Quickest way to break in Skates

[devilsrule711 0]

i know that i work in a pro shop

can i do the wet sock technique to help break them in a little?

[JR Boucicaut 3765]

Listen, no need to get all snooty with me. If you work in a proshop (and I know which one) then why the hell are you asking these questions? Shouldn't you know them?

[devilsrule711 0]

Listen, no need to get all snooty with me. If you work in a proshop (and I know which one) then why the hell are you asking these questions? Shouldn't you know them?

no disrespect at all JR

its just that we never tell people to wear wet sock

i was never told in my training about using wet socks

please, will it effect the skate negatively if i do so?

Sorry if the post came off snooty, no offense intended

[JR Boucicaut 3765]

Yes, I've been doing that for years with skates, ONE90 included.

Take your socks and put them in hot water. Wring them out slightly, then put them on and lace up the skate. Keep them on for 15 min. Then repeat. When done, pull out insoles and dry boots.

Now when you sell skates, you can give this info to customers. It's also good for kids when you are giving them skates that are a bit big for growth. Use that in lieu of baking.

[devilsrule711 0]

Thanks JR

I'll remember that for when im selling skates next time

but would i still tell them to use the wet sock if the skate they are buying is a bakeable skate ie Vapor XXX?

[JR Boucicaut 3765]

If you fit a kid for a skate that is a bit too big, baking will only make it bigger.

So wait til they fit to size, then bake. They'll get more life out of the skate.

[devilsrule711 0]

i see thanks again

[MLSman 22]

With regard to the One90:

From a pure Chemistry perspective, there can be an issue with baking....even if done following NBH instructions to a tee.

I personally think baking has something to do with the instances of outsole separation on the heel of the skate. NBH uses epoxy (as well as a series of staples) to attach the outsole to the boot. Now at 180 + degrees in the oven, you are reaching a point where the epoxy starts to lose its adhesive properties. Combine that with the rubber on the bottom of the heel (rubber and EPP do NOT make a good surface for epoxy), and things really start to add up. Combine that with the pull of the blade holder on the outsole (and in some cases add improper mounting), and you can see that in the case of the One90, baking may reduce the durability of a boot.

Now before people start flaming....this is just an educated OPINION. Manufacturers in EVERY industry use the ignorance of a sales force to do things that may not necessarily be beneficial to the customer. Take for example my profession in IT. How many people at Worst buy or Circuit Shitty really know the technical reasons why one choice of laptop is better than another....other than the stupid info card next to the price?

The elimination of negative space IS an accurate way scientifically to make a boot more responsive. However, good old fashioned break-in with such a boot should provide this...baking only makes it happen right away. It is a give and take, and I personally prefer durability to immediate break-in. Break-in to me is a right of passage to new skates, and with all the new lightweight materials, god ol' fashioned break-in time has reduced significantly.

[Dante2004 0]

Listen, no need to get all snooty with me.  If you work in a proshop (and I know which one) then why the hell are you asking these questions?  Shouldn't you know them?

no disrespect at all JR

its just that we never tell people to wear wet sock

i was never told in my training about using wet socks

please, will it effect the skate negatively if i do so?

Sorry if the post came off snooty, no offense intended

How would this negatively effect the skate? It is no different than sweating in them when you play...

[Dante2004 0]

With regard to the One90:

From a pure Chemistry perspective, there can be an issue with baking....even if done following NBH instructions to a tee.

I personally think baking has something to do with the instances of outsole separation on the heel of the skate. NBH uses epoxy (as well as a series of staples) to attach the outsole to the boot. Now at 180 + degrees in the oven, you are reaching a point where the epoxy starts to lose its adhesive properties. Combine that with the rubber on the bottom of the heel (rubber and EPP do NOT make a good surface for epoxy), and things really start to add up. Combine that with the pull of the blade holder on the outsole (and in some cases add improper mounting), and you can see that in the case of the One90, baking may reduce the durability of a boot.

Now before people start flaming....this is just an educated OPINION. Manufacturers in EVERY industry use the ignorance of a sales force to do things that may not necessarily be beneficial to the customer. Take for example my profession in IT. How many people at Worst buy or Circuit Shitty really know the technical reasons why one choice of laptop is better than another....other than the stupid info card next to the price?

The elimination of negative space IS an accurate way scientifically to make a boot more responsive. However, good old fashioned break-in with such a boot should provide this...baking only makes it happen right away. It is a give and take, and I personally prefer durability to immediate break-in. Break-in to me is a right of passage to new skates, and with all the new lightweight materials, god ol' fashioned break-in time has reduced significantly.

I agree...good ole fashioned break in is the way to go. Plus, with baking, they may break into your foot faster, but are they breaking into the natural form of your foot while you are skating? I think if you want the best fit..break them in the old fashioned way. Today's skates break in so fast anyway, it isn't a big issue. Remember when it used to take SEVERAL skates to get them to fit to the point where it wasn't painful...? The technology/industry has come a long way.

[DarkStar50 679]

A few thoughts from my experience with skates:

About the wet sock issue: When I was selling all leather Daoust 301s, CCM Super Tacks, or original 1st generation Bauer Custom Supreme 100s with Flo-Lite Gel back in the 80s, the wet sock method was still around. All those skates mentioned were made with leather interiors. The idea of using the warm wet sock to shape the