Tag Archives: Marker Duke

Winter Readiness: Dual Dynafit Duke Binding Insert Mount

Here’s the deal: this is going to be a lengthy walk through regarding mounting AT bindings on skis. Be forewarned: this should be fairly dry unless you are specifically interested in the process. If you’re not you might consider skipping this one. Or maybe just look at the pictures.

And I should probably also make a brief disclaimer. I have no formal training in performing any of these activities. As qualification, I offer only my reassurance that I take my skiing very seriously. Anyway…

What Is Being Performed?
Last year I re-mounted my Marker Dukes on my Black Diamond Havocs using Quiver Killer Binding Inserts. They had previously been mounted using the conventional technique. At about the same time I installed Quiver Killers in my Head Monsters. These had never been mounted before. These processes are described here.

For this season, I’ve decided to enhance those two pairs of skis, by adding to each, a set of Binding Freedom Inserts for a used pair of Dynafit FT12 bindings that my friend Rob helped me snag for cheap on the TGR Gear Swap Forums.

Why Would You Do This?
The result would be two pairs of skis capable of sharing two pairs of bindings which could be configured to meet the demands of a variety of situations.

Let me run through the design decisions. The dynafits were added because I thought they’d breath new life into two aging pairs of skis. While I love both pairs, they are obsolete: they’re both conventionally cambered and not especially wide. The Havocs are a great all-mountain and side country ski when rigged with the Dukes, but they weigh a ton for serious touring. The Monsters just can’t really handle hard-pack because they’re too flimsy, so I need to be able to fall back on the Havocs on occasion. However, the Monsters are borderline ultralight making them a ideal touring ski for light powder and soft snow. It seemed a waste not slap on an ultralight pair of touring bindings in lieu of the Dukes. Finally, I can cut down mileage on the more costly FT12s by saving them for back-country touring and using the nigh indestructible Dukes for in-bounds and side country action.

I went with the Binding Freedom Inserts rather than the Quiver Killer Inserts this time around for a number of reasons. The first was simple curiosity. It seemed prudent to see what else might be available. Next, the Binding Freedom Inserts are reputed to be manufactured using a slightly superior process. The Binding Freedom Inserts are fitted for a flat head screw driver so that they can be easily installed. Additionally, the Binding Freedom page sells all of the associated hardware: the ski bit with a stop collar, a tap and tap handle, and the mounting screws fitted for an Allen wrench and prepackaged according to binding type.

The Process:

The first thing I do is pull the Dukes off of the Havocs, just to get that out of the way. This is done easily with a #2 Philips screw driver. More here.

Removing the Marker Dukes from the BD Havocs.

I decided to mount the Monsters first, since they would be the most challenging: I’d have to work around the screw ups left over from last year. I decided to start by removing the brakes from the heel pieces of the Dynafits. This is supposed to make the mounting process easier. It certainly made it easier for me to use the toe and heel plates as rough templates while initially sizing up the situation. This process is described very well at WildSnow. Here’s my rendition…

To remove the bakes, you must first unscrew the large, grey knob from the back of the heel piece using a large flat head screw driver. The grey piece is under tension and will spring out once its totally un-threaded. Next you should remove the two nested springs that sit inside the cylindrical opening on the back of the heel piece. Finally, using a paper clip or similar, you must fish out the white plastic bushing that resides in the far back of this cylinder.

Unscrew the cap, and remove the innards.

There is a small hole in the back center of the bushing which you can use
to fish it out.

With these activities accomplished, you can simply pull the tower of of the center post, as shown.

Simply pull up.

The next challenge is to get the brakes dislodged. This is tricky if you’re brakes are new. If they’ve been used, they come off slightly easier. Either way, the first step is to pry the stopper plate up using a flat head screw driver or similar, shown below.

Pry off the stopper plate.

And finally, using some pliers and a few extra sets of hands, you can spread the two pins apart and pull the brakes off of the heel piece by pulling the whole brake assembly forward toward the tapering end of the heel plate, as seen in this short clip:

The next line item is to come up with a center line on your skis. This is by far the most important step of the whole procedure. Fortunately, it’s not that hard. Using a carpenter’s square, straight-edge or similar, measure the width of the ski about 6 inches ‘North’ of the waist of the ski. Mark this sport using a strip of masking tape, and take note of the width.

