No news, waiting for parts before I can proceed. 😕

The cutouts were not cut in a sharp angle, but have a small radius because that is an area where it could fail. The pucks are also bolted down off course, and they don’t really bend either.

I’m not that worried about the underside of the puck where it meets the flanges. It seems pretty strong, but we won’t find out untill we ride it hard for some time.

If I would have made the pucks out of solid steel, would you think that is strong enough?
Good carbon fibre is very strong. A lot of people think it is like aluminium, but it’s not. It’s actualy stiffer AND stronger than steel. It’s just not very good at handling impacts, like hitting it with a hammer or something but I don’t see that happening when it’s locked into place and my foot is on it..

Been a while since the last update. The bad news is that I still didn’t get my pins for the LT brackets, so I couldn’t get the touring mode done before my trip.
I ordered them from http://www.splitboards.eu but after months of waiting and sending mails they finally let me know they won’t be getting the pins untill next season. This sucks.

I’m now thinking of not bothering to get the pins at all and build a system similar to the new Sparks that have a fixed pin in the brackets.

But I did finish everything else and took my board on trip. We chased the snow for 4 days in Switzerland and I think this was a really good test for the board in ride mode at least. I rode everything from pow to ice, and only used the splitboard.

Nothing broke, the carbon interface is easily strong enough. The board still feels light, and I don’t notice any difference at all as a result of splitting it. I expected it to be less stiff and not hold an edge on ice or carve as well as before, but I don’t notice it at all. This is a board i’ve been riding for 2 seasons, so I know what it felt like before splitting.

It did feel a little slower on flats, probably because of the epoxied t-nuts and the cut in the middle. But I was still faster than my buddies on Salomon sickstick’s, probably because I wax my board very well before every trip.

The bindings are very stiff and responsive and are positively stuck solid to the baord by the pucks/disks, no flex there at all. They felt more responsive than my Cartels.

I should have some pictures of the trip next week.

I’ve thought about it, but since i’m in Europe there isn’t much point in shipping pucks to splitboarders in the US. It will be too expensive. But I would not mind if a lot of splitboarders could benefit from this, I still think this the cheapest lightweight solution.

My idea was to give the CAD drawings to Rughty, so he can have some sets made. This makes more sense to me because he already has a neat solution for mounting the bindings to the touring bracket. He’s also much better at machining stuff in general. We also compared some prices for waterjet cutting and that seems a lot cheaper in the USA as well.

Here’s a pic of the split in action:

I thought I post this because it shows some vacuumbag stuff, and in case anybody ever needs to make a carbon part. Small parts are tricky to get right, but hopefully this will be good when it gets out of the vacuumbag.

Here’s the two parts I made earlier with the Spark brass inserts to minimize wear. I glued a small carbon strip on it to get the angles right, and left the pin in. The “pin” is a rod from a kite, that was the only material I could get in the correct size here, I will make pins from aluminium with the help of a friend lathe later.

Cleaned and scuffed the binding and made some kerfs so it bonds better.

During layup, triax carbon folded under and over the binding and around the pin. Another layer will cover the top. You can see it goes up to the sides of the binding as well, so I can screw it to the sides with the screw that holds the strap normally. No extra screws planned, lightweight.

The pin stays in there during curing to keep it straight.

The vacuumbag still open on one side. You always want a much larger bag than the part or it will pull folds everywhere and twist the part.

Vacuumpump turned on. You can see the epoxy bleed into the cloth, the vacuum presses all the extra resin out to make it strong and light. I use a claening cloth for this (yellow) but you can also use toilet paper 😆

The trick to vacuumbaggin is getting everything airtight. I used a suction pad from a satnav to fix the vacuum hose to the bag, you can buy special connectors for this but this works great. The pump turns on every half hour, my pump leaks a bit so I put a small valve in the hose to prevent the bag from losing vacuum.

Now I have to wait 8 hours and pray that the part turned out good.

@George: I’m in the Netherlands…

Looks like like the plan worked, it’s not the best looking thing in the world but I will put some eva foam over it anyway for damping.

I’m pretty sure it will be strong enough though, it doesn’t bend or move at all.

The original Ride RX binding I started with weighed 824grams. Now it’s down to 811grams including the new carbon toepiece and everything! So that’s lighter than both Spark and Voile Lightrail.

The whole board should only be a little heavier than a solid board in fact, about 200 grams or less than half a pound including screws and everything.

Yes layers under the base, but only under the metal tab you see sticking out. This is raised a few mm. from the deck of the board so there was enough space to put a few layers of carbon under it.

And yes everything stayed perfectly in line, I take my sweet @$$ time making stuff but when finished it does actually work….

[youtube:3avu2lqg]ZLuBpxNIKXE [/youtube:3avu2lqg]

A Mr. Chomp fits under the binding without issues too.

Only the pins left to make next week, and the last snow is melting as we speak…. :banghead:

I could use some more feedback on that as I have no other splitboard to compare it with. This is my first splitboard so i’m guessing a lot of stuff.

How far would a factory splitbinding rotate in touring mode? I still have some room for adjustment in the binding, my heelcup is in the most forward position right now.