Couldn't get the videos to work, but here's what I'll say...

First of all, they're beautiful. I worked in a machine shop through high school and I love a good machined metal product.

However... I've never ridden a full metal chassis binding that I've actually liked. Polymers just do a better job of flexing in a natural way and absorbing chatter. Ideally, when I'm riding, I want to forget that the binding is even there. I've never ridden a metal chassis binding that even comes close to that.

 

The links are still pretty messed up but at least they're coming through now. Thanks for compliment on the looks! So the way these are designed you aren't really on the binding, you're stepping directly on the board through the silicon rubber footbed. That really dampens chatter from the board. Most binding padding is only a tenth of an inch to maybe .15" thick, whereas here you have .35". This also allows the board to flex under the binding quite a bit (the board is flexing on rubber). They're definitely on the stiff side, but because so much material is removed they do flex more than other metal bindings do.

 

I'm not anywhere near experienced enough a rider to comment on the merits or pitfalls of a "full Metal Jacket" if you will, for a SB binding,….

However, the first thing I noticed about your design was that pointed peak on the highback. Can't hep wondering if that will wind up being uncomfortable as hell digging into someones calves on heelside carves.

I've read on this forum ppl complaining about pressure on the legs from traditional, flat or rounded top bindings so,…? :dunno:

 

These Ti ones would have a bit of padding on the inside, so the boot wouldn't contact the tip. Although I suppose with enough forward lean it could come close. If it's an issue I'll round it off.

 

couple things i notice:

-I dont understand how the padding(we are standing on the board not the binding?) concept works. If you are say ~200lbs standing on eva or whatever that foam is, you are gonna sandwich it down and be standing on the baseplate. Maybe I'm missing something.

-no tabs on the disc? they are smooth and simply held in place from pressure? "because they are machined they dont need locking tabs" from an alien who doesnt understand your lowtech earth physics, this seems sketchy as hell

-most of the other metal baseplates on the market offer a considerable amount of size adjustment that your unibody wont allow (i'm all for unibody, fwiw, but sizing becomes real strict)

-i'm with Lgorge on metal vs plastic in general

 

-The padding isn't EVA foam, it's Silicon Rubber, it's soft and with a finger you can push it down if you poke hard, but with the boot distributing pressure of your weight it doesn't compress much.

- Haha that's correct! The rubber is very "sticky". Your legs will 100% break before that binding rotated. I know it seems sketchy, but it would take awhile to work out the math for how much rotary force it would take to overcome the coefficient of friction of rubber (high, think tires) based on the applied downforce and contact patch. I just like saying your legs would break first because they would. If you want the numbers I can work them out though

- Not much to say here. I love unibody too, but you do sacrifice some sizing. I'll have at least three sizes, maybe 4.

- So I just have to make it feel more like plastic? I'll think about this. If the main reason you guys are liking plastic more is greater flex, I can simply decrease wall thickness until more flex is achieved. The run fea and destructive testing to make sure they aren't going to fatigue. This would reduce weight as well...

 

The design is beautiful and you should definitely stick with machined instead of colored to start for that distinctive look. I know function comes first but honestly all snowboarders love to flash a bit lol. The pointy tip of the high back definitely looks questionable though so maybe it could be blunted or rounded down to look a little less Sauron-esque.

As for the ride we can talk and talk but no one will know until it gets ridden. Hope you have a decent marketing budget set aside and maybe some pro endorsement money. What price point are you looking to come in at? I'm guessing your target demographic isn't exactly the high school parkrat working as a liftie.

Kudos for bringing something fresh to the scene regardless. If nothing else it looks like an awesome snowboard medal to give out at a big tournament or something lol.

 

Glad you feel that way! I don't really want to color them off the break because I love the look just for that (distinctive). But I know some people will want colors and who am I to deny them. Hahaha Sauron-esque??? Maybe I'll engrave the eye right at the top just for you. Lol thanks for that though, I needed a good laugh this morning. I'll round it off more on the next rev.

