csquared

If you can't get them out with that much abuse, then there is probably not much wrong with them. I think if you just install longer M5 screws and put a nut on the extra thread that projects above the top of the T nuts, you should be fine (remember that the only force on the fastener is in pull-out). You were obviously more diligent with drying your boots than I suggested. You shouldn't need to take the footbeds out. Turning the boots upside should make any significant moisture drain.

...hello rusted T nuts. Yeah, its your fault. You probably have not been following what should be standard procedure by now. Most of us that have disassembled our boots directly after riding are aware of the very significant quantity of snow build-up between boot and shell in places that you could not even imagine snow getting to. If you just leave the liner in place, the moisture usually ends up collecting somewhere near the T nuts. As Ben said, you must remove the liners from your boots every time you ride and dry both boots and liners. I turn my boots upside down and lean them against a hot water rad after riding. The zinc plated T nuts will give long and corrosion free service this way. Also, stainless steel and steel are reasonably close on the table of nobility so there would only have been minor galvanic action in most circumstances. I agree with Ben that you will be lucky if you can locate M5 T nuts in stainless steel. Even in Europe it might be challenging. Your best bet would be to replace them with zinc-plated but black oxide finish T-nuts can be okay if you make a good effort to keep the boots dry. Another option that you might wish to consider (and I have done this for safety reasons alone) would be to buy some slightly longer M5 screws and M5 nuts. Using the longer screw will give you some overthreading past the top of the T nut (for which there is space in the bed of the boot) and I have installed M5 nuts over the T-nuts. The M5 nut acts as pull-out security (I had a problem with metal fatigue fracturing the retaining flanges off my T-nuts with 3 of 4 gone on my rear boot before I discovered the problem) and also as a lock-nut to stop the screw from turning. This would give you the security of stainless steel without a fruitless search for SS T nuts. Getting the T nuts out is less problematic than you might think. There are two situations: if you installed the T-nuts then the teeth are probably not very tenaciously set and inserting a screw and hitting it a few times with a hammer should easily remove the nut. If the boot came with T-nuts molded in, you are going to have some fun but it is quite doable. However, you need to acquire a punch that matches the OD of the shaft of the T nut as closely as possible. Using the punch, you can drive the T nuts through the plastic shell and into the interior of the boot without even damaging the plastic. Dave Morgan and I did a T-nutectomy (not to be confused with a castration) on my boots with no serious damage to the shell using the handle of a T-wrench (I subsequently acquired a set of punches). Of course the replacement T nuts will have to be the conventional type. Good luck with it.

...to the red courtesy phone please. Bruce generally uses West Systems epoxy products but he is the master of repairs and can give you better advice than I every could.

I am only approaching this from an intuitive point of view. I don't have any set of statistics to support my opinion. The plastic parts of my Intecs have served me well for years. And in fact it is only metal parts (the T nuts) that have failed me. I did have a crash which resulted in the plastic body of an Intec heel fracturing around a pin but I was happy that the plastic acted as a kind of safety valve for the forces involved rather than the bones in my leg. I'm not trying to inflame any passionate beliefs about the structural sufficiency of plastics versus metal. In many instances, composites can exceed the capabilities of metal. And we have all seen metal binding components fail when plastics have done their job admirably. However, I would still feel personally more comfortable with metal as the material supporting the pin loads of my Intec heel system rather than plastic. What is your opinion?

I had read Fin's initial post about a week ago but had not gone back to look at the follow-up so I had missed his announcement about replacement receivers for Cats. Most embarassing. I guess I am going to be buying a lot of product from Fin this year. I really believe that the Fintec is a necessary evolution of the Intec system and I support it. There is bound to be some teething pains while implementing this product but I believe we will all be well-served by it. It should offer a more robust and reliable interface for those that want step-in technology. Plastics are wonderful but I can't help feeling nervous about the loads that are being applied to Intec heels and the downside if the plastic fails. Metal is more reliable.

From your photo, it looks like the aluminum receiver is showing signs of some galling (small particles of metal that start to tear out of the surface but roll into a micro-ball). If this surface became difficult for the pins to slide over while stepping in (because of the galling), the pins would hang-up and twist in their races inside the heel block, making it even more difficult for them to retract as they slide in. When you switched to another OS2 binding, the surfaces of the binding would not have been galled yet so the Fintec's worked. I am guessing that with more action on the second set of bindings, the same problem would occur. I am also guessing that you had no problems with your front foot, right? It sounds like this is part of the reason that Fin is not recommending use of the Fintecs with aluminum heel receiver systems. Most unfortunate. I don't have my Fintec's yet but I have a similar dilemma: how to adapt my old Cateks. I have e-mailed Fin and Michelle to see if the heel adapter kit is compatible with Cats. Oh yeah, the galling on the bottom of the receiver hole that Chris Houghton noted? That damage can only mean the boot is riding on the pins instead of the 'ramps' (the ears that project from the heel). Whether your rocking Intecs or Fintecs the boot should not be riding on the pins as they are not designed to carry high loads (eg. landing a jump badly). You need to adjust the binding to force the boot back far enough that the ramps meet the heel receiver when clipped in. This can be tricky and usually the pins will just barely fire into the receiver (they will be at the very rear of the elongated holes) when adjusted correctly - a bit of a pain if you are dealing with sticky snow underfoot.