Measure the width with some kind of reasonably precise
instrument.

Take note of the width. Recall which edge of the tape actually corresponds
to your measurement. I’ve used the straight un-torn edge to avoid
confusion.

Repeat the process some where ‘South’ of the waist of the ski. As long as these measurements are taken reasonably far apart from each other (but not so far that the curvature of the ski starts to skew your carpenter’s square) you’ll be able to produce two points at the center-line of the ski, and by connecting these two points, you can easily reference the center-line while you’re working.

Some point ‘South’ of the waist.

Divide by two to arrive at the mid point.

Repeat for both measurements.

Now flip your ski over. Using your masking tape references, midpoint calculations, and square, find the midpoint of each line. Mark this point using a sharp knife. You can get away with scoring the top-sheet a bit as long as you don’t break through to the core material.

Marking the midpoint.

With both midpoints marked, you can connect the dots using a large framing square. Simply, place the square on the top-sheet, line it up with your two midpoint markings, and trace a straight line using a sharp blade.

Marking the center line.

The next big step is to determine where along this center line you’d like to mount your bindings. In my opinion, this is fairly subjective. Ski manufacturers sometimes mark the waist of the ski on the top-sheet, but these markings aren’t always reliable, forcing you to double check anyway. Many manufacturers suggest a mount point for each of the skis in their line, but again, this is just someones opinion. They have no idea what sort of skiing you intend to do, nor what sort of bindings or boots you plan to use. In my particular case, I was constrained by the old mount points of my Dukes. At the end of the day, you need to make a judgement call about where you want your bindings to be. Once the first binding is on the ski, you can use it as a gauge to line up the second binding. More on that later. For now, here’s how I figured out the mount points on my first ski.

Step number one: go to WildSnow and grab their excellent Dynafit mount template. I printed my templates on some nice card stock so that it would be easy to work with and withstand some abuse. Make sure your printer doesn’t scale the template. You can check for correct scaling by placing the bindings on the template and eye-balling it.

Step number two: separate the heel piece and toe piece parts of the template. You want the two pieces to be independent, mostly so that they don’t get in the way. I found it helpful to trim the templates so that the center-line printed on the templates extends to the edge of the template. This allows for great precision when placing the templates on the ski.

With your templates ready to go and a good idea of where you want your bindings, grab a ski boot and line the whole thing up for size. The two divots sit right between the four drill points on the toe piece, and the heel template indicates the rough position of the boot heel. Use these metrics as guides. Place your templates, and boot on the ski and be sure this makes sense! In my case, I had to jockey things around a bit until I found a reasonable mount point that wouldn’t interfere with my Duke mount points. People with fresh skis will find this process much easier.

Once you are satisfied, tape the toe template to the ski making sure to get the template center lines matched up to the center line previously scored into the top sheet. Fasten the template using masking tape. Masking tape is usually thin enough that you can see straight through it and find the center line on the top sheet. Getting this right is probably the most important step of the entire procedure. Once you are happy, use a hammer and a sharp knife, a nail set, or center punch to mark the mount points by placing your pointed implement on the template and giving it a few good whacks with the hammer.

Marking the drill points.

Here I’ve circled the drill points with a dry erase marker to make them easy
to find when it comes time for the drill.

With all of the drill points marked and highlighted, it’s prudent to do a quick dry fit, using your toe piece and boot. Place the toe piece over your markings, step the boot into the toe wings, grab your heel template, match up the rear of the boot with the rear template, and double check that this still make sense! Nothing irreversible has been done yet, so lets be sure!

Once you’re happy with all of this, it’s time to start drilling! One the lessons learned from last time around was that wide bits have trouble breaking through the top sheets on some skis. They tend to ‘walk’ around the top sheet before breaking through resulting in a totally messed up pilot hole. The solution: drill a pre-pilot hole with a very small bit. I used a 3/32″ bit; though I imagine one slightly smaller or larger would have been fine as well. Next I pulled out some carpentry shims, some large C-clamps and the drill press and lined the whole thing up carefully. You should be able to lower the press right into the divots marked on the top sheet.

Shims and clamps for added security.