I'm looking around 500 ish. I'm not sure how much board stores mark up products, but depending on the markup it might be a little more than this.

Haha I could gold plate them for a trophy! Thanks man.

 

They look very nice and well thought. I have full metal/aluminum chassis bindings...Sparks tesla afterburners...which I like and have put on eva foam for some give and comfort...worked great...they are light, solid and responsive.

I am interested in your SK but like others have noted my concerns are:

pointy highback...might need some padding on the top

heel cup adjustability for sizing/boot centering

I think the silicone base pad is a nice idea...hopefully it is durable...and it ought to take care of sklinger's concerns of locking in the disc.

edit: forgot to mention...as for ratchets...seems like they often are the thing that eventually go bad...so perhaps stay with Burton ratchets because they are so far the best and easily replaced and sourced.

As for canting...its nice at 3 degrees...but 6 of my 8 rigs are not canted...so its not a deal breaker.

I would gladly be a beta victim for ya here in the Holyland

If you get this up and going...come up and do a demo tent at LBS

 

I'll round that off. Got carried off with making it look like saurons tower apparently haha.

Heel cup adjustability will be a no go as a monopiece unfortunately. I'll overcome this by offering three or four sizes for a better fit.

Silicone should be very durable, the stuff I have on order is uv resistant, abrasion resistant, and looks way better than the oomoo I was using. You're right on the locking disk part, no way it's rotating.

I don't think Burton would let me sell their ratchets. Also, they should be way more durable coming from billet. I'll see how hard it is to improve their design durability wise.

Cant will be at least 3 degrees, you think at 5 degrees people will start complain about it being too much?

Thanks for the offer! I'll keep you in mind. Should have a round of prototypes done before the end of the season for testers. Of course it's too late in the season to launch to market this year.

 

FYI on the links, the YouTube button is just there to confuse people. If you just put the entire URL of the YouTube video in the post it will work fine.

As for the bindings, they look sweet. I think raw metal and subtle anodizing could both be super cool.

A few thoughts: first, I don't know what the patents are related to the Flux honeycomb strap or Burtons hammock straps but those are easily the two best straps on the market. They are just so much better than any padded straps out there.

Second, I don't know what whether Burton trademarks board names, but given that they have a board called the skeleton key they may want to have a word with you about calling your bindings the same name. I'm not an IP attorney, but you would be smart to sort it out now rather than deal with it once you have an established business.

Third, I personally strongly prefer a toe-cap type strap. I think it helps ensure that the boot is slightly pulled back into the binding and it secures the boot without simply putting pressure on the toebox.

Fourth, as I'm sure you have personally experienced, ratchet performance is critical. I have definitely rejected bindings because the ratchets sucked. All the other tech in the world doesn't matter if you struggle to get them on and off.

I can't comment on metal frame bindings because I have not ridden any. I don't think I'm so sensitive to binding stiffness that I can tell subtle differences, but in sure we can all feel large differences. As long as your design permits some flex in the frame-strap-boot system I would think you'll be fine.

As for cant - yes. Many people say they don't notice much difference, but I've never heard anyone say they actively don't want cant.

Ti v. carbon - Ti sounds cooler. At this point it kind of seems like that is partly what you are going for.

Edit: I would like to not have the strict 3* notches (EST is great in that regard) but you will need a good angle indicator if you don't have specific notches.

 

I haven't ridden the flux honeycomb, I'll look into those. Thanks for the heads up!

Hmm, I do love that name already. I'll look into it, I've done a lot of patent stuff but never Tm. You got a new name for them?

Thanks for the input on the toe strap.

They're pretty stiff now, but I like riding stiff bindings. I might drop the thickness down to flex them up a bit more.

Good to know about cant, you think 5 degrees is too much though?

