CATEK Patent Expiring—Anything new?

[Lurch]

3 hours ago, neanderthal said:

Awesome!!!

What would be the downside of.directly mounting this to a snowboard instead of a plate?

Bomber advise against it and say ' do at your own risk' - I did ask Walker about it once and he gave me a logical enough answer to stop me in my tracks with that exercise; can't quite remember the exact details, but think it may be something to do with the BP lower centers not being designed to deal with the board flexing under them and possibly deforming enough to disengage the teeth and allowing the cant to turn. They are a LOT thinner.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Lurch
Happy to be corrected here - they work fine on Geckos and Bruce was ok with it.

[Wolf]

On 2/6/2021 at 12:06 AM, Johno212 said:

Hello all. 
I am a machinist located in SLC UT. 
I’ve  been riding Catek’s since the late 90’s. 
I’m thinking of reproducing the OS1’s in step in configuration only and looking to se if there’s any interest. 
I’ve reproduced all of the parts digitally and am about to start cutting a few pairs. 

Johno212 - This is great news!  I have wished I had the tools and skills to make modifications to Cateks, and you're going way beyond by making whole new bindings.  I do have a suggestion.  An annoyance with Cateks is that there is nothing to keep the toe bail on a step-in binding (or heel bail on a standard binding) from flopping down.  It's very easy to bump the bail with your boot and push it down when trying to clip in.  Then you have to reach down and pull the bail back up.  TD3 bindings have a ledge machined into the toe block to hold the bail up and perhaps that's something that you could add to your Catek "revival" bindings.  Here's a photo with the ledge circled:

Alternately, you could add/bend an extra nib on the bail itself as shown below:

The extra nib could engage somewhere on the toe block to hold the bail up.  A photo is shown below, but it's just to give an idea of what I'm talking about - there are a couple of ways that a nib could rest against some surface to limit the amount that the toe bail can rotate.  The nib sticking toward the back of the binding and coming up underneath the toe block might work well (it was harder to make an understandable picture showing that with my image editor).  And, of course, the nib can't stick up as far as in my picture or it will hit the boot sole.  But hopefully, you get the idea.

The upright position of the bail is pretty critical.  The bail has to be just high enough that you can slip the toe ledge on the boot under it when stepping in, but then when you lower your heel into the step-in receiver, the toe bail has to lift just a bit.

Once again, I applaud your efforts to revive the Cateks.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Wolf

[Johno212]

I’m thinking I would add either an aluminum feature or even a screw inserted on the side so the head acted as a stop. 
finished my toe bail bending fixtures today and I’m quite pleased. 
Updates to follow.  
I’m thinking about a slightly enlarged short plate for a single plate option. 
 

[Johno212]

Toe bails done. 
 

[rjnakata]

Here is another version of the stop that I had at one time. the hex screw makes it micro adjustable.  Not mine:

[lowrider]

On 2/9/2021 at 10:32 PM, Johno212 said:

In order to utilize the steel heel receiver from Bomber I’d need to create a spacer that provides clearance for the 2 rear canting screws. 
OR

I create a steel receiver that utilizes the Catek hole pattern and clears the canting screws

OR

I just reproduce the aluminum one. 
Thoughts?

What is the rub with the Aluminum heel anyway?

fit? I can adjust that

 

If you could inlay steel on the ramp to the pin hole you would solve the main issue with the Aluminum heel reciever

[Wolf]

On 2/9/2021 at 10:32 PM, Johno212 said:

In order to utilize the steel heel receiver from Bomber I’d need to create a spacer that provides clearance for the 2 rear canting screws. 

Yes.  I widened the slots in a TD3 heel receiver to work with Cateks, and also had to grind out clearance for those canting screws.  I do prefer the steel.  The steel pins on Intec or Fintec heels will wear a groove in aluminum receivers and round off the top of the hole that the pin engages in.  There also seems to be more friction when the aluminum galls making it less smooth as you press your heel down into the receiver.

[jl1]

On 2/9/2021 at 10:32 PM, Johno212 said:

In order to utilize the steel heel receiver from Bomber I’d need to create a spacer that provides clearance for the 2 rear canting screws. 
OR

I create a steel receiver that utilizes the Catek hole pattern and clears the canting screws

OR

I just reproduce the aluminum one. 
Thoughts?

