How to choose the right wax, properly wax your board, store it, and seal a ding.
A surfboard is an expensive thing to own, only to treat it badly. It can get baked in a car, bounced off a roof rack, dinged on a reef, or only waxed properly twice a season. Then we stand mystified about why we're sliding off takeoffs or eyeing expensive upgrades.
This is the stuff your local surf shop assumes somebody else has already told you. Nobody told me either, so I worked it out the expensive way. Here's the whole lot: choosing wax, waxing properly, fixing dings before they cost you, and where it should actually live between surfs.
Surf wax is rated by water temperature, not air temperature
Surf wax is temperature rated, but the rating is the water temperature, not air temperature.
I got this wrong at the start. It's such an obvious mistake and not usually written anywhere near where you buy wax.
Use tropical wax in a Victorian winter and it will sit on the deck like a sheet of glass. Use cold-water wax on a 24-degree Queensland day and it turns to a slippery smear by your second wave. Neither is a technique problem. It is just the wrong block.
Spring can be a trap: the air feels like summer, but the water hasn't caught up. It's tempting to wax for how it feels standing in the car park. If unsure, go one grade harder than you think. Wax that's slightly too hard is a little less grippy. Wax that's too soft is a slip-and-slide.
Surf wax temperature chart
| Water temp | The wax you want | Roughly where that lands in Australian spring |
|---|---|---|
| 23°C and up | Tropical | North Queensland, and everywhere up north in summer |
| 18 to 23°C | Warm | Gold Coast, Byron, Sydney once summer's in |
| 14 to 18°C | Cool | Sydney spring and autumn, South Australia |
| Below 14°C | Cold | Victoria, Tasmania, anywhere south in winter |
If you only want to carry one block, an all-water wax over a basecoat covers most of the east coast most of the year. Salt Gypsy's Premium Eco Surf Wax is made in the Byron hinterland and comes in tropical and all-water, which is about as simple as the decision gets.
How to wax a surfboard, step by step
Five minutes. Most people do ninety seconds and wonder why their grip is no good.
- Strip the old stuff off. Leave the board in the sun for five minutes to soften, comb it off, wipe it down. Old wax is dirt, sand and false confidence.
- Basecoat in diagonals. Hard pressure, long diagonal strokes one way, then back across the other. That crosshatch is your scaffold.
- Topcoat in small circles. Softer wax, light pressure. Aim to build small bumps, not a smooth coating. Bumps are grip.Â
- Comb it before you paddle out. Twenty seconds with the comb roughs the surface back up.
- Comb it again between sessions. Waxed properly and combed, a coat lasts weeks. Left to cake in a hot car, it lasts one surf.
Surfboard ding repair and the 24-hour rule
Water inside a board is the beginning of the end. The foam soaks it up, the board gets heavy, then it delaminates. A small fix becomes a bigger problem, or a dead board.
The simple rule to remember:Â dinged today, sealed tomorrow.
- Cracks smaller than a coin, on the deck or rail. Solar-cure resin kit, ten minutes in the sun, sand it back. If you can hold a tube of silicone, then you can do this.
- Anything showing foam, or running along a rail line. Take it to a repairer. A bad home patch makes the professional repair harder and dearer.
- Never surf an open ding just one more time. That session is what costs you the board. I've watched a mate do it and then buy a new board about five weeks later.
Fin screws, legropes and rinsing
This is the trade brain talking, because these are the things that fail on a job site too. Fasteners, and anything that lives in salt.
- Check fin screws monthly. A loose fin changes how the board turns before you consciously notice. A lost fin ends the session and costs you.
- Rinse the lot in fresh water. Salt corrodes screws, perishes legrope cord and eats zip pulls, same enemy that kills wetsuits. A quick thirty-second rinse is the answer.
- Look at your legrope properly. If the cord is showing wear or the velcro has given up, replace it. It's the only thing between your board and rocks, or worse somebody's head.Â
How to store a surfboard
Board bag, out of direct sun, and not leaning on its nose in the corner of the garage for six months.
Heat delaminates boards and melts wax into the bag. UV yellows the deck and makes the glass brittle. Australian sun does both faster than most places. The board that lives in the shade lasts years longer than the one that lives in the sun.
Cost of board care
A block of wax, a comb, a ding kit and thirty seconds of hose time will do as much if not more for how your board rides than any upgrade.
That's maybe forty dollars of gear, against a board that's five or six hundred and a repair bill you don't need.
See you out there. I will be the slow one.
Surfboard care FAQ
What temperature surf wax do I need in Australia?
Match the wax to the water, not the air. Tropical above 23°C, warm from 18 to 23°C, cool from 14 to 18°C, and cold below 14°C. In practice that means tropical for North Queensland, warm for the Gold Coast and Byron, cool for Sydney in spring and autumn, and cold for Victoria and Tasmania. If in doubt, choose the harder one.
Do you really need a basecoat?
Yes. A hard basecoat applied in long diagonal strokes creates the crosshatch that the softer topcoat builds bumps on. Without it the topcoat smears flat within a session or two and you're back to sliding off takeoffs.
How often should you wax a surfboard?
A properly applied coat that gets combed before each paddle-out lasts weeks. Comb it every session, top it up when the bumps flatten, and strip it back to bare deck and start again once or twice a season, or whenever it has caked with dirt and sand.
Can you surf with a ding in your board?
Don't. Water gets into the foam core, the board gains weight and eventually delaminates. Seal it within 24 hours. Dinged today, sealed tomorrow.Â
Can you repair a surfboard ding yourself?
Cracks smaller than a coin on the deck or rail, yes: a solar-cure resin kit, ten minutes in the sun and a light sand back. Anything exposing foam, or a split running along a rail line, goes to a repairer.
How should you store a surfboard?
In a board bag, flat or horizontal on racks, out of direct sun and out of a hot car.Â
About the author
Baker is 33, grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, and lives outside Coffs Harbour with his wife Sofie. He is a sparky by trade, learned to surf at twenty-eight on a hire board in Bali, and has been writing about it for about a year. He covers surf for SurfStitch.
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