Personally I think Ti sounds cooler too. Definitely the goal here. Don't get me wrong they have to perform, but cool factor is important as well.

Yeah I forgot engrave in the angle indicators, they'll be on the next rev for sure!

 

Those do look sweet. Did ride a pair of aluminium bindings around the 2000's some Bent Metals they were the most stiff and uncomfortable bindings ever, they were however super light and very responsive. I do like a stiff binding but maybe they were too stiff.
The built in canting seems like a pretty good idea.
I have big feet and I want to have both gas pedals and a raised base to get my feet as far from the snow as possible so I don't boot out during carves. Your bindings look like they would be to low for me. I'd happily demo a pair for you tho.

Good luck. Seems like a pretty well thought out binding but maybe too niche.

 

I picked up flow nx2-gt's this season to see what all the step in rage is about and hated them so much I decided to make my own bindings. Ironic because they were my first metal binding and I did hate them. These feel nothing like those, but yeah I'm definitely getting the consensus feeling that you guys want a flexible binding so I'll play around with thickness.

You're right, they're very low. That's pretty big on the market right now, kind of a low profile fad, so I'm going to play along. Maybe I could offer spacer to people who wanted them? They would be easy to make.

I'll tag you for demo candidates.

 

Is there any forward lean adjustment? Didn't see it mentioned.

 

Forward lean is going to be controlled by a threaded screw pointing up through the lowback (on the build video it's the last feature I put in). It will be finger adjustable with a little locking nut to lock the adjusting screw.

 

I'm probably too dumb to be commenting on this thread. Some of that stuff looks like nasa shit. Anyhow, my main concerns with bindings is that they be comfortable, durable, and easy entry/exit. The ratchets have to be good, they must release easily and tighten quickly. The also need to be durable, I'm stepping all over my bindings when I'm skating and they take a beating in lift line etc. I didn't see any picks of ratchets so maybe you haven't got there yet but that is most important to me. I also don't like any pinching from binding straps or highbacks. It's gotta be comfortable.

I agree with linvillegorge that a metal binding won't flex as well as a plastic binding. I never worry about the chassis breaking anyhow, in my experience the straps and ratchets will break or wear-out long before a chassis breaks. My $0.02

 

Haha nasa shit, I'll take that as a compliment. You're right, I haven't got to ratchets yet. They'll be precision machined from billet aluminum, and that usually lends itself to a long lasting product. I'll just copy whatever the best on the market is now and change it up a bit. Looking into what I'm going to do with the straps too.

You're right that they don't flex as much as plastic at given thickness, but if I reduce the wall thickness they will (think aluminum foil, keep reducing wall thickness and you lose stiffness).

I've broken plenty of straps myself and never a chassis. Titanium ratchets? (Kidding, that would be absurdly expensive.)

 

There is a lot of potential here.

I bet you could drum up some good business from the softboot carver/boardcross community (i.e. the Bomberonline crowd) by offering customizable bindings. I mean, you can shape the highbacks however you want, so if a guy wants a pair he's going to ride at +35/+20 or something, you can allign the highbacks perfectly with their heel edge while canting the baseplates to their specs (some may want a flat front with a 5 degree cant on the rear, some may want canting to the fore or aft, etc.). You can even build them with different heights to eliminate the need for riser plates. You could just have a small bit protrude a cm to 1 1/2 cms below the baseplate to mount to the board with longer-than-standard hardware, then encapsulate the whole thing in silicone. It could be damp as fuck while letting the board flex. If you wanted to make it even more trick, you could use multiple durometers to blend dampening and response (say, hard through most of the block, but softer at the top and bottom to dampen vibrations more, or something like that...you sound a lot smarter than me, so you could probably come up with something cool).

I would run this by those guys, as I bet they would have a lot of thoughts. I also bet you could charge a shit-ton of money for them. People pay $400-500 just for nice riser plates (i.e. Apex Gecko plates).