...don't under any circumstances mount your old school non-resilient bindings directly to your metal board. Bruce Varsava only recommends using F2 bindings directly mounted on his metal boards (and that is without the metal exposed because it is buried under a layer of fiberglass and the top sheet). Bruce also has very little confidence in plastic shield plates but many others have cited these as a reasonable alternative (I have been using Catek plastic shields with Catek Olympic step-ins on one of my metal boards).

Chubz: The simple answer to your question is as follows (materials listed are from base up so the list is stacked upside down): 0. Stripping ply 1. Ptex (with metal edges previoulsy tacked to ptex with epoxy) 2. Titanal (if you are using it) cut to fit just inside T track of metal edges 3. Rubber foil (an oversize piece with the excess overhanging the edges all around). 4. Glass cloth (oversize piece with the excess overhanging all edges). 5. Wood core with sidewalls pre-applied. 6. Rubber foil (oversize per above) 7. Titanal (if using) 8. Carbon (probably not a full ply unless this will be a full-on race board) 9. Glass cloth 10. Stripping ply 11. After curing, stripping the stripping plies, and rough trimming, the topsheet is applied before final trimming. How you put the plies together is another matter. There are many tricks but you are obviously a resourceful guy or you would not have gotten as far as you have. E-mail me through my profile and I may be able to give you a few more pointers. One caveat: I do not have dozens of boards on which to base my advice - just one board with the Sensei (Bruce).

The session is a great chance to ride with and learn from lots of people. However, it can be hard to keep up with the pack sometimes. Scott, can you e-mail me through my profile so that I have your e-mail. I like to keep a everyone that is coming informed directly by e-mail. Glad you can make it.

Can you e-mail me through my profile, please. I need your real name so that I can put you on the list.

If you are just getting into snowboarding, it may make sense to have some bottom bevel just for foregiveness. If you already feel comfortable on a free-ride board and the feeling of the alpine board is not too strange then I would start with 0 / 0. Once you are totally comfortable and starting to feel aggressive, try a 2 degree offset (88 degree tool) to produce more decisive initiation and better edge hold on ice. However, lots of us just keep 0 / 0 because the edge stays sharper a bit longer and you're less likely to get into trouble on irregular terrain.

shmen's day. You have to get your priorities straight. I seldom bother with Men's Day at Osler: too much $, too much testosterone, and too few carvers (though I will make an exception if Mr. Coiler is available).

So far I have 17 confirmed for the event and there isn't even snow on the ground. Marker: I can't remember who you are in real life. Can you e-mail me through my profile and let me know. I will need your name on the attendance list to arrange the ticket. Looking forward to getting together for another great day.

Always thought I was a bit different. Now I know I'm a wierdo based on what everyone else seems to be using. WTF, works for me. Angles 51 r / 57 fr to 56 r / 63 fr.

Just posted in the Ontario regional forum but wanted to make sure this gets noticed by all: Hey gang, its been a long summer and fall is not showing any promising signs of giving way to winter but this should help you to think snow. Mark your calendars: Friday, January 30, 2009. Once again, this is an open invitation to a one day event at the Osler Bluff Ski Club in Collingwood to join the core of the Southern Ontario carving community. All ability levels are welcome but we do try to restrict the list to the alpine community. Its a great chance to meet or get back together with dedicated alpine riders on great terrain with excellent grooming. We have had great sessions for the last four years and most of those who have been at the event have made a point of getting back each year. I will be posting more details as we get closer to the event but this is to give you all a heads-up so that you can book the day off (or at least prepare your alibi). So block the spot in your calendar and I will look forward to seeing you there.

Hey gang, its been a long summer and fall is not showing any promising signs of giving way to winter but this should help you to think snow. Mark your calendars: Friday, January 30, 2009. Once again, this is an open invitation to a one day event at the Osler Bluff Ski Club in Collingwood to join the core of the Southern Ontario carving community. All ability levels are welcome but we do try to restrict the list to the alpine community. Its a great chance to meet or get back together with dedicated alpine riders on great terrain with excellent grooming. We have had great sessions for the last four years and most of those who have been at the event have made a point of getting back each year. I will be posting more details as we get closer to the event but this is to give you all a heads-up so that you can book the day off (or at least prepare your alibi). So block the spot in your calendar and I will look forward to seeing you there.

...tweren't nothin. Better safe though...

After an accident with my Coiler Racecarve 180, I ended up with zero camber (that's not zero lying on the floor - I mean zero standing upright - flat as a table). It still had nice flex though likley a somewhat higher flex number under the Coiler system so I took it out one day to see if it would still rail. In a nutshell, the biggest issue was that the board would not ride flat and was difficult to keep pointed until well into a carve. The lack of camber seemed to mean that the tip and tail were inclined to flutter instead of tracking the snow when the board was running flat or nearly flat. As with any structure, camber is a means of applying stress to a member such that when it is in its "zero" position, the member is delivering its design strength and resisting bending. Without camber, the member must flex somewhat beyond its "zero" position before it begins to act appreciably. This momentary weakness before a member offers significant resistance means there is less than full strength to resist encountered forces and movement is possible - that is it is free to flutter within a small range. We need camber so that our boards are at full strength when running flat and have resistance against flexure from the moment of turn initiation (rather than from 5% bending onwards).

