Dynafit/Ski equipment failure question

Ask Jason H if you can link to his picture of you crossing the finish line - it's classic!

yeah saw that - turned out more awesome looking than I felt!

Out of curiosity ( plus lack of any chance to tour soon) I just checked the tightness on my Comfort/Shuksan setup. I only have about 5 days of touring/in bounds skiing on them, maybe 20 or 30 1000' vert runs on them. Mostly groomers.   I was able to tighten 4 of the 10 toe screws a bit. They were loose. I've stripped enough screws in my life to "feel" the correct tension. I usually mount my own but these were shop mounted. I noticed that the shop did not drill out the redundant threads in the plastic toe plate. This can cause a false reading in tightening down the screw. I also noted that there did not seem to have been any epoxy used.  There is a whole lot of conjecture, and guessing in this TGR thread.  

www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.p...h-dynafit-toe-pieces

My feeling is that a ripped out toe piece is the result of a loose mount caused by an incorrectly mounted binding ( as mine were) or a cracked plastic mounting plate. A tight binding won't just jump off the ski. Now I'll remount mine. Correctly.

The fact that epoxy and wood is still clinging to some of the screws pretty much rules out the lack of suitable glue in alpenho's case.

There can be quite a difference in thread contact between holes that are properly threaded and those that are just run in with the screws; if you don't countersink the topsheet plastic it can "volcano" up and raise the binding up off the topsheet thereby reducing the depth of threads in the holes; if the tech mistakenly thinks there is a metal sheet in the ski and uses a 4.1mm bit it can reduce thread contact, if some dude in Shenzhen who's never seen snow uses a bit less fiberglass in the mount area of a ski it might reduce pullout strength substantially . . .

Lou Dawson is big on drilling out the baseplate for Comforts/ST's, as the tight fit can prevent screws from threading correctly, but it seems to have worked out for alpenho - otherwise he'd probably still be combing the hill for all his toepiece parts.

Lots of discussion about Dynafit toes rip outs on TGR. IMV, it's usually a ski core failure and/or results from loose screws (in the ski, not in the skier's head )

IME mounting Dynafit toes on K2's, I've encountered many soft spots that I helicoiled. Indeed, my (grunge) AP toes are 100% helicoiled.

if you re-used these bindings from a pervious mount, did you clean the threads of the screws out? they have a way of filling up with epoxy/glue and damaging the threads in the new mount.

were you re-using holes on the Baker super-lights? If they were open for a while, water and other crap can get in and soften the old threads even if they feel solid.

anyway, just my two thoughts.

Ever think of attaching your leash to the heel instead of the toe.   Back in the day before brakes on alpine skis all leashes were attached to the rear binding  and is what I've done with my dynafits as I tried the front way but it always interferred with the lock in mode for touring.   
I'll most likely get a lot of shyte for this but it just seems more common sense-like.

Good observation.
When I used the BnD ski leashes on my dynafits , I attached them to the heel unit via the horz hole in the riser( verticals).Like you I was worried about interference with the toe locking mechanism. I found this worked out really well and kept the ski leashes at the back and outta sight and proved to be no problem with ski pole insertion for turning. Seemed a stronger place to join leash to ski IMHO.
But as you say ...not common.