 

Damn, that was a great post. I'll look into this. I'll check out Bomberonline. Definitely some good ideas going on there

 

Btw that was my first thought regarding the name as well, that Big B might cause a stink.

What about Skeleton Armor since it's light but strong? Or Exo-Skeleton, Skeleton Suit, Bone Collector, Bone Crusher, Skeleton Shell, or you could go for some play off the original Greek form skeletos. This is fun lol.

 

Skeletos FTW!

Skeletos is pretty dope! Haha it flows well too. (deep voice announcer) "Introducing the sinister snowboarding skeletos binding!"

 

Skeletos FTW!

 

About the flex thing, perhaps you could design some sort of spring like mechanism or something along the lines of the NOW skate tech where users could use rubber with different durometer to customize their flex. If they could flex more side to side (or nose to tail) but stay stiff edge to edge you'd open up way more market share for the freestyle and all mountain crowd. Being super stiff it's more for freeriding and BC. I don't really know how you could incorporate that without creating a weak point tho. I guess you kind of have that free style thing covered with the no high back option, but still it's kind of another full circle weird trend in my eyes.

Personally I'd love a super stiff binding that was comfortable. I'm not much for park or tricks just charging hard and looking for pow.

If your running with the low base trend maybe look into the bindings of the mid 90's where baseless was the trend of the day.

You mentioned using clips like ski boots for the straps? I still have a bad taste in my mouth from using those pre ratchet days. There is a good reason they died out.

Any real pics with the highback attached?
I kind of miss the old Burton skybacks, super high high back and those winged high backs they used to make. Maybe even a third strap or bungee kind of strap to get the lower calves super locked into the binding for the ultimate in response.

 

I could definitely offer different durometer footbeds. Since the binding sits on top of the rubber that has a big influence on the feel, as you're not really standing on aluminum at all. I could do something crazy like make the contact patch only a few inches wide on the bottom of the binding. The 4x2 bolt pattern on boards is only 2" wide. That would really allow the board to flex freely side to side, but you'd still have the 10" long contact toe to heel for responsiveness (So a 2"x10" board to binding contact). I'll play around with the idea and model it up this weekend. I know maximizing board flex is all the rage in bindings now.

I'll check out baseless bindings, that's pre when I started boarding (prob '2000)

Yeah, I took a few days to model those clips in. They were actually from a jetpack project I was working on (you can see the video on my other youtube videos). But I figured everyone would hate them. Oh well, nothing lost.

The highbacks aren't back from bending yet. Those sheet metal guys are unbearably slow, they've had my material for almost three weeks. It's like a 4 hour job to laser and bend those. It's funny you say bungee style highback strap because my original idea for the Tiback was to have the boot not contact the ti, but to suspend a sort of hammock like net of elastic material for your boot to sit into. It would dampen responsiveness a bit but give great support and chatter suppression. From an R&D standpoint though that would be a lot of work and my core competency isn't in elastics so it might be expensive to prototype (I can't make elastic bands). I could deff do a super high highback though! It just seems to me like your boot usually doesn't contact the top of the highback unless you have a lot of forward lean set into it.

 

doesn't silicone suck for vibration absorption?

 

Silicon rubber is very similar to rubber, and superior in many aspects. Rubber comes to mind as an excellent material for vibration absorption (tires, shock stops, machining dampeners). I'm not sure why you would think otherwise. Am I missing something?

 

I have questions. And much feedback. I also probably have more valuable experience than anyone else. I'll give you quick things here and there, but if you're serious about making this a real product I will sell you genuine R&D/consulting time.


Couple quick ones. Those straps are off Burton Freestyles. Go get better straps. Metal highback is a bad idea unless you are solely aiming for BX racers with these. Don't do Carbon either unless you can get a unidirectional layup. Canting in the frame should be limited to 1.5 deg max. I would do 1 if you really want it in the frame. Let the footed do the rest. I have more comments on canting, frame shape, mounting, dampening, marketing, target market...

