Mount Kingpin on Radical Drilled Ski — Hole Overlap Adjustment

Editor’s Note. The question is being asked, Obewhanskinoobie will attempt a few minutes outside his hermit cave to answer “How does a Kingpin ski touring binding hole pattern match up with standard Dynafit Radical drilled ski?” Today, at the hour of 9:00 Nepalese time, Obe will meet with those acolytes who can bring him small quantities of dates and tree nuts to break his two year fast during which he lived on snowballs alone. A free coupon for knee replacement surgery will be accepted in lieu of the tree nuts. The full lotus position is hard on knees. He should have been doing more ski touring. In any case, Obewhanski will now reveal: what’s the overlap?

Here is the deal. This ski has a standard Dynafit Radical jig mount marked with yellow dots. If you wanted to swap on a Kingpin, you don’t have to worry about heel position as Kingpin has enough forward-back adjustment in the heel to compensate a few millimeters and avoid any overlap. As you can see in the image, avoiding overlap with the new Kingpin toe holes will require moving your boot position back about 5 mm; our suggested Kingpin mount that avoids hole overlap. (The rear dots are for illustration and got shifted a bit off layout when I was creating this graphic; the front ones are spot on.)

To avoid mental dissonance, know that what’s discussed here is a backcountry ski that is previously DRILLED WITH A STANDARD DYNAFIT RADICAL JIG MOUNT COMPARED at the toe with a STANDARD KINGPIN MOUNT. In other words, we are swapping a Kingpin onto the ski.

What’s obvious is that simply doing a Kingpin jig drill on a ski that’s been jig mounted with Radical will result in unacceptable overlap at the front pair of holes. Simply moving the Kingpin toe mount back about 5 millimeters takes care of the problem. Very few backcountry skiers will notice a change in boot position of 5 mm aft. (Competent ski mechanics working on planks with exceptionally strong binding reinforcement plates could actually do this binding swap with no change in jig-drill positions, but doing so would require a careful fill of the front holes, and possibly the use of binding inserts. Better to simply move back 5 mm. In either case, fill old holes with something stronger than simple plastic plugs.)

For the record, Marker Kingpin ski touring binding, mounted.

(Regarding this same type of swap only with Kingpin on ski that’s been drilled for Radical 2.0, it’s more difficult to avoid overlap of front holes and thus not recommended. With ski drilled for Dynafit Beast, you may be able to place Kingpin toe in standard jig position without holes being too close together, but for more confidence figure you’ll move the Kingpin toe back 2 or 3 millimeters. With either swap, again, the Kingpin forward-back heel adjustment can be used to move the heel mount position as desired, just remember you’ll need to move the jig to line up with the heel unit hole position you want. Oh, and what about the now discontinued but ever popular Dynafit Vertical ST/FT? Dynafit Vertical ST/FT toe hole pattern will not overlap Kingpin toe hole pattern given you located boot position same with either binding. Again, heel mount position can easily be adjusted forward-back in most cases.)

7 Responses to “Mount Kingpin on Radical Drilled Ski — Hole Overlap Adjustment”

1. Lou Dawson 2 September 25th, 2015 9:33 am

   By the way, I heard that the real reason Obewhanski came out of his cave is that climate change affected his snowball food supply. Sad, but at least we got his attention to the earth shattering issue of mounting a Kingpin on a ski previously drilled for Radical 1. Lou

2. Gary September 29th, 2015 1:36 pm

   Good information. Have you taken a look at how the Radical 2.0 will overlap with the radical 1.0?

3. Lou Dawson 2 September 29th, 2015 3:06 pm

   Gary, no overlap with Radical 2.0 vs 1.0, for the best spacing of new holes from old the 2.0 toe might be best mounted about 2 mm forward from “standard” position. Easy to figure out if you slap a jig or template on the ski that has the 1.0 holes. Since heel has lots of forward-back adjustment, in most cases zero issue for the heel unit holes.

   Templates are here:

   https://www.wildsnow.com/16524/do-it-yourself-mount-dynafit-tech-ski-bindings/

   Lou

4. Chaz July 2nd, 2016 7:21 pm

   Hi Lou
   I’m sure this has probably been answered before but I can’t find the answer anywhere. I am hoping to swop out my Barons for Kingpin 10’s. On Coombacks.
   How is the overlap situation in this case? Is there an advice page for this or can you answer? Many thanks.
   Chaz

5. Lou Dawson 2 July 3rd, 2016 6:58 am

   Pretty simple. Download our template. Pull off your Barons. Place template on ski in prefered location, and check for overlap. Chances are you can adjust things so you can install the Kingpins. The Kingpin heel is no issue as it can be moved forward and back a bit since it’s independent of the toe. Only do this if your Coombacks are more recent vintage as some of the older ones lacked binding reinforcement. Epoxy and take care with screw torque.

   You could also search around for a Baron template if you don’t want to pull your bindings, though comparing templates gets complicated because you won’t be 100% sure where the boot is actually located on the ski.

   https://www.wildsnow.com/18190/how-to-mount-marker-kingpin-ski-touring-binding/

   Thanks for this comment, BTW, as it reminds me that while I have a bunch of Kingpin content, I never added a Kingpin index/FAQ to our redesigned menus. Good project for a summer day. Meanwhile, we do have a Marker index page, not totally complete but it’s there, and I added it to the nav menu above.

   https://www.wildsnow.com/bindings/marker-f10-f12-duke-faq-baron/

   Lou

6. Chaz July 11th, 2016 7:43 am

   Much obliged Lou. Thanks for a great answer. The Coombacks are 2013. I’m guessing that’s vintage enough (i.e. no binding reinforcement).

7. Lou Dawson 2 July 11th, 2016 9:07 am

   Chaz, I would recommend not messing around trying to mount more bindings on a 2013 Coomback. In fact, I’d back out a few existing screws and make sure they are epoxied/sealed and snugly tightened (though be super careful of stripping when replacing). If you discover screws come out too easily (not epoxied or loose), renew all. Lou