What is the rub with the Aluminum heel anyway?

fit? I can adjust that

 

I have steel receivers on my cateks. I am not sure who made them but they appear to be drilled out for more than just cateks. I will post pictures.   

[Johno212]

Update...
 

[Jack M]

On 2/9/2021 at 6:22 PM, bigwavedave said:

The Bomber/Catek love child?

Dave, what is that thing?

[piusthedrcarve]

47 minutes ago, Jack M said:

Dave, what is that thing?

https://www.1994snowboard.com/nagano

[bigwavedave]

14 minutes ago, piusthedrcarve said:

https://www.1994snowboard.com/nagano

Thanks. I never found a website for them, just saw them advertised in Carving magazine years ago. Still not clear where one can actually purchase them. Looks to me like they've taken ideas from other products and tweaked them or combined them.

[Johno212]

[Johno212]

Catek revival project done. 
calling them Tribute Bindings  (Tenacious D ref intended )

All parts will swap onto OS1 platform. 
SS cups for adjustments screws so no dimpling issues. 
2 set screws to hold the toe bail up. 
adjustment ring with 2.5 degree increments of adjustment. 
Sphere nut replaced with Sphere bolt with Nyloc nut to prevent kingpin loosening. 

binding must be used in conjunction with the Polycarbonate plate which mounts to the board alone and prevents and corrects insert suck. 
if interested please contact me. 
Cheers. 
john
 

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Johno212

[slapos]

Hi John o

Are you planning to make a standard bail one to fit mountain slope 951?

 

 

[daveo]

10 hours ago, Johno212 said:

Hey @Johno212, just curious if you think this might be... the best binding in the world? 

[RoroSnow]

Impressive, neat and clean job....

Catek may be "old school" now, the design is still up to date (adjustability speaking), so well done mate !...

Let's see what's coming next.......always good to see passionate people pushing things ahead....!

 

[Wolf]

18 hours ago, Johno212 said:

Catek revival project done. 

That's really nice!  Is there an elastomer ring or pad under the binding, or does the polycarbonate plate give some isolation?

[Johno212]

When Catek’s first came out and were directly mounted the the board, the rubber ring provided protection from creating a pinch point as the board flexed. Metal boards required a sub plate thus marking the ring redundant IMO. The bottom of my baseplate is only flat under the mounting screw locations and is saucer shaped out to the edge of the baseplate. This plus the Polycarbonate sub plate alleviate stress risers. 

[Johno212]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:28 AM, slapos said:

Hi John o

Are you planning to make a standard bail one to fit mountain slope 951?

 

 

I need to look and see how difficult it’ll me to make a toe lever and toe and heel bails. Older Catek toe lever parts will swap but that redundant I suppose. 

On 3/20/2021 at 7:11 AM, daveo said:

Hey @Johno212, just curious if you think this might be... the best binding in the world? 

I would never make a claim like that....

For me, it gives me everything I want. 

[lowrider]

I nominate Johno 212 for the  2021  "Alpine Innovator Award"

[Mr.E]

I rode old WC for years. I don't remember direct contact- maybe the old CAT or Rhino's? I may be mistaken, but I thought the donut also provided a certain amount of compression on the system in addition to buffering the stress risers at the edge of the disc (both at the outer and inner diameter of the donut).

Curiouse if you have all of the liability and product coverage for these? 

I'd also be interested in bail versions if you go that far. I think reinforced nylon levers ala PHK would be a rad addition to these.  Pretty sure these are availabe as an OEM purchase.

 

[daveo]

10 hours ago, Johno212 said:

I would never make a claim like that....

For me, it gives me everything I want. 

Tribute reference gone begging......... Thought we had a connection, man. 

[Aracan]

On 1/7/2021 at 5:14 PM, Mord said:

The kingpin + set screw design seems to be the best way to go in terms of adjustability and rigidity.

The Phiokka H-Uno looks to be designed along similar principles.

https://www.phk-italia.com/prodotto/h1/

[teach]

Those PHK look like the Catek idea, but actually (according to the description on the PHK site) the cant/lift is achieved through a Bomber-style 3 degree disk you rotate under the sole plate.

Also a little TD1 influence with the bumpers. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by teach
Can't ignore the TD1