Widening brakes?

[Turtle]

How easy do the bake arms bend?
How easy do they snap?
I'd like to bend some arms out, but to do so, I'd need to completely bend them straight out and start a fresh bend 5mm out(on each side).
Do they need to be heated first?
Do they need to be removed from the bindings even if I don't heat them, just to bend them easier?

[Paul Oberin]

They bend easy, be careful you can break the plastic around the arms if you do it wrong, no heat required, i do them while fitted to the skis.
Of course only a qualified ski tech should be doing such things.

[ 24.06.2008, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: Paul Oberin ]

[Turtle]

Can I bend them straight and start again?
I was going to just slide a small pipe over them for leverage and accuracy to get the job done.
Paul, I sent you an E-Mail, no reply as yet.

[Paul Oberin]

Haven't seen any email yet, my home computer may have picked it up before the shop one got it.

[Paul Oberin]

I really can't be seen to be advising you to do work on your own bindings, however yes a shop could bend them straight and start from fresh, but I have never bothered the end result looks very similar and works the same.

[Silence]

Depends on the bindings and depends on what width you are trying to go from/to.

More info?

[JakeK-T]

heating will melt the crap out of the plastic. and depending on how you cool them it could weaken the metal... but they're brakes... they don't really have to do much.

i would say cold with a pipe like you said would be your best bet, provided you didn't need them looking as good as new

[Silence]

honestly if you are bending 5mm for each side, i wouldn't bother straightening/rebending..

Sure if you are going from an 80mm brake to 110mm ski width then thats a good method, but for 80 to 90, i'd just crank them out.

Some bindings are easier to remove the brake assembly which makes it easy to bend and not put torque on other parts of the binding, (assuming you have a vice)..also some brakes are more brittle and prone to snapping than others, so depending on the binding, more or less care should be given. At the end of the day, slowly is a word that comes to mind

[JakeK-T]

or if you're not in a hurry, take them to a metal worker with a 6 pack and an explanation on what you want and you should get a pretty professional job

[Paul Oberin]

How did they go, did you get them made wider. ?

[John Deere]

Originally posted by JakeK-T:
or if you're not in a hurry, take them to a metal worker with a 6 pack and an explanation on what you want and you should get a pretty professional job might be cheaper to just get wide brakes!

[Sandy]

Originally posted by John Deere:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JakeK-T:
or if you're not in a hurry, take them to a metal worker with a 6 pack and an explanation on what you want and you should get a pretty professional job might be cheaper to just get wide brakes! </font>[/QUOTE]So how much do wide brakes cost? e.g. Salomon, Marker, Look, etc?
Woudn't be so cheap I imagine.

[Paul Oberin]

They used to be about $65 - $70 when they were sold as an optional extra, now they are standard on quite a few bindings.

[Sandy]

So more like 90-100mm as standard these days?

[Paul Oberin]

Yes, I fitted a set of 4FRNT bindings today, they came with the brakes wide enough for the MSP skis.

[Silence]

Salomon is easy to get, Look/Rossi can be found, but last year they ran out quickly - I've found that around $50 for a widebrake is normally the sort of money you will pay