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XPost: Binding Suck: Definitive response from Sean Martin


daveo

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Below is an informative response from Sean Martin regarding Binding Suck on Facebook:

There NEVER has been a recommended torque value for a Bomber binding. The best advice is to tighten enough to be effective, or so your bindings are not loosening up during the day. You can think in terms of its cousins and how tight you can get a Philips screw with a #3 screwdriver. A T-handle or even a regular Allen wrench will be able to deliver far more torque than that, so don’t over do it. If you are getting that crack in your t-handle that leaves you feeling like “Oh my god I can’t get these off!” and you smell sulfur, or the ringing from the t-handle makes your hand hurt, you are definitely too tight. This question has been posed about 1000 times on the bomber forum and I’m pretty sure you can read them on the alpine snowboard forum as well if you like.

Binding suck is something that happens on all snowboards. I have had conversations with too many engineers about it and nobody knows how to make a snowboard that does not have it. So, what is it? The core of your board is wood. The insert is a t-nut that incorporates a nut and essentially a washer on the back side of that nut. Anytime you tighten such a device over wood you will compress the wood. Anyone who has tightened a bolt in wood will agree that over tightening will result in permanently compressing the wood. It’s very easy to do.

So how does binding suck become a permanent problem when you are not over tightening your bindings? Even when you don’t overtighten you are applying a compressive force to the wood core. You will see this on any board you mount bindings too. It will be easier to see on a black base. One of the reasons many recreational boards have elaborately printed base graphics is to hide binding suck. If you hot wax while the bindings are tightened, you will soften the plastics in the board. Even the cross-linked epoxy has a glass transition temperature (usually below 200deg F). These plastics will move at the waxing temperatures and take a permanent set. Always remove or loosen your bindings when waxing.

I believe there was a note above about the Oxess boards not getting binding suck. It will be harder to generate permanent binding suck as a result of hot waxing in the Oxess boards because Marcel presses in an autoclave at much higher temperatures than most manufacturers when pressing his boards. The materials he uses requires a 6 hour press cycle where most manufacturers are at 12 to 20 minutes. These higher temperature, longer cure cycles involve epoxy resins that have a glass transition temperature that is higher than is typical. It does, introduce other difficulties during manufacture though that Marcel has been able to solve.

I’m sorry for the book, but the question is a good one and it takes some time to answer. If you want to learn even more there is a bolt clamping or compressive force calculator here: https://www.engineersedge.com/calculators/torque_calc.htm (this site uses english threads, so use a ¼-28 thread as an approximate). The cross sectional area of the base of an insert will be somewhere around 0.4in^2. This article provides some basic knowledge on strength of wood and it’s compressive properties: https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2001/green01d.pdf

Edited by daveo
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What about with NO bindings? I remove my bindings (or plate) altogether before hotwaxing, I don't use anything close to excessive heat, just enough to barely flow the wax, I keep my iron moving, and still get a very slight dimple around the inserts. I assume it has to do with the relative heat capacity of the inserts, I know it's far to small to have much effect on the ride, but it bugs me anyway.

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15 minutes ago, Jonny said:

What about with NO bindings? I remove my bindings (or plate) altogether before hotwaxing, I don't use anything close to excessive heat, just enough to barely flow the wax, I keep my iron moving, and still get a very slight dimple around the inserts. I assume it has to do with the relative heat capacity of the inserts, I know it's far to small to have much effect on the ride, but it bugs me anyway.

Yeah I never hot wax with bindings on. I only do it twice a season also. When it starts and when it ends. The rest is done daily with a Ray's Way WaxWHIZard.

I think certain waxes need certain temperatures to be able to perform their function. Most waxes come with an advertised optimal temperature to set your iron to.

This is good -> https://www.dominatorwax.com/sites/default/files/dominator/wax-science-demystified.pdf

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I usually try to release the binding screws over the summer. I haven't done this yet. 

My favorite way to wax a board (especially with a black base) is to set it base up in the sun, wait until it warms up, crayon on some wax, let it continue to warm until the whole base is shiny, move the board out of the sun to let cool. This method seems to be the best way to get a uniform thickness of wax over the base of the board (without using an excess amount of wax) and because it gets the whole board pretty warm, the wax seems to bond to the p-tex better. 

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4 hours ago, daveo said:

Below is an informative response from Sean Martin regarding Binding Suck on Facebook:

Thanks for sharing the info.  I've often pondered the materials used in board building and how each negates or contributes to binding suck and also why certain boards of seemingly similar builds, were more or less prone to binding suck than others.  I also wondered if it could be lessened with some sort of integrated plate at the inserts, but that in itself might have an adverse effect on flex and might actually cause a larger pucker area and that would REALLY suck!

It would also seem boards built for lighter weight riders could be more prone to base pull, due to the build materials necessary to obtain the proper flex.

Stiff bindings definitely put a lot of force on inserts and not all manufacturers use t-nut style inserts, so they don't recommend Bomber bindings, as the pressure could pull through the board.  I install my TD3 SI's (and all others) with Teflon tape or blue Loktite to keep the threads happy and not be tempted to over-tighten the screws.  I check them weekly, loosen when not riding for a couple weeks and remove for hot waxing a couple times per season.  Throughout the rest of the season, I rub on wax and buff-in as necessary.  I still get dimples...