Lower the press right onto the top sheet to see that it all lines up after
tightening the clamps.

Now for the fun part!

Drill out the 5 pilot holes, just deep enough to break the top sheet. It’ll be obvious when you’re though. Re-chuck the press with the ski bit (also available from Binding Freedom). Using a binding insert as a guide, ensure that the stop collar is actually set to the right depth. Line up the press and get to work…

Before drilling lower the tip of the bit into your pilot holes.

Progress…

With our first set of pilot holes bored out, we’re ready to tackle the inserts. To ensure that no residual machine oils are left over from manufacturing, I drop the whole bag of them into an alcohol bath. The alcohol is useful for working with the epoxy, as well, but more on that later…

Dump the inserts into a Tupperware and submerge in alcohol.

Next up: tapping the pilot holes. In order to set the inserts into the ski, the pilot holes need to be pre- threaded using a bottom tap (again, purchased from Binding Freedom). Using an insert as a guide, mark the the correct tap depth using masking tape. If you turn the tap too far, you’ll start to poke into the P-Tex and deform the base of the ski. This can be fixed but not without a base grind… You can use a stop collar, but it’s overkill here… Once the depth is set, start tapping!

Measure the tap depth.

Carefully tap each pilot hole.

With the pilot holes tapped, we can get ready to set the inserts. To permanently anchor them and to weatherproof the core material, shoot a dollop of 24 hour weatherproof epoxy into each threaded pilot hole. I prefer to do this liberally: you want the entire inside of the pilot hole, threads and all, to be coated. This will prevent the core material from slowly rotting out.

Don’t be stingy with the epoxy.

With the pilot holes epoxied, grab an insert, towel it off quickly, and crank it into the ski with a flat head screw driver.

The first insert set, just slightly recessed below the top sheet.

Now you’re ready to mount the toe piece! Place it over your new inserts, locate the long M5 screws (guess where these came from…) and crank them down with an Allen wrench.

Toe piece in place.

Top down view.

Wide head M5 screws for the four read points, and the small head M5 for
the fifth point.

Toe wings locked up with the fifth screw visible under the release latch.

Hopefully this all goes smoothly. Unless you have the hands of brain surgeon, you may find it easiest to tighten the screws a little bit at a time, rather than completely setting each screw one at a time. This will allow you some play in case one of the inserts is off a bit. Since the epoxy won’t cure fully for 24 hours, any imperfections will work themselves out as long as you leave the completed bindings screwed in over night.

To correctly fit the heel piece, you need to step into the toe piece and size things up using the template and a carpenter’s square. Quickly reassemble the heel piece and line it up with the rear of the boot, just as a sanity check. If all looks well, grab the heel template, match up the center lines, align the heel of the boot with the template guidelines and fasten with masking tape.

Line up the toe divots and ‘step’ in. Lift the release latch, to lock.

Dry fit the whole assembly, just to be safe…

The bold line in the middle of the template should line up with the heel of
the boot.

Use a carpenter’s square to line up the bold line and the boot. Be sure to
keep the center lines matched up.

Side view of the previous step.

Rear view…

Heel template fastened and ready for marking!

Repeat the marking, drilling, and tapping steps described above.

The heel piece should be ready for installation, using the four short M5
screws and an Allen wrench.

Slide the brake assembly back over the heel plate.

Wedge the stop plate back between the center post and the brake
assembly to secure it.

Ski number one complete!

Boots clicked in with success…

Most of the tricky stuff has now been completed, however one critical step still remains: we need to figure out how to mount the other ski in exactly the same place. The solution I arrived at was to trace a straight line across the ‘Northern-most’ toe piece inserts, drape a long piece of masking tape along the line, stand both skis base to base on end, and wrap the loose ends of the tape around the other ski.

The first ski sans binding.

The second ski, with the relative location of the toe piece marked.

Separate the skis for convenience.

The second ski with the center line and
toe piece marked.

With the positions of the toe piece marked, you simply repeat the entire process on the second ski.

Monsters ready to rock, Havocs on deck.

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Quiver Killers and Powder Baskets!

