungee cords are tarp tie-downs, which hold the skis by the bindings.

The screws on the inside of the rail hold down the brakes - two are needed for the different lengths of skis.

The feet are big enough to be clamped down to my workbench or a table.

This photo of the underside shows the construction:. The oak pieces are held together with glue and screws:

Here are my 170 cm skis on the bench:

The bungee cords go over the toe-holds of the bindings:

This picture shows the ski-break hold-down:

Here is another picture of the ski on the bench. I applied p-tex and scraped it, waxed and scraped, and filed the edges without the ski moving at all.

For edge filing, the black pads and a couple of clamps hold the ski in place:

Here is my youngest son's 130 cm ski on the bench:

So far, I am happy with the performance of the bench. The black rubber pad really makes a difference - the ski won't move at all when it's in contact with the pad. When not in use, the bench hangs up on the wall along with the skis.

Construction Details:

• It took about 4 hours to build this bench, using a table saw, jointer, drill and sander.
• White oak was a good choice, as it's really strong. You could also use ash, maple, alder, etc. If I used softwood, I would make the side rails thicker to make sure they didn't break over time.
• I paid $15 for the bungee cords, rubber pad and contact cement. I already had the wood, which would have cost about $20 - less for softwood.

Here are the dimensions I used. I made the binding hole wide enough to accommodate wider skis later on.