Non-fitting 3-pin question

[EmileHendrix]

Recently I've bought my first pair of 3-pin bindings (shown in the image below...). They come as an unused reserve-pair from an avid pair of cross-country skiers who bought them 15+ years ago and never used them. Being a telemark skier interested in some longer cross-country tours in the next winter or two, I saw a cheap chance...

(Quickly mounted to a piece of firewood to try with my new fischer bcx 875 shoes and gaiters...)

Unfortunately, the boots cannot properly be placed in the binding without using a lot of force. And once they are in place, the binding cannot be closed. Inspection of the binding shows that the rotating (silver-coloured) part of the binding is 'bent' and the corners/turns show a small mark/indentation. Weirdly enough, it appears that this was done 'in the factory'. I've now got a few questions about these bindings:

- It's a '75 mm nordic norm' binding, but my '75 mm nordic norm' boot doesn't fit. Am I doing something wrong by opening the rotating part as much as possible and moving the boot forward as much as possible to get the pin's fixed?
- Is there something wrong with the binding?
- Can this be solved with a new 75 mm binding (for example Voile heavy duty or Rottefella super telemark?), or is this boot's duckbill/toe(?) too big for other bindings as well?

As a total newbie in the 3-pin field, any help/fresh idea is welcome!

[Bri7]

Plastic telemark boots usually have a duckbill thickness around 19mm. Leather boots (my alico and merrell) can be thinner by one mm or two. Some exception can be found (Johnny's boot are pretty thin). Cross country boots are way thinner than telemark...

A rottafella supertelemark will povide 3 adjustements from 19mm to 12mm. I have not meured the gap on the voile, but my guess is that the adjustment is somewhere form 19mm to 14-15mm. Not sure of the thickness of your boot, but its looks like a 19mm form the picture.

Hope it helps.

[EmileHendrix]

Thanks for the help @Bri7
The boots measure up to 20 [mm] whereas the bindings give either 12 or 16 [mm] if I measured it correctly...
I guess I'll bring the boot's along the next time I go binding-shopping, another valuable internet-shopping lesson

[MikeK]

You can surely buy bindings on the internet.

The Rotte ST or Voile HD Mountaineer will fit those boots, I'm sure of it.

There is a slight issue on the other end with the Voile bindings in that they will barely clamp a thin bill like on the Alpina Alaska 75mm, but my wife has had no issue with the T4s she demo'd in Rotte STs or her Excursions in Voile bindings.