Indeed, the winter is nearly upon us. I know this not only because the calendar says so, but because Tramdock has been running more and more great deals on last year’s junk, because the beer store only has Christmas flavored beer (actually that’s a terrible weather vane, but I digress), because Ski-Net started up the where-to-ski-this-weekend column, because Skiing put out the ever dubious Top 100 Reports report , because I can see my breath nearly every morning (thank God, I can finally breath again), and because most importantly my enthusiasm for skiing has crept back into the spectrum of unbridled mania.

Powder baskets – lets hope they
see some abuse in the upcoming weeks!

As a direct result of this uncontrollable enthusiasm a number of seasonal prerequisite tasks have come into sharp focus: deal hunting for a new, non-battered helmet seems advisable, perhaps a new winter day-pack, a few new sets of ski socks, etc, etc… But most important of all: the arsenal of skis must be ready to handle any imaginable set of conditions (and maybe even some unimaginable conditions). A year or so ago, after I realized that my K2 Shuksan AT skis fell apart (under the rigors of being owned by me), I impulsively bought a pair of Head Monster 95s – an ultralight backcountry touring ski with a real propensity for powder. When they showed up at my apartment I instantly realized that they had no application in this part of the world, put them in the corner and got a pair of more well mannered Black Diamond Havocs – something I could probably work with inbounds, in the woods, the side country and the New England backcountry. I had my Marker Dukes bolted on and was ready to go.

However this year, I’ve set my sights a bit higher. With strong ambitions of doing not only as much backcountry skiing as possible but as much powder skiing as possible, I decided it was time to round out the quiver by mounting the Monsters. The advent of Quiver Killers has eliminated the need to more than one pair of touring binding, which previously was the major barrier to entry for building a truly well rounded quiver of skis.

Heel piece pulled off revealing the inserts. (Click these to zoom.)

For those who are still in the dark about this revolutionary (and remarkably simple) new technology, here’s the run down. The general rule of thumb regarding mounting skis is that you can only drill into a given pair 3 times before all the holes in the ski have begun to compromise it’s structural integrity. They’ll be weakened, won’t flex correctly, and won’t hold a binding as well. This essentially meant that each pair of skis needed its own dedicated pair of bindings – hot swapping was out of the question. Now, with quiver killers installed, you can readily move one pair of bindings between skis. The Quiver Killer Insert is a small metal fitting that is sunk into the ski and has machined threads inside it’s hollow center. It allows you to easily, quickly and without causing any damage to the ski, screw, unscrew and re-screw to your hearts content a set of bindings and place them on any other pair of skis with inserts. The process if moderately involved and costs a few bucks, but saving nearly 400 bucks is worth the afternoon that it takes if you plan to ski lots of varied terrain. Below is a discussion of the installation process.

Eye candy just to get you fired
up about the long, dry read ahead.

For starters, there are essentially two scenarios to consider going into the installation. The first, and easiest situation is that you have a pair of skis with bindings already mounted which you’d like to refit with Quiver Killers. This is easy because you don’t have measure all of the spots that need to be drilled. You just bore out the original holes, and set the inserts into them (more detail to follow). The second and semi-complicated situation is that you have a brand new pair of skis which have never had bindings or you have a pair of skis that had some different pair of bindings – in either case you need to carefully get the drill points measured out and marked otherwise your bindings wont screw onto your skis.

The first pair I tried to install were my Head Monsters which I completely botched. Dismayed, I turned to the BD Havocs which were pre-drilled from when I had REI mount my Dukes on them. This worked out much better, and with new found confidence, I patched up the Monsters and took a second stab at them this past weekend.

The first order of business is to pull the Dukes off of the Havocs. This is done with a number 2 Phillips screw driver. Next, you’ll want to set up a template to aid you in the drilling process. If you have the original that came from the factory use it!!! The Quiver Killer website provides a few common templates, however since it will be longer than 11″ it comes on two sheets of paper. You must be meticulous in splicing these two sheets together. This also means that you must be sure your printer scaling is correct. It seems that mine may not have been. Alternatively, maybe the template on the Quiver Killer site was wrong. In any event double, triple, and quadruple check your template using something of known validity! I used my Havocs as a guide and penciled in a few micro adjustments.

Measure twice, cut once, says my wizened Dad.

