Feeler/Pre-Order - Cast Toe Plate

[DigSki]

Interesting idea, but I'd be looking at $600+ in mount plates for my quiver...I'll just be careful when mounting.

That said, I agree with folks suggesting to have a design that doesn't move the holes. Having a mount pattern that dodges all traditional holes would also be sweet, but I don't know how reasonable that would be. I think your plate would have to grow a lot, which would increase cost and potentially put a lower limit on the ski width. My reasoning - I have some seriously swiss cheesed skis and I don't think I could fit this mount on 1/2 my quiver (well I could, just not anywhere close to where I want the mount to be)

I do wonder if they went that route because adding the countersink for the bolt would reduce the wall thickness of the bosses too much. The CAST ones are steel, so they'd be stronger, given the same geometry.

Could add some material to the top of the boss to account for the countersink while maintaining the existing minimum wall thickness. Even more wasted material, but still, possible...

You could probably make an aluminum plate that doesn't have the bosses machined into it, but instead uses taller versions of the CAST-style steel bosses, with a snug slip fit into a bore in the plate to get the same locating effect. It'd be a few grams heavier and involve more parts, but it'd also make the machining of the plate a lot cheaper and easier.

Yeah this seems like a good solution, I'm guessing it would be much cheaper (waaaay less chipped aluminum).

[kid-kapow]

This was brought up on the newschoolers forum and was very negatively received. Claimed this is a better design and lighter.

Hey Man I feel the same way, I was just restating what was said on the other ski forum.

Honestly after reading the responses over there this guy is coming off as very arrogant and won’t take any bit of criticism. Makes me not want to buy any cascade bits for my bikes, let alone spend an extra $130 for a modification that slightly improves the other modification to my pivots, but comes with an extra set of holes having to be drilled into my skis.

hm, strange - I do not get that vibe at all from those posts.

Having differing opinions is fine. It is not more arrogant to stick to an evolved design than to "demand" that a product be update before you have even placed an order. If the current design is not your cup of tea, just do not buy it. Perhaps the next iteration of it will be - if there ever is one.

[GoldenBC]

I’m laughing that you guys think a company of any size would consider your concerns about your 3x mounted skis in their business model. Lol

[kid-kapow]

Cascade wrote this awesome synopsis of the thought process behind the current design in this thread over at NS. I think that it is awesome that the he actually takes the time to explain why they have landed on the design.

There were a LOT of things considered when making these. All those factors were balanced out as best as possible and that's what made the design what it is. As with anything, the best balance is going to be different for everyone. Since this isn't intended to big some big product line it's just a matter of whether or not the balance you want aligns with ours. If not that's fine, we won't fault you.

What it needed to solve was:
- Post alignment being super sensitive (I've mounted the same posts and screws multiple times in the same hole and had the alignment be different every time)
- Screws and posts loosening while skinning up and to the right while on edge with fat skis (yes I know this is very specific, but that's a daily thing for me). Pretty much your weight trying to twist your heel off the downhill side of the skis acts like a mini ratchet on the posts.

The things that needed to be balanced were:
- Weight
- Strength
- Stiffness
- Cost/complexity/time
- Ease of installation
- Stack height

There were a good handful of different paths that were considered. This included the design as is, screws through posts that are part of the base plate, screws through stainless posts that key into the base plate, having the whole thing made out of stainless, making it out of titanium, and making new toe pieces so that the posts could be entirely different.

Making new toe pieces:
Pretty much threw this out right away because it would consume a ton of time and the only benefit would be freeing the design from an existing mounting pattern. There might be some post configuration out there that is better and has a unique mounting pattern, but there also might not be. Doesn't seem worth the time and cost.

Making the whole thing out stainless or titanium:
HEAVY. Durability would be fantastic and it would solve everything at the expense of weight and time/cost. These are materials that are very slow to machine and not cheap either. So it would weight a lot and cost a lot/take me a lot of time to make. It's a touring set up so the main thing is it can't be that heavy.