YMMV

James

Edited by Dusty Bottle
Is it snowing yet?
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16 minutes ago, Dusty Bottle said:

I check them weekly, loosen when not riding for a couple weeks and remove for hot waxing a couple times per season.  Throughout the rest of the season, I rub on wax and buff-in as necessary.  I still get dimples...

YMMV

James

I think force applied/technique while riding will do it also i have binding suck on my SG Soul and i ride softs but i can still apply enough force to bend the base plates and break discs so to be honest im generally not suprised i get suck. I just take it as something that will happen eventually

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Not to be obtuse, but how much of a problem does binding suck actually pose for the recreational rider? I notice it on my board after waxing, I scrape off the excess wax as much as possible, it leaves small depressions in the base, I go riding. I have no idea how the board would ride without those small depressions, but I suspect I wouldn't notice a difference.

Edited by Aracan
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I'm guessing that the binding suck problem is mainly cosmetic.  I mean if we are riding with the style that we have always longed for, the percent of time that the middle of the base is touching the snow is fractional.  I start the season by scraping and rewaxing the whole base. But mid-season I usually just need to rewax the outer inch or so, and only rarely the middle.  

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11 hours ago, scottishsurfer said:

I think force applied/technique while riding will do it also i have binding suck on my SG Soul and i ride softs but i can still apply enough force to bend the base plates and break discs so to be honest im generally not suprised i get suck. I just take it as something that will happen eventually

From my experience and observation, SG decks all suffer from significant binding suck pretty much as long as they have bindings attached. 

 

12 hours ago, scottishsurfer said:

Wouldnt having strips of something like titanal that the inserts go through before they enter the core significantly spread the load and reduce the compression of the core around the inserts.
 

Think it would affect flex significantly. Like dead spot kinda thing. 

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I think most board makers use softer wood (poplar or aspen) for most of the board and use stronger wood (?) under the bindings. I'm guessing the stronger wood does a better job of distributing the forces from the bindings - including binding suck. 

I'd agree that it is primarily a cosmetic issue that gives obsessive carvers something else to obsess about.  

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Binding suck drives me insane from a resale value of my boards standpoint, but I do not think it effects performance at all.  I noticed many riders on Europa Cup with it in both Boardercross (where the center portion of the base is very often in contact with snow) and GS / SL.  Seems to be a fact of life in high end boards.

Interestingly, I have never heard or experienced even a bit of binding suck on Channel-System boards.  Something about that insert design / approach seems to make it a non-issue.

 

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I can't imagine it matters a bit for us recreational riders. I do wonder if the bindings were tightened firmly before the first base grind if it could be minimized. Kind of pre-deform the area before a grind. That's getting pretty anal for what's likely a cosmetic thing... 

Note that the alpine makers add extra fiberglass between the T-nuts and the wood core to help resist insert pullout from the stiff binding/boot combination. 

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7 minutes ago, Atom Ant said:

Interestingly, I have never heard or experienced even a bit of binding suck on Channel-System boards.  Something about that insert design / approach seems to make it a non-issue.

it compresses the topsheet (and I'm sure some supporting material) with a sliding "t thing" as opposed to the core with a t nut. I've got a channel board here just sussed it out. A Burton, which is curiously made in Canada... *shrug*

Just realised the thing I love about this forum is that many suffer from the same disease as me. Terminal OCD. Something we all know is cosmetic, we are all driven crazy by. Jokes, I just like it distracting me from actually exporting my work to my GPU.

Now I'll wait for the next person to chime in and say it doesn't bother them in the slightest, they leave their bindings on 365 days per year and they don't even bother waxing their board and love rusty edges. Yeah, well, gfys.

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It doesn't bother my boards in the slightest. 

  • My Burton Dump Truck powder board has no issues, as you'd expect with a channel board. 
  • My Kessler SL has conventional inserts but doesn't have any visible issues either.

I wax both boards with the bindings on, if they happen to be on. As people will be aware, you can see where the inserts are whilst the wax is hot because the conductivity of inserts is different from the rest of the board, but that's about it.

I fit my F2 bindings with the same sort of tool I expect to have available in the back country, I don't want a lot of torque on them or they'd be impossible to tweak in the back country should I accidentally put them in the wrong place for the conditions. F2 bindings do have rubber gaskets on the bottom, so the thing which compresses is that, not the board itself.

I'm not sure you'd notice dimples in the centre of the base in powder or on the edge. 

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3 hours ago, lowrider said:

 Message to all .Get a life ! Go outside breath some fresh air and say hello to someone not on the internet. There's a good chance your board will work just fine next season.

You've clearly never experienced the cosmetic horrors of binding suck. 

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At 230 lbs I expect to see binding suck. I also expect to hit rocks and possible break a board because I am constantly trying harder. If you're into multiple board sports both skate boards and surfboards break all the time. It's the price of entry. I also don't believe in resale value as I want to use a board to have fun. I can't be OCD about damage because it's inevitable!👍👍

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