Fitting Bindings Yourself

Fitting with a template will never be as accurate as fitting with a jig. I understand your situation though and sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

To answer your first question, the 95mm brake will definitely be a squeeze to fit onto a ski with that waist, but not impossible. There will just be a whole lot of brake bending involved once you've done the mount, and there's no guarantee that you will be able to get it to fit anywhere close to perfectly.

As for your second question, the toe piece shouldn't really be any harder to position/mount than any other binding. You will need to be super careful with the heelpiece though for a variety of reasons, the primary ones being:
1. The screw pattern on Pivot heel pieces put the holes extremely close together, closer than any other binding on the market. Because of this, if you aren't 100% accurate from side to when drilling the holes you will notice a much bigger difference than on any other binding.
2. The Pivots have very little room for forward pressure adjustment. If you don't get the fore/aft placement right, then there's a good chance there won't be enough play in the forward pressure adjustment to fit it to your boot properly
3. If the heelpiece accidentally pops up while you are trying to mount, it is totally capable of breaking bones if you catch your hand or finger in it. It has definitely happened before.
4. The narrower brakes mean that you'll have to hold them up by hand when you're trying to drill the heelpiece into the ski. This just makes it a bit harder and increases the risk of getting a hand or finger caught and broken

It's not impossible, but if you are gonna go ahead with it I would definitely suggest that you are fully confident in the process before you put any holes in the ski. Also make sure you have the correct drill bit, you'll need one specific to mounting skis as it is a completely different shape than a normal drill bit. Armada makes one that works for all bindings/skis so that would be a good one to buy if you don't already own one.


I know that the UK doesn't have much skiing, so if you're planning on traveling somewhere else to ski I would just bring the skis and bindings with you and have a shop at the mountain do it the night before your first ski day. With the right tools and practice it's a pretty quick and easy job. Your call though, good luck!

1. 95mm brakes will fit, don't worry.
2. pivots are easy to mount if you stay calm and take your time.
3. i have mounted pivot 14's with a paper template twice and it went well both times.
here's a video to help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJpU7ANw2Bk

Thank you for your replies guys. I really appreciate the thorough response. I think I'm going to buckle and have a store fit them for me. My brother is driving to Austria next month so i will get the resort to fit them for me then.

Think I will try fitting binding on old skis first. No point in taking risks

k3ndall.gFitting with a template will never be as accurate as fitting with a jig. I understand your situation though and sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Have you ever used a jig? You can certainly be more accurate with a template as long as you are detail oriented. You also don't need a specialized drill bit to drill skis, just a 3.6 mm (or a 9/64 if a fraction of a mm smaller doesn't scare you) bit or a 4.1 mm bit depending on your ski's construction. Then you just mark your depth with tape.

Whereabouts are you in the U.K.? I’ve got pivots on 2 skis and got them mounted in Nottingham and Norwich if you live near either of those places? Also if you bought the pivots from a shop they’ll probably offer free / discounted mounting (if you got them separately, the place you bought the ski from may also offer this but just check to see if they have a pivot jig first)

Late update,
I went to Finches Emporium in London and had the bindings fitted for £50.

Didnt feel great about fitting them myself without any experience .

Many Thanks Guys