Screws through posts that key into plate:
This was the number two solution in my head. Durability is good and weight is only marginally more. The downside is what it would cost since it's more complex. Price is largely driven off of machine time, part count, unique part count, and material cost. This would have a total of five three unique parts and nine parts total. On top of that stainless is slow to machine. The amount of time required to clear the material from around the posts in the single piece aluminum part is actually really small. The most time consuming thing by far is the pockets, but for weight to us that's worth it. Making posts out of steel would be more total machine time because the posts would take a fair bit longer to machine. On top of that the part count is almost doubled and there's a whole other unique part. Then there's the screw thing... I'll elaborate on that later. Long story short, I like the durability due to not having to worry about stainless posts wearing, but the time that would have to go into making it brings it down a step.

Screws through posts that are part of the plate:
The only thing that would necessarily be different about this compared to the current design is the position and size of the screws. As you all are aware, the mounting pattern would be exactly the same. The drawback is longer screws weigh more and aren't as stiff. For us the mounting pattern isn't a very big benefit. Keep in mind options where the mounting pattern wasn't even a standard pattern were considered. Having the mount be a stiff as possible outweighed the mounting pattern especially when you throw in the fact that it would be heavier. I know it would only be a handful of grams heavier, but the scale is already tipped. Now I know the plate underneath could get thinner, but I'll get into why that's not happening later.

Current design:
Short, stiff, screws and low weight, plus the strength is there. Where this lacks compared to the number two design is the posts are aluminum. There isn't really any slop in the interface and the leading cause of wear is usually impact related due to slop. The fact that this is lighter and simpler than the keyed in stainless post design tips things in its favor.

Now about stack height. With the plate thickness as is, the ramp angle is zero. There's nothing wrong with a level binding necessarily. No matter what the stack height at the toe is going with any of the designs. I believe a 2mm difference is something that is only noticeable on paper. I've skied a lot of bindings with different ramp angles and honestly never thought much of it. But let's say that 2mm is a number worth chasing. You then have to ask yourself, what do you have to give up for it? This brings us to stiffness of a plate.

The stiffness of a plate is proportional to the height cubed. Pockets don't have a big impact on stiffness because they are located in areas that load doesn't really go through so if you lose the pockets you don't really gain stiffness. So forgetting about those, how does the stiffness of a 5mm plate compare to a 3mm plate? The 5mm plate is 4.63 times stiffer. Yeah 463%. Not making that up you can do the math yourself if you want (5^3)/(3^3) is 4.63. Stiffness of the plate is huge when it comes to isolating the runout of the posts from any screw misalignment. Drill jigs are good, but they aren't perfect so this helps keep any screw misalignment from affecting the posts.

Now about the stiffness of a screw. The stiffness of a fastener is inversely proportional to the length of fastener that isn't threaded. The short screws are about 91.5% stiffer than the long screws through the posts and the thin steel plate. The short screws are about 200% stiffer than the screws would be in the number two design idea. Because of the stiffness thing, longer screws only feel worth it if they are to allow you to attach a more durable post to the plate. Four new holes in your ski won't affect things as much as the screw stiffness. I've skied some seriously swiss cheesed stuff and the first thing that failed were the bases and edges from tons of use, not the mount.

So there you go. If you need a different balance of things then us, I would say read through all the reasoning and use it to guide your own endeavors. Anyone who wants can go and make their own plates and we won't feel put off by it. But there isn't some disconnect because we only design a part or only use it or any of that. We do the design, programming, machining, and then actually use everything. So the design isn't disconnected from reality, it just might not be the same as your reality. This is exactly the same is with the bike links. Not everyone's trail is the same so there's never a one size fits all.

[iriponsnow]

Cascade wrote this awesome synopsis of the thought process behind the current design in this thread over at NS. I think that it is awesome that the he actually takes the time to explain why they have landed on the design.

+1

What would be cool AF would be to also offer heel plates to remove the dildo going up or use same clamps across multiple sets of skis.

[the_eleven]

+1

What would be cool AF would be to also offer heel plates to remove the dildo going up or use same clamps across multiple sets of skis.

This!

[banzai]

What sort of field testing have you carried out so far? How many days on snow etc? What are the screw dimensions?