Anyone ever try this product? They seem to be available in most of the Loctite flavours. I almost purchased one when I first saw them a few months ago at Brafasco but the price was a little silly at about $20 per Crayola size stick. Many binding manufacturers including Burton used to provide screws pre-painted with a small amount of thread locker (colour was usually blue) which was good for one mounting and then was gone. I sometimes wondered whether there was something other than the liquid form of Loctite that they were using. Perhaps it was the crayon format.

(the phenomenon, not the loose screws). Stainless to stainless causes galling (metal particles that roll up between the screws and inserts and work-harden) which tends to jamb the screws. That is why the screws stop being so mobile over time. A few firm tightenings tend to get the galling process started and then the screws run much less smoothly. Good quality stainless steel band clamps have silver-plated screws (rather than stainless) to address this problem.

There is quite a bit of detail on the technical differences in my article here: http://www.bomberonline.com/articles/building_coiler.cfm Coincidentally it deals with the construction of exactly the same board as the one you're about to take possession of. Bruce has incorporated a few additional construction refinements but it will be 98% identical. Hope it helps.

...the loose screw syndrome was how the tee nut fractures started for me. My theory is that the tee nuts deform slightly under pulling loads from the screws. The screw then feels loose so you tighten to take up slack and deform the tee nut a bit more. More riding, more pulling, more deformation, more tightening...eventually metal fatigue or strain causes the fracture to start. If you take the sole plate out of the bottom of the boot and check the appearance of the tee nuts with a flashlight, you may be able to see the fractures starting. I didn't understand that was what I was seeing initially. It was only once I could see that the boot was flexing away from the heel when it was in the binding that I did a proper investigation. The attached photos show the condition in which I found the heel. You can see the shafts of the tee nuts still on the screws. The screws felt like they were tight because the tee nut shaft had travelled down until it was jammed on top of the cover plate on the heel. The second shot is the hardware I used to fix the problem. New tee nuts (inserted after driving the remains of the old ones out of the boot shell), M4 x 25 screw (shoulder screws are not ideal because the head diameter is a little smaller than the standard screw), washer to compensate for shoulder screw head diameter, and nut. Last photo shows nuts installed over tee-nuts. Because the tee nut head is recessed, the hex nuts do not conflict with the foot plate of the boot. So there's the paranoid way to deal with the problem.

...buy some longer screws (25 mm works well if you can source them) and buy some regular nuts to use as lock nuts on top of the inserts. Okay, I'm paranoid after having 3 of 4 inserts fail on my rear boot. The inserts were essentially molded-in tee-nuts. The threaded shafts of the inserts fractured away from the retention flange. At least with a lock nut on top, if the shaft fractures, the nut retains the screw. The nut also spreads the pulling load over more area of the insert reducing the probability of fracture.

Gotcha! Actually, this was no idle troll, the two turn out to have something to do with each other. Here is a story from my day on the hill. The conditions were perfect this morning and the sun was shining. It was a hero day. I was minding my own business and enjoying the carves when something pink looms up about 10' ahead as I drop into a carve. I was easily low enough to make the grab but it is always a little iffy with mitts. Couldn't look to see what it was for a minute because I was too busy carving and dodging lift towers but when the flats came up I took a closer look. It was not a ski hat as I at first assumed. It was in fact a petite pair of pink panties with quite a lot of pink lace trim and some kind of dangly gold thing on the front. Couldn't help myself. First I laughed then I held them over my head and waved them like a flag for the folks on the lift. Did I mention my wife was coming down behind me? Not cool. I received a lecture once we got to the bottom and she realized what I was holding. Okay, you're asking yourself, why is this guy making this up? What would a pair of panties be doing in the middle of a ski run? Simple answer...it was Ladies' day on Friday (ladies only event, no men at the club). It has become a kind of tradition or right of passage or some other incomprehensible female thing for the ladies to chuck undergarments from the lift into the upper branches of one of the maple trees that overhangs the run. Its only a 10' toss and the tree has about 15 new pieces of lingerie in it this year from bras to panties to camisoles. Strangely, an elastic waistband is all the remains of what must have been a jock strap from a few years ago. Lots of stuff has deteriorated to a few shreds of unidentifiable fabric. I guess this pair failed to tangle itself in the branches securely and it must have fluttered down just in front of me. So there you go, carving and lingerie do mix. Anyone scoop any other interesting stuff in low carves?

You can't go wrong with this. It just eats up the crud but has great edge hold on hard pack and ice. Because of the boardercross style tail, it only has an effective edge of about 148 mm which is about what some of the 164 boards would have. However, it feels like a much longer board because of the titanal flex pattern and dampness. Its a great board that can cover almost universal conditions. And it's Canadian made!