Any info on stretching the plastic toe caps?

[IGO2XS 0]

I just got my pair of 8EE S500's, I love them. The only thing I want to do is stretch the plastic toe cap on my left skate. Can a person boil some water and let the toe sit in the water and then stretch it somewhat? I know its a crazy idea but the side seems to bother my pinky toe. I have worked with lots of different plastics in my line of work and thought it may be possible with a shoe stretcher after the plastic was somewhat pliable, if indeed it will become pliable after boiling the toe. Any info or advice would be appreciated. Thanks, G

[IGO2XS 0]

Sorry, fogot to add, its the area where the cap and the leather are joined. G

[gee2626 0]

I know some LHS can stretch the skate for like 10 bucks. I'm not too sure about your method though.

[Keith 0]

Well, once I had an issue with a pair of skates where the plastic toecap's seam was raised a bit on the inside and was cutting into my toe so what I did was heat a butter knife on an open flame and sort of pressed it flat and it did indeed work in that application. My repair was very minor thoguh, I would be concerned if you were doing this to some large amount of plastic as you might compromise the material.

[Justin 1933 134]

Put the skate in a skate oven and then put the skate on the boot stretcher...That should help

[Benchboy 0]

or alternatively build up huge calluses on your toes like everyone else who has been skating in Missions for years.

My GF uses small foam pads she puts around her toes and it works for her. I just get over it.

Looking forward to my 10000's as apparently this problem was fixed.

[logan 0]

I had the same problem before too. I also wear 8EE Missions. Since the Mission toe cap is made from a soft thermoplastic, you can take advantage of it during the Skate Bake process.

Right after you put them on, you should press directly down on the top of the toe cap where it meets the tongue. If you need to widen the pinky area, then press more on that side. You want to "massage" it down and outwards for about a minute. Once I had to settle for a D width, and I did that to the toe cap and it resolved the pain/rubbing issue.

[IGO2XS 0]

For what its worth, I did it and it came out perfect. All I did was get a peice of wood around the size of a hockey puck cut in half. I heated up the toe and the leather area on my pinky side with a heat gun and pounded the peice of wood into the toe area. Im sure the peice of wood size will differ for each size of skate, but if anyone needs some help with stretching out some skates, I can show you how to do it easily. Heating only the pinky side up will prevent the big toe area from stretching too when doing this. I think I can stretch it more if I wanted but it made a world of difference so far. FYI. Later, G

[stevoc 0]

Here's a reply I had in a different post on the same subject:

I took a disc brake pad spreader and put it inside my boot with a small wood block and spread my toe cap out on a couple of pairs of skates I had some time ago. I'd spread it out and let the skates sit for about a week or so. (a week may be overkill, but I had more than one pair of skates, so I let these sit) Then, I'd try the fit, if it needed more, I spread them more. Just make sure that the spreader is opening the correct area where the toe cap is closet to the boot.

Worked great.

disk pad spreader

I know shops like Kragen and Grand Auto sells these, as well as most auto part stores.

You may want to heat the toe cap a bit before hand.

[IGO2XS 0]

Kind of the same principal but that looks a bit easier. Im going to get one just to work on future skates. Thanks for the idea. G