If you're interested pm me and we'll talk.

 

Well you do have 8,000 posts! I'll pm you tonight.

Haha I pirated those directly off my Burton Freestyles, so you're on point already! They're only for testing, I didn't want to destroy my nice Flows quite yet. I can go unidirectional prepreg if I need to, curious as to why you would want that level of rigidity as you're compromising flex and that would make for a more crack prone workpiece. I suppose we'll talk tonight

 

I have no conceptual feedback to provide, but if you are interested in understanding how they will work for a completely average snowboarder I would be happy to volunteer to give them a spin and let you know.

 

I have one idea that just occurred to me, but this may not be a problem for most riders. So, most people may not want this.

It has to do with toe caps, which are way better IMO than toe straps. I always get the rear foot toe buckle dragging in the snow, due to the angle of the board on toeside turns. I have a positive angle (about +15) on the rear foot, so this puts the rear foot toe buckle right in the snow on toeside turns. The dragging grabs the ratchet lever and rips it backwards, thus breaking the spring that keeps it closed.

Anyway, if the ladder strap was mounted on the toe cap instead of to the baseplate and the buckle was on the baseplate instead of the cap, then it (the buckle) would not be exposed to this dragging. The strap would be pointing towards the heel along the outside of the boot/binding, and dragging and the associated breaking, of this buckle would no longer occur.

As far as canting, I have ridden the old Sims bindings (where Burton's ratchets were a huge improvement over Sim's bails, BTW) back in the 90's where the canting wedge they used was just a footbed and also the old Burton aluminum cant plate where the binding itself screwed into the canting block (and the canting block screwed into the board). I agree that footbed canting is not the way to go. The nice thing about the binding itself being canted is the the highback's long axis and your leg stay aligned together, where with a footbed, the highback still points straight up, but the leg leaves the binding at an angle. It's nice the keep the highback aligned with the leg to the greatest extent possible. (this admittedly is probably not an issue with the mild angles that have been recommended here).

Also, IMO, you cant just do a one dimensional cant if you have steeper angles. The cant should angle your leg along the long axis of the board and not simply perpendicular to the long axis of the baseplate. This is why the Burton cant wedges were great. You could mount the binding on the wedge and it would lift the heel slightly (for back foot if riding + angles) and raise the toe of the front binding to align the canting along the axis of the board. This puts you in a powerful and balanced position for carving- kind of like Craig Kelly style.

This is hard to visualize without pictures, but to use an extreme case as an example imagine this:

you have baseplates with 45 degrees of canting (ridiculous, I know). They work if you run zero angles on both bindings. But as you rotate the bindings forward (for freeride or BX styles) the ergonomics of this canting are all messed up, especially for the knees & hips.

Anyway, this is only a niche within a niche, so most people probably would not care....

 

always get the rear foot toe buckle dragging in the snow, due to the angle of the board on toeside turns. I have a positive angle (about +15) on the rear foot, so this puts the rear foot toe buckle right in the snow on toeside turns. The dragging grabs the ratchet lever and rips it backwards, thus breaking the spring that keeps it closed.

A Burton step-in customer if there ever was one. >

Why don't you, positive angled dinosaur, don't just reverse your back foot straps altogether so your buckle is on the inside?

 

My preference would be a stiff ass binding...but then being able to dampen it with the silicone duro stuff. I think there is a distinction to be made between stiff vs damp vs flex....And unless a person has ridden a really stiff metal binding like sparks and perhaps bent metal...they may not aware or able to notice the difference. I've had a flexier pair of Drake Reloads which were the warrantied replacement for the Drake Limited with the broken tang...Rode them like 2 days and it felt like there was a real dis-connect, latency and whimpy support when charging and subsequently got rid of them pronto.

Riser blocks...I wouldn't go any bigger than the footprint of the binding due to the potential of changing the designed flex pattern of the board. The old Palmer Plates were quite abit bigger than the footprint...but there is an argument that the bigger than binding footprint will add edge support/stiffness to the board.