The +1 cm mount is a blessing in disguise for me, since my beloved WR Renegades were drilled for longer BSL. I've since moved to 306BSL and I'm right at or over the limit on the pivots.

[Eluder]

Interesting, Id consider a set to play with.

Most engineers shouldn't talk to humans without council.

[paschta]

Has the added stiffness of this CNC'd toe block been compared against current CAST plate? Seems like this would add some rigidity under the toe piece. Whether this affects the ski flex in any accountable way I have no clue but seems like one thing the current CAST plate would have over this kind of toe block.

[GoldenBC]

Has the added stiffness of this CNC'd toe block been compared against current CAST plate? Seems like this would add some rigidity under the toe piece. Whether this affects the ski flex in any accountable way I have no clue but seems like one thing the current CAST plate would have over this kind of toe block.

Yeah, I really hate when there is a half inch less ski that is able to flex under my boot too.

[Eluder]

Yeah, I really hate when there is a half inch less ski that is able to flex under my boot too.

To be fair this is something people tout as an advantage of these bindings...

[east or bust]

I had the OG cast setup on a pair of soft Line skis and bent 2 sets of toe plates slightly.

I’d file this new toe plate in question under the ‘you’ll never notice a difference’ category


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[HAB]

To be fair this is something people tout as an advantage of these bindings...

Yeah, but I think any difference would mostly be from the shorter mount pattern and not having a giant heel track, not any flex happening between the front and rear toe holes.

[Eluder]

Yeah, but I think any difference would mostly be from the shorter mount pattern and not having a giant heel track, not any flex happening between the front and rear toe holes.

Its extending the mount pattern no? I agree that's it probably a non issue.

[CHAIR_97]

Can you find a way to mount a tech toe to a marker griffon demo toe? Ala Lindahl's hack but with a marker instead of a tyrolia?


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[davjr96]

Is this still being worked on/planned to be brought to market sometime?

[GoldenBC]

Maybe this thing is worthwhile. I’ve been seeing lots of issues with the screw towers. They seems to get crooked over time and cause issues.

[grinch]

I might be mistaken but i feep my inserts installed into hrlicoils are pretty solid. I should update after a bunch of days

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[TCK]

Is this still being worked on/planned to be brought to market sometime?

Yes, we are still working on these. We’re not sure if we are going to sell them, but are still testing and making tweaks to the design.

[WhetherMan]

Maybe this thing is worthwhile. I’ve been seeing lots of issues with the screw towers. They seems to get crooked over time and cause issues.

Can you say more about this? It's happening regularly? This is more concerning than initial installation issues.

[skifishbum]

This mounting pattern is the same as a pivot just moved.

Not sure why you are so worried about re using holes, as long as you don’t strip the holes the retention is exactly the same as new hole. Especially considering cast is usually mounted on a pretty beefy ski. Contrary to you I would 10/10 choose to re use holes given the chance. Skis can only accompany so many holes in them and unfortunately some of us don’t only mount new gear all the time. Also even if the holes strip you can heli coil them and it’s stronger than a traditional mount.

As far as hating on your friend, he may be a good engineer but he’s not receptive to criticism in the slightest. As someone on newschoolers brought up, in most engineering schools they teach to consider the whole process, which includes end users that in this case seem to have been completely ignored in favor of marginal engineering gains.

At the end of the day most people will still be paying some 18 year old kid making minimum wage to install these, and thats where the problems are going to arise, much like thats where the problems of a traditional cast mount happens.

in our shop the high dollar 57 y.o functional stoner does the mounting
then outskis the cast guys on a 14 din metal tech binder
at the begining ,middle,and end of the day

[m2711c]

that’s mega cool.

[westoxified]

To be fair this is something people tout as an advantage of these bindings...

and it is why the Shift skis so well. only fixed screws are right under your boot’s toe lug. shorter than a Pivot or Sth.

i do love my casts but see this as impacting the feel of the ski.

also helicoils are a great way to break skis. stronger than regular, yes. too strong for the skis construction? most of the time. it’s not super fun when the toe piece pulls off the top layer of metal and the topsheet of a ski.