Ski Binding spring question

Sorry to beat a dead horse again, but after researching whether or not it is okay to max out your DIN, the most intelligent argument against it is that your spring becomes weak over time thus limiting the lifespan. Now I don't necessarily think it is a good idea to max out anything for an extended period of time either, so I side with those that say don't do it if you don't have to. Anyway, this got me thinking about overall maintenance of the spring itself, and if it would be a good idea to lower your DIN to the minimum during the off season to give the spring a break (regardless if you are maxing it out or not). Does anyone have thoughts about whether or not this is sound advice, or just a bit obsessive?

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...tting-Question

been there done that, but thanks I guess

I've heard both sides. Conventional wisdom was to dial down your DIN when you put summer wax on the bases. Now a lot of folks do neither. Some racer friends of mine that grew up skiing and are full-time instructors now out west were telling me this summer that they heard there's no point and that it could even do some damage to detension and retension in big increments like that. Personally, I go for the middle ground. I try not to go over about 70% of max DIN and I leave them as is for the summer.

One question you need to ask yourself is how long do you plan on keeping them anyways? I used to have friends of mine turn down free stone grinds from my shop because they were "saving their skis" for longer life. I decided to stone grind mine weekly just to see how long they'd go. The base lasted 3 full 100+ day seasons with approximately 75-100 passes over a stone, albeit a nice one. Ultimately I'm going to purge a ski by around then anyways. If bindings last 10 years regardless of maintenance, are you going to ski them longer than that?

The spring will outlast the plastic and/or aluminum on any binding by a huge factor - whether you back it off every year or not. When the AFDs have fallen off or been ground into plastic dust, that spring will still have years of life left in it. You could set it to the max every morning, and back it off to the min every night, and it would still outlast the AFD, and your boot sole, and your skis.

I do think it's a good idea to turn the DIN down to a low setting in the off season because moving parts that don't get moved tend to seize over time. But I don't think it's a big deal if you forget.

As far as release goes, I worked in an on-mountain shop with a big fleet or rentals, and we'd test the release values with a vermont calibrater (no idea why it's spelled that way). IME, the biggest factor influencing variance in lateral release was boot sole/AFD friction, not DIN setting relative to max.

Great answers.

The current wisdom for firearm magzine springs is it isn't the compression, its the amount of times the spring is cycled that wears it out. Probably slightly different for ski bindings but i bet the wear and tear from skiing exceeds that from sitting at an 11 out of 18.