In my above diy high density plastic risers I just used a sharpie to outline the binding footprint and cut it out with a band saw. I would even argue to make the riser abit smaller than the footprint but yet supportive of the binding...somewhat looking like a pedestal that undercuts the binding...so as to reduce weight. Anyway the risers are good for small hoofed folks to get a better edge angle...and for oversized folks to deal with/prevent boot out and/or having to go to a wide board.

Yes, your wrap around highback looks like what I was thinking and the ability to add a ski-boot like power strap...just got to make sure there is clearance for boa knobs.

Thanks, I'm damm excited for ya...very cool project.

 

I was torture testing them today on gun barrel at Heavenly all day. They're responsive as hell, I've got to get a more rigid board to assess hard charging abilities though. My shank was never meant for that, and even though I'll hit some wild shit like kellabrew and the wall at Kirkwood with it, it wasn't designed for it. I have a cabin in South Lake next weekend so I'll probably pick up a few demo boards to get a better feel.

I'm going to sideline riser block discussion for now. It's something people want and that I'll do, but I don't want to split R&D time with it while there's still snow on the mountain. I'll address that in the spring when I can't be on the mountain to test these bindings, and get a few different designs modeled up.

It's funny you mention the clearance for boa knobs, because that's part of the reason I shelved that design. I kind of just went off on a tangent for the night making highbacks that looked nasty. I always ride boa systems on my boots so I'll certainly be taking it into considerations.

Thank you! I am too, it's nice to be designing something I can just go and test. All the aero and submersible stuff I'm usually assigned to has a crazy long design cycle, and although you can quantify the results with measurements, it's way more fun to test something by strapping it to your feet.

 

Interested.

 

At what point is the search for the best stiff bindings really just a distraction from the more important search, namely that for the best stiff boots?

 

When you don't already have the boots that's when.

 

OP, you mentioned reverse engineering. I'd strongly suggest getting your hands on some Flux ratchets as well as the Burtons. They're like butter.... and good, bulletproof ratchets has been the most stated want/need in this thread. I know you said you're machining them from a single billet, but there is springs, washers/bushings, teeth angles, and other stuff to consider. I suspect (don't KNOW) that tolerances could be made too tight for ratchets where they become "sticky".

 

That's the plan, I'm going to hit up my local board shop and get replacement sets for both of those and go from there. I'm also interested in when the tolerances get too tight. The ones I pirated off my burton freestyles are an abomination that should've never made it to shelves. I'll try giving 0.005" clearance on the widths of the mechanisms and maybe 0.002" on the pin bores. I wouldn't be afraid to go to 0.002" on the slot widths too, but I'm wondering if that'll make them vulnerable to snow jamming the mechanism. Guess I'll use the other brands as a starting point. Usually sloppy tolerances are a result of a lack of confidence of the manufacturing processes more than a purposely engineered element. Since that's not a concern of mine I'll see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Any time I hear reverse engineer or look at this or that product it just screams possible patent infringement.

I would never just copy a design and call it my own, but small tweaks here and there is how industries evolve. Even this binding design has the same basic elements of the other options on the market. I'm hoping to be a little lighter, ride a little better, be a little shinier, and of course a lot better made. I don't think there's been anything patentable in the area of ratchets for a long time, it's a really old well developed technology. Not saying it can't be improved, but getting/enforcing a patent on something as mundane as tooth engagement angle or the spacing of the mechanism would be very difficult.

 

Any time I hear reverse engineer or look at this or that product it just screams possible patent infringement.

 

Very interested, this sounds like a good matchup for my new Donek carving board. OP let me know if you need someone to test on a hard charging setup, I run some stiff ass flux SF bindings now so I would be very interested how a metal base will react.

 

Woah, those look like some wild boards! Which one do you have?