Sizing issues for Fritschi brakes

I'm putting together a second setup and had some questions about the sizing issues around the Fritschi brakes.<br><br>1. One of the skis I am looking at is 88mm at waist. The Standard size of the Fritschi brakes say they fit 86mm. Can the arms be bent out ever so slightly? Or would trying to bend them at all be either impossible or a bad idea because you'd wreck the temper?<br><br>2. The official word on the sizing is : Medium: Fits skis up to 86 mm at waist . But the brakes themselves won't be at the true waist on a mounted Fritschi; they'll be the length of your foot back from chord-center, approx., depending on your jig or how you adjust placement for your skiing style. Has anyone ever gotten burned by trying to fit the standard brake on a ski that was nominally 85 or 86 waist but where the taper out towards the tail made the ski too wide for their standard brake? Or similar tale of woe with mounting the Large brake on some truly fat skis 100mm at waist?

Me - I'd bend 'em. I've bent a bunch of 'em.<br>Just don't grab ahold of the lower arm and reef on it and break something else. put the angle above the braking arm in a vise (preferably with soft jaw covers) and tighten it so as to carefully increase that angle a bit. Should work just fine.<br>If it doesn't you can talk to Charles about buying you some new brakes ;D<br>He guarantees all advice given on this site.... (uh, I think )

I'm with Ron. Just bend 'em. I have standard brakes on 184 R:EX's, 84mm at the waist. The place where the brake arms actually clear the ski edges is 85.17mm, and there is about 2mm of space on each side (I bent them a little without using a vice). You can also gain a little room (maybe 2mm on each side) by grinding down the black plastic where it flares out on the inside of the brake arms.