Next you’ll want to tape the template to the topsheet of the ski that you intend to drill. You should verify that the factory center line printed on your skis is indeed accurate, or at least in the same spot on each ski. Once you are satisfied with center (or 3cm aft in my case, since I was aiming to create a powder slaying beast), use a razor blade, or other pointy instrument to score the topsheet so that won’t loose your center. Next you should find the center of the template. This is slightly arbitrary since sole length and shell size aren’t really related – the main point is that you identify something pretty close to center and do the same thing on the other ski! By poking a hole in the template with a nail set (or other pointy implement) you can line up the template center with your ski center.

Use something pointy to mark true center –
pencil and ink will smudge on a smooth topsheet.

Now that the two ‘centers’ are lined up you need to be sure that you center the toe and heel areas of the template. An accurate way of doing this is by finding the center of the ski at some point fore or aft of the template. Mark this point. Now, place a ruler on top of the template flush with the nail set and the center mark you just found fore or aft of the template. Pivot the template around the nail set until the template center line falls directly under the ruler. Whilst holding your breath (and ideally, causing your hear to temporarily stop beating) tape the the whole thing to the ski. Using a sharp nail set, create little depressions in the topsheet at each of the drill points. This allows you to reuse the template and is better than ink or pencil which will smudge as you work. You can now remove the template from the ski and set up your drill press.

Center lines and mount points marked using a razor and nail set.

This is probably the most complicated part of the entire operation simply because it seemed like a no brainer – it was anything but. This may be specific to the skis I was working with, however the topsheet of the head monster is so resilient and resinous that the drill bit, even while attached to a press, would walk a bit before it totally penetrated. All of the drill points would be slightly askew (in the same direction, albeit not where I wanted them to wind up). I found that the solution was to cut away the topsheet around the drill points using an exacto knife with a semi-circular blade. Basically you scoop out a little divot so that the bit can’t walk away from the target before it starts to bite into the core material. I have no idea how they deal with this in ski shops, but I’d love to know because this was by far the most labor intensive part of the whole project.

All is not lost, they can be fixed to some degree. This, of course, was after
Dad explained to me the principle of ‘measure twice, cut once’ but
before he reminded me of it…

Now seems to be a good time to mention the disaster recover strategy. If, like me, you mangled your skis on your first attempt, you can fix them. My solution was to fill the bad drill points with a quarter inch dowel and Gorilla Glue. If any of the dowels should pop out, you can stuff a bunch of steel wool into them to take up the space and create a bunch of surface area to aid in bonding.

After this is accomplished you can bore out the drill points using a quarter inch bit and a stop collar set just a tad deeper than the height of an insert. Remember you want the insert to be flush with the ski or a tad depressed, and you’ll be sticking a big glob of epoxy into the whole before you finish.

1/4″ bit, stop collar, and some fortunate Exacto blade.

Once you’ve bored out all of the holes you need to tap them so that the outer threads of the inserts have something to hang onto. This is done with a 5/16″ bottom tap. Be sure not to crank down too hard or you’ll start to poke into the P-Tex.

Bottom tap and tap handle. Try to aim straight down!

Setting an insert.

Finished insert.

Victory!

Once all of the holes are tapped you can begin to set the inserts. Be sure that the inserts are free of any machining oils by bathing them in rubbing alcohol. Next shoot a dollop of 24 hour epoxy into the hole. The main point of the epoxy, beyond fastening the insert is to waterproof the core of the ski. The Quiver Killers come with a special ‘installation tool.’ The installation tool consists of an inch long M5 bold with two hex nuts on the bottom. Twist an insert onto the bottom of the M5 bold and lower the two hex nuts so that all three pieces are in contact. The friction will cause the entire assembly to be a static unit. You can then use a number 2 Phillips head screw driver to set the Quiver Killer into the hole. The bottom hex nut will act as a guide stopping the insert once it’s in place. Using an opened ended hex wrench, back the two nuts away from the insert, relieving the friction. You can then back the M5 bolt out of the insert without taking the insert with you. Using a paper towel with some rubbing alcohol (or similar) wipe away any excess epoxy. Do this like a million or so more times and BAM, you’re done! Go ahead and plop your bindings over your new inserts and crank the M5 screws into your skis.

Gear List (click links for more product info):