How to Mount Telemark Bindings to Skis
The process detailed below was part of remounting a pair of Rossi 9X 183cm GS race skis I bought to participate in the masters races this year against the alpine racers, except I'll be telemarking (hopefully I might manage to beat one or two). Before I started work on this article I sold the alpine bindings and I had a two pairs of skis with holes in them ready to be remounted (a pair of SL skis as well). I recommend Tognar for workshop supplies throughout this article due to the excellent service and prices they have offered me. Telemark Phat does not receive any advertising revenue from Tognar.
Step 1: Plug Holes
Go to your nearest ski shop or Tognar and get some plugs. There are other methods out there to plug skis, like mixing epoxy with saw dust or using golf tees, but plugs are so cheap it's foolish not to use them. I use ski glue like every professional workshop in the world, you can epoxy the holes but I think it is a waste of time and effort as I have never pulled a binding from a ski (however I have sheared the screws). I get my glue from Tognar as well.
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Fill the old binding holes with ski glue and put a plug in each hole. Hammer in each plug until it can be sunk no further into the ski.
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Use a hammer and chisel to chisel the little bit of the plug sticking out from the ski off. Be careful, it is easy to remove a lot of topsheet if you are too aggressive with the chisel. Once you are done the surface of the ski should be nice and smooth. Your ski is now ready to be mounted with bindings.
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Step 2: Mark out the ski's centre line
I've described two methods in this step. The paper method is nice and fast, but I find it to be up to 1mm out on occasion, so I check the centre line using a square ruler.
Lay some masking tape down the length of the ski, so your marks are easily removed. Also you can remove the tape and start again if you make a big error. Wrap a sheet of paper around the ski, creasing it where it wraps around the edges of the ski. Make a couple of little marks on the ski and the paper so you can realign the paper easily. Fold the paper in half so the two crease marks meet, the new fold mark will be the centre line of the ski.
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Put the paper back on the ski, using the little marks you made earlier to make sure you are putting the paper back on the ski in the same place. Mark out the centre crease of the paper onto the ski. Check this mark with a square ruler; make sure the distance from the centre mark is the same to both edges. For this pair of skis I had one mark 1mm out and another 0.5mm out.
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Repeat the process until you have at least three centre line marks on each ski covering the length of the ski the bindings will occupy. Use a ruler to rule out a centre line on the ski using the centre line marks as a guide.
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