Year
2022
Technologies
Screwdriver
Category
Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes only. Do this at your own risk. I’m not responsible for broken knees 👍.
All the tools used
Essentials:
- Phillips screwdriver
- Duck tape
- Masking tape
- Scotch tape
- Straight edge
- Paper towels + a cleaner to clean the top of your skis (or just water)
- Scissors
- Drill + bits
- Binding template
- File
- JBWeld “cement” epoxy (the steel reinforced stuff)
- JBWeld “normal” epoxy
- Pencil
1 - Practice Mounting Your New Bindings on 2x4
- Steps 4 to 11
2 - Get a binding template
- Print out a template for your bindings.
- This drive has a bunch of templates: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lpDx4-8PF44Pc08HHNyYY6Gg2a3Dd245
- I used the template for my bindings: Look Pivot/Rossignol FKS
3 - Take off your old bindings and plug old holes
- Take your old bindings off.
- Clean the top surface with rubbing alcohol (or just some sort of cleaner).
- Plug the holes with JBWeld.
- I used this JBWeld.
- Let the epoxy dry and cure.
- File off the excess epoxy so that it’s smooth
4 - Put masking tape on your ski
- Put it somewhere along the center (it doesn’t have to be perfect)
5 - Draw a line down the center of the ski
- To do this, mark a few points at the center of the ski along the length of the ski.
- You can use calipers, a square, or a piece of paper that has a metric ruler on it.
- I used the paper ruler that was on the binding template.
6 - Cut out the template
- Find the length of your boot. It should be marked somewhere on your boot.
- You want the length form toe lug to heel lug.
- Use your boot length to cut the template at the appropriate places.
- The template should say where to cut based on your boot length.
7 - Tape the template onto your ski
- The template should be in 2 halves.
- I taped them on 1 half at a time.
- Line up the middle of the 2 halves with the recommended mounting line that should be marked on your ski.
- Center the line that runs the length of the ski with the line that you draw on the masking tape.
8 - Mark the drill holes
- Use a punch or a phillips screwdriver to punch the screw hole locations.
- I used a phillips screwdriver.
9 - Mark hole depth on the drill bits
- Put the binding screws into the bindings.
- Using calipers or a ruler (I used calipers) to measure how much the screws stick out of the bottom of the bindings.
- Then use duck tape and mark this length on the drill bits.
- The drill bit on the right is the final size. I slowly drilled the holes bigger and bigger.
- Find the correct size drill bit by holding the end up to the screw. The correct bit size is when only the threads are showing outside of the drill bit.
10 - Drill the holes
- Drill the holes.
- If your new holes overlap the old ones, that sucks. 2 of mine did on my toe pieces.
- In that case start with the smallest drill bit you have, and slowly make the hole bigger trying to not let the drill slip into the old hole.
- Then just use a strong 2 part epoxy when screwing in your bindings
11 - Screw in the new bindings
- First fill the holes with epoxy (or just wood glue) to keep water out.
- I used the epoxy below for strength since my holes overlapped
- Screw in the new bindings. Let the epoxy cure.
12 - Adjust forward pressure and DIN
- Adjust the forward pressure. Most bindings have a forward pressure indicator that tells you when it is set right. Look this up for you bindings.
- Look Pivots have a white tab on the back and raised markings. When the end of the white tab is lined up with those raised markings, the forward pressure is good.
- Use an online DIN calculator to calculate your DIN.
- I normally set mine lower to start, to be safe. Then as I start to ski on them and eject when I don’t want to eject, I slowly increase it.
- Don’t send cliffs until the adjustments are set 👍.
13 - Test them
- Ski.
- See if the bindings rip out of your ski. If they do then oh well, at least you tried.