The time, late 1980s. The place, shipyards of Gdansk Poland (where the Solidarity movement began that eventually liberated the country). The heavy hand of communist rule made Western European ski touring bindings difficult to acquire in Poland. Or if you could get them, bindings such as the Silvretta offerings of the time were too expensive. Solution, shipyard machinists and fabricators made about 250 surreptitious copies of the Silvretta 404, mostly by hand and assembled on kitchen tables. Binding donator D says they called it the Trawers (Traverse in English) and it used the heel clamp unit is from a Polish alpine binding named Gamma). Thanks D&W G for the binding, might be the best in the collection! Perhaps the Solidarity movement actually began with thoughts of skiing?
We’ve seen a few other apparently hand-made frame ski touring bindings over the years. Another one in our collection is the Nepal, a massive steel contraption that’s quite amusing.
At bottom of photo, Trawers hand made copy of Silvretta 404 shown at top of photo. Click photos to enlarge.
Side view in touring mode, heel lift engaged.
They only made a few hundred of these, the binding was called the Trawers with heel clamp units from an alpine binding called Gamma.
Side release is same machinery as Silvretta 404 type bindings.
Release ‘carriage’ comes out of frame, as with Silvretta 404.
Frame is latched down with the small steel tab you can see between the two circular rollers. You pull up on the nylon strap to engage or disengage the latch, which is spring loaded. There is very little provision for ski flex.
In the 1980s, skiers still wanted a return spring on the plate.
Heel lifter is basic, similar to many other solutions over the past decades.
Wing nut and spring adjusts the side release tension, no numbers, at least that’s honest as no bindings of this vintage had a release that was truly calibrated to any sort of standard.
Detail of lateral release spring. I could not figure out how the binding adjusted to large changes in boot length. Perhaps all 250 shipyard workers shared the same pair of boots? I’m told that actually, the binding was made in several lengths, with fine adjustment at the heel yoke.
See our Polish translation, thanks Sebastian!
Polish Trawers binding thumbnail.
