Customising the Salomon FSK Deemax ankle strap

by Steve Davidson (BigSteev)

This is a step by step guide to replacing the Velcro ankle strap on Salomon FSK skates with a ratchet type one.

Why? Good question. Personally I find that it holds the ankle in place better and a ratchet strap tends to be more durable. I have seen several people who’s Velcro straps have broken or become heavily worn through contact with the ground.

What do you need? Obviously a pair of FSKs and replacement straps (I used ones from a pair of Razor cuffs), Allen keys, screwdrivers, a drill with 5mm bit, a craft knife and a needle working tool used for unpicking stitches (not sure if this has a technical term)

Step one – remove the existing straps.

First unscrew the Allen bolt that hold the liner in place and remove the liner. Unlacing the skate will also help with access to the area you need to work on.

The Allen bolt that hold the liner in is located above the ‘S’ in the ‘FSK’ logo.

Next, use the needle working tool (as shown in the picture) to undo the stitches which hold the strap to the boot.

Clear up the remaining bits of thread.

I found it useful to use the removed strap to increase leverage on the ‘loop’ side when unpicking it.

Step Two – Fitting the ratchet strap

The strap and mounting hardware:

The next part is probably the most critical as you need to ensure that the position where the strap is mounted means the strap can function correctly i.e so that you can get to the release mechanism and so that the strap can fasten easily. I tried to ensure the strap was in the same place as the one it replaced and used the slot as shown in the photo to hold the strap in place temporarily while I lined up the the other side.

Fortunately, this position turned out to be perfect, as you can see with the clip closed.

Meanwhile on the other side of the boot, I thought that it would be a neat touch if the excess strap could slide back into the boot, so tried to mount the clip accordingly.

As luck would have it, there is an existing mark which turned out to be the perfect position to drill the mounting hole. I used a 5mm bit for this.

After drilling it’s a good idea to use a craft knife to clear up any ‘flash’ around the drilled hole.  After mounting the clip, the strap could be done up and the position of the second hole on the buckle side could be determined and drilled using the buckle as a template.

Once the buckle and the clip are mounted there is a little bit of tidying up to do.

The picture shows that there is too much excess strap coming back into the boot. I used a craft knife to remove about 7 notches from it.

Final Result

Once everything is mounted and tightened, and the excess strap removed, it’s time to refit the liner and check out the finished product.

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