Canting (Not rotating) your bindings

[thager]

 

 

 

Those of you that know me personally know I am very bowlegged. So much so that I can run my fist between my knees without touching when my feet placed tightly together. Over the years this has caused me many performance issues, the worst of which is offside tail kick out. Basically, at an extreme body angle my right rear leg digs into the water and ejects the ski! The shorter the line the worse it got! Eventually I learned to moderate this by better technique, skiing wider tailed skis, rotating my right rear binding, using deeper than normal fin settings and even trying to wrap my knees together. Most of these moves achieved some limited success but I found some of these methods to be ridiculous, uncomfortable, and/or performance limiting at the least, and medically debilitating at worst. As a result of the induced hip pain I now run my bindings dead center front and back. Being a former snow skier and in search of a remedy, I started messing with canting.

 

Canting a waterski binding is relatively easy thing to do. Initially, I just used plastic washers stacked up with slightly longer screws under the binding plate. I tried one side, then the other. I tried canting the front boot only, both boots, and back boot only on each side. I even tried canting both boots on opposite sides. For me, the best performance increases came from canting the front boot only on my offside. Both boots canted on my offside worked, forced my rear knee inward but also but caused me hip pain. Presently I am running 1/4 inch cant on my offside front boot. I plan on increasing that by 1/8 inch this spring to see if it helps.

 

 

Mess around with canting. If it helps, keep it. If not discard it.

 

 

 

 

 

[thager]

 

[jimbrake]

@thager - I do that, too, but not to that extreme. If I don't cant my front (left) knee a little to the left (washers under the right side of the front binding), then any ski I try is heavy on the right edge. The effect is the ski turns too hard to the right and not hard enough to the left. That sounds like I'm knock-knee'd but I'm not. Weird. I just need my left knee to be slightly left of the center of the ski for the ski to be "balanced" left and right. If I was a little more obsessed I'd make a series of angled plastic shims to insert under the front plate - like fractions of degrees to figure out which angle is best.

[teammalibu]

Here's to swimmin with bowlegged women, come on down and hang with the retired bunch and try some of your mad science!

[dchristman]

One might say you are wont to cant.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

I always thought LFF skiers were a little strange. Now you are proving it.

[thager]

@jimbrake It has improved my offside turn keeping the tip down and keeps my right leg from dragging in the water by reducing the bank angle required I think. Works exactly opposite of what I thought logically. My style is not as asymmetrically violent now.

 

@teammalibu I plan to! I do weird science because I am cheap!

@Bruce_Butterfield Many have known that for years! Ask MS!

[S1Pitts]

I have been canting my front binding since 2008 because i broke my ankle and it healed crooked. Cannot put pressure on the inside of my foot otherwise.

Absolutely proves us LFF skiers are weird but we solve our problems any way we can.

[DW]

RFF and I cant the front:-)

[ALPJr]

I moved to double HO 95’s (1994) and then Animals(~2002) after a number of ankle sprains and a broken medial malleolus. What worked for me was lifting the front heal by mounting the back of the Animal front plate on top of the front of the rear plate. Lifted the front heal about 3/8”. After the Animals wore out I moved to 2017 double Vapors and they seem to have enough forward cant to suffice. Yes the Animals lasted 15 seasons.

[Jody_Seal]

@thager

I like the MOB plate for these needs. For years it was hard for me to get enough wedge as well as cant in my boots/binding.

I can now insert a wedge / cant plate between the boot and the release plate.

 

 

 

[thager]

Nice! Good to see that others are using canting as part of their tuning tool bag. I know that @OTF at Micro-just was working on some prototype cant wedges.

[Horton]

To be clear Jody has some extreme orthopedic issues.

 

I do not recommend any of this sort of thing unless you are bio-mechanically a very hot mess.

[ProStah_Skiah]

@Jody_Seal where did you find the angled material that you used to make your wedge?

[Jody_Seal]

@ProStah_Skiah

The material is a plastic canted and angled on a belt sander.

I would have disagree with Mr Horton in his assessment of these concepts. Cleaner and more reliable outcome vs sticking beauty washers under one side of the boot plate.

The radar boot platform has potential for all kinds of secondary wedge or cant between either a standard boot plate or a release style like a MOB.

I actually belive wedging is one area of binding /boot to ski technology that has been overlooked or just not explored..

 

 

[RGilmore]

Canting with wedges is a well established science in the snow-skiing industry, and it works for ME just as well under my Vapor boots. Rather than being relegated to just "very hot messes", boot canting with wedges is universally respected among those who understand it (snow skiers).

 

As always, just IMO.

[thager]

I plan to fabricate a permanent full plate HDPE wedge cant once I find my final cant settings. Until then my plastic washers are cheap, effective, and easily changeable. Don't really care what it looks like in the short term. Cant keep up with the Jones anyway!

[DW]

@thager - it will be interesting to get your feedback on the washers v wedge. 6 point loads v plate load (ski flex effect). I was thinking of a plastic strip as an option, leaving the center open.

[thager]

@DW Good point! That had crossed my mind. Thinner HDPE has some flex but it would be easy enough to put kerfs and/or drill holes to honeycomb the interior to make it more flexible before I grind the angle. If I were to 3D print it that would be cheaper also.

[skialex]

@thager now I want to cant too, but I was thinking of three angled stripes as @DW said. I have a 3d printer on the way… until then I’ll try something simple, like washers or something. Thanks for the idea!

[RGilmore]

@thager @skialex

If you live anywhere near a place where snow skiing is popular, take your Vapor boots to the best ski shop you can find. They'll have a device you can stand on with your boots on both feet that will determine the exact wedge angle you need for each leg. If you're an ORT user, take that along, but wear a thin sock with it, out of consideration for the ski tech's delicate sensibilities.

[thager]

@RGilmore Thx for the suggestion. I do have a friend in the snow ski business that could do it if I asked. However, I learn more if I do it on my own. I love to tinker! This project has been going on for a couple years already. Last year I increased the cant by 1/8 inch and saw about a 3-4 buoy increase in performance over previous practice PB. My leg is now centered in the front boot where it is supposed to be. I am going to increase it another 1/8" this spring just to see if it helps or hurts over a period of time.

[lpskier]

@RGilmore The canting machine works great in snow ski boots, but you don’t stand on your water ski with your feet next to one another like you do when you snow ski. When I get custom orthotics for my water ski, I get them molded with my left foot in front of my right, like on my slalom. When you do so (at least when I do so), I feel more pressure on the outside of my feet, and therefore I need more support under my arch on my water ski than in my snow ski boots. I suspect you would get similar dissimilar results on the canting machine if it was set up to test your balance with one foot in front of the other as opposed to side by side. Since the snow ski boot canting machine is not set up to work that way, I wouldn’t trust it’s results/recommendations for my slalom ski set up. That said, I am not opposed to the general proposition of canting; I just don’t think using the canting machine gives you good water ski information.

[Jody_Seal]

@thager

A few things I figured out with washers under one side is that it fatigued the mounting plate at the screw holes and allowed for excessive flex in the foot bed.

Went through a couple binding plates in less then 2 years as they cracked around the screw holes.

 

Years ago I rode fogman system. I had our machinest at correct craft mill a canted wedge to go under the front boot. Worked great.

 

[Than_Bogan]

Fwiw, Jamie Beauchesne basically told me that canting was mandatory for genuine hard shells, and he had a whole system with strings taped to the knee and checking the angle of the hanging string vs. certain body parts.

I've forgotten the details because I determined I was more of a soft boot guy.

[teammalibu]

When I built wedge plates for a couple guys I would double side tape the nylon wedge to my adjustable angle base plate on the mill and fly cut the wedge to suit!

[thager]

@teammalibu I could do a lot of neat stuff if I had your $ and equipment!!

 

[ALPJr]

@Than_Bogan yes I remember a how to article or video that Jamie did on that.

[The_MS]

Check out the washer thread from a few years back.

[RGilmore]

@lpskier

I disagree. In my experience very few people have identical cant requirements for each foot, and the only way to determine that accurately is to get independent values for each. At a very minimum, the cant-measuring machine offers a good baseline place to start. In the end, some experimentation on the water will be necessary in any case.

 

Also, I think you misunderstand how canting works on a water ski. In that regard, you concerns about the cant-measuring machine being different from water skiing is spot on, because with snow skiing your canting effort is designed to make each of your two skis flat under your individual bowed legs. With a water ski, your goal is the opposite - you want to force each of your knees to be aligned over the ski, thereby closing the natural gap between them. So, if you are right foot forward (and bowlegged) you want the thicker edge of the wedge on the right edge of the ski, not under your arch.

 

Remember the OP's concern about his rear knee dragging in the water on his offside turn? If you place a wedge the way you're describing it you're simply forcing Thager's back knee deeper into the water (on his offside). Instead, you want the wedge to force his knee inward toward the ski's center-line. I know it's counter-intuitive, and you'll probably accuse me of being crazy, but before you do, read this:

 

https://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/15667/canting-my-bindings-on-the-ski-helped-me-overcome-years-of-problems/p1

[thager]

@RGilmore Thanks for that link! That started my on and off tinkering with canting. Knew it was there but could never find it.

[EFW]

https://www.tognar.com/ski-binding-cant-strip/?sku=CCO%20CS15&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8_qRBhCXARIsAE2AtRajrEi03N9-CD5WXKosPgttCdECPx10DrMUC3yXTa5MmBIepvmvnH0aAiDiEALw_wcB

[RGilmore]

@thager

YW

[thager]

@EFW Thx, great info! Or for $2.46 I can get a package of 12 composite door shims which work very well also. I had some Starboard lying around so I ground my own 1/4" under boot cants on my belt sanding table

[Jody_Seal]

I had to rebuild my set up this week. Took a few photos of the parts that go into this.

[swbca]

Years ago Jobe used to make cants. Wish I had them now for experimenting. I am not sure that individual spacers at each screw don't put leveraged shear forces on the inserts when the ski flexes.

[DW]

@swbca - If you install the slider spacers ala old HO bindings that should eliminate any longitudinal shear forces. They allow the front / back portion of the plate to slide in the slots.

[RGilmore]

@swbca

My boots are Radar Vapors, mounted on a sequence plate. The cants are between the boot and the binding plate. So, for my cants, I drilled the holes perpendicular to the wedge surface that contacts the binding plate, then temporarily attached them (in the proper location) to the bottom of each boot with carpet tape. Upon doing that, I felt I could use the wedge as a template to guide the drill bit for drilling through the sole of the boots.

 

I did this, of course, thinking (like you) that new boot "nut" locations would be necessary to avoid an angular conflict, but that turned out to not be necessary. There was enough "play" between the plate holes and the threaded boot inserts to allow the bolts to run in the same location with minimal angular load. Apparently, what looked like a massive thickness change on the thicker side was irrelevant to the plate and boot.

[DW]

A thought - instead of screws on the elevated side, use studs. The spacer can be a nut that locks the stud to the ski insert, drop a washer or aluminum strip on top then the binding plate lays on that.

[Jody_Seal]

Using a strip of sea deck under my plastic wedge that sits inside radar shell under liner.