Beauty No.3: Waxing Your Board

I have artworked this photograph of my Mr Zog's wax in it's pot in attempt to communicate the beauty of this 'object of desire'. As I mentioned before, since I was young, I have always been interested in the various forms of Mr Zog's wax that I have seen surfing shops. I used to wander around Chapter surf shop in Braunton soaking up the atmosphere but, being into windsurfing, I never needed wax. The wax - to me - has a mysterious nostalgia now mixed with the new sensory experience of actually using the stuff.

Well now, at last, I do need wax. And I have finally waxed my surfboard for the very first time. I don't know why I got so excited about it - and it sounds daft - but I have wanted to wax a surfboard for years and the wax smells so nice...

You use the sharp edge of the comb to remove wax, if necessary, and the comb is to roughen old wax — so I gave the board a comb and then rubbed on some new wax. A little research has revealed to me hitherto unknown depths to the activity: many people lay down a base coat of harder wax and there are different waxes for different temperatures.

Here are a couple of photographs showing the texture I got:

There are clearly many ways to apply different kinds of wax. I have seen boards with many variations of thick lumpy wax, thinner layers, wax focussed in certain areas, longboards waxed from nose to tail. It's a great and I think fundamental, obsessional, sensual and enjoyable part of surfing culture and the whole surfing experience. Anything that gives you time with your board when the sea is flat has got to be good - no?