Tired of inserts...

[bfree]

I'm done, fuck swapping bindings. 20 minutes per swap gets old after awhile, but this did me in. The dynafits were on the summer touring sticks for months and tonight I went to swap them back to the pow skis for tomorrow's harvest. 6 spun inserts, including 4 on one toepiece. When unscrewing the bindings, the inserts came right up due to some combination of the 242 loctite seizing and the epoxy bond on the inserts loosening. After some cussing and sparks flying from the vice grips, I wrestled the machine screws (still clean and good) out of the inserts and remounted. Fuck that, I'm hard mounting from now on. Time to buy more dynafits. Things are like crack...

End rant. This isn't a knock on Jon's products. The concept is great, it's just not worth the troubles to me.

[Chugachjed]

I had that happen. Only one insert though, probably didn't get your epoxy mixed just right.

[toast2266]

Are people actually having troubles with the machine screws rattling out? I've always just used a dab of grease on them, mostly to prevent corrosion. Never had one come lose, and never had an issue with the inserts unscrewing with the machine screw.

(not meaning to imply that the loctite was the definite cause of this...)

[Chugachjed]

I've had my dynafits come loose without loctite, it's pretty shitty.

[icelanticskier]

dynafiddlers love to fiddle.........

rog

[Lindahl]

I don't use loctite either. Just retighten them every other outing if necessary and keep a tiny hex driver in my repair kit (never needed it).

[rot]

Are people actually having troubles with the machine screws rattling out? I've always just used a dab of grease on them, mostly to prevent corrosion. Never had one come lose, and never had an issue with the inserts unscrewing with the machine screw.

(not meaning to imply that the loctite was the definite cause of this...)

Toast knows what's up.

With proper torque (tight but don't reef down on them) and a bit of grease or anti-seize to keep corrosion under control, you shouldn't have any problems. Once in a while give them a tweak to make sure nothing's loose and you're golden.

Last season I swapped from Dukes to Dynafits and back plenty of times and had zero problems. Weird that those inserts came out completely clean, like they didn't bond to the epoxy at all. Dirty inserts or mis-mixed epoxy is my guess, although in fairness I suppose shit happens sometimes.

[1000-oaks]

Installation issue.

1. Inserts need to be soaked in a bowl of gasoline or some kind of no-residue solvent and allowed to dry fully prior to installation. (To remove all traces of cutting oil, so epoxy can adhere.)

2. It's a good idea to blow wood dust from tapping out of holes prior to swabbing epoxy into holes. Swab epoxy twice about a minute or two apart, some of the epoxy from the first swabbing often soaks into the wood core.

2. If threadlocker is desired, use nothing but Vibra-tite VC-3, which a soft material and is designed to be used multiple times. Do not use Loc-Tite, which is more like a weak superglue (hard yet brittle when enough torque is applied) that can be loosened with heat (like epoxy).

[1000-oaks]

There shouldn't be corrosion between stainless screws and stainless inserts, but galling (metals tearing between the two surfaces, locking the two parts together) can happen with stainless if the tolerances are tight or some grit gets between the threads and starts tearing things up. (Anti-seize is normally used between stainless fasteners in industrial applications.) The threads are pretty loose in these inserts though, and galling hasn't been an issue.

[Olaf Metal]

Does anyone know the torque specs for the M5 screws to inserts?

[GeezerSteve]

1. Inserts need to be soaked in a bowl of gasoline or some kind of no-residue solvent and allowed to dry fully prior to installation. (To remove all traces of cutting oil, so epoxy can adhere.)

1 part Dawn dish detergent + 5 parts water is a good degreaser.

1000-oaks nails it. The issue here is the ski core/insert bond. Sometimes that bond aint great no matter what you do. All of Jondrums' products I've seen are very well designed and well made, but ski cores are what they are. All my BF insert installations have held up but as I've mentioned on other threads I usually use ski helicoils, which have held fast in every core in which I've installed them.

[jono]

Gasoline? Same concept, but rubbing alcohol has always been adequate for me as a final cleaner: get it clean enough that you don't see anything on it, dry off whatever cleaning agent you used and then dip in rubbing alcohol (or rub with a soaked q-tip) to remove residue and let it dry without touching it. Works on anything.

Second on the Vibra-Tite. No sense using medium strength thread locker on threads you plan to take out regularly.

[Sessiøn]

I'm tired of ski's i want in gear swap being full of insets. There is a difference between 1 mount, and 1 mount with inserts IMO.

[dewam]

When I use machine screws, I dab a little paint/marker on the screw after it is tightened in the 12 o'clock position. That way I know if any have loosened and need a re-torque.

[XXX-er]

I wouldn't use gasoline or alcohol, I do everything in my kitchen and I use acetone for degreasing & cleanup of slowset or aqua seal

Must have been an installation prob, I expect to need to use heat getting epoxied screws out of skis

anybody try plumbers tape for thread locker??

I have used a piece of plastic baggy as thread lock some where in the past

[DropCliffsNotBombs]

As mentioned above, it's best to wash the cutting fluid off of the inserts before installing with some sort of grease cutter.
Also, make sure that you blow out all of the remaining sawdust/debris left over after tapping. Make sure that you "wet-out" the entire hole with epoxy too. Use slow set epoxy and let the inserts sit overnight before screwing binding on. Vibra-tite or grease is best for the machine threads in my experience.
It IS possible to ruin a pair of skis by installing inserts...

[Lindahl]

There shouldn't be corrosion between stainless screws and stainless inserts, but galling (metals tearing between the two surfaces, locking the two parts together) can happen with stainless if the tolerances are tight or some grit gets between the threads and starts tearing things up. (Anti-seize is normally used between stainless fasteners in industrial applications.) The threads are pretty loose in these inserts though, and galling hasn't been an issue.

My experience too. I also just use dish detergent mixed in a tuperware of water for cleaning. Swirl it around some then let it soak for an hour, then rinse, then dry on some paper towels near a heat vent.

[Lindahl]

When I use machine screws, I dab a little paint/marker on the screw after it is tightened in the 12 o'clock position. That way I know if any have loosened and need a re-torque.

Cool tip. I like.

[pfluffenmeister]

^^^ agreed.

i also like the tip of applying thin CA (cyanoacralate?) glue after tapping to wood cored skis.

[bfree]

I did clean them before with isopropyl. I used to be in the composites business, so I'd like to think I know what I'm doing with that stuff. They've had 2 years of hard use and at least 10 swaps, so I'm surprised that this just happened now. I'm starting to blame the loctite, as I did use a bit more than in the past due to previous loosening issues. Maybe the ticket is no loctite plus this idea below as a good visual reminder of when to re-torque:

When I use machine screws, I dab a little paint/marker on the screw after it is tightened in the 12 o'clock position. That way I know if any have loosened and need a re-torque.

Cool idea indeed.

^^^ agreed.

i also like the tip of applying thin CA (cyanoacralate?) glue after tapping to wood cored skis.

Instead of epoxy? That stuff is brittle and doesn't tend to bond that well, I can't imagine it would be any better.

I would also wager that this could be solved by reverse threading the inserts so that they are self-tightening when removing screws. Anyway, too much hassle for me. More dynafits...

[Moeghoul]

you guys are doing it all wrong.

[userA]

where does he put the beer and weed?
b

[Moeghoul]

where does he put the beer and weed?
b

the face mask is concealing the tubes to his mouth, 1 for a beverage, 1 for the vape. The tubes lead out of the room where they can be refilled by an assistant without fear of contamination. The picture above is the epoxy mixing to avoid epoxy eating bacteria. Can never be too safe.

[Vinman]

I've also had inserts screw out due to failure if the epoxy bond. I use a lot if epoxy and I know that it was mixed and cured correctly. My thought is that there is some kind of residue/contamination on the stainless steel preventing the epoxy from bonding.

To me this is a design flaw. The end user should not have to treat the surface prior to installing.

I won't use inserts on any ski that I own anymore due to this.

[bfree]

The end user should not have to treat the surface prior to installing.

Agreed on this. Degrease before shipping and charge me a few cents more per insert. I've seen blown up high-res macros of the inserts before and they looked nice and rough, but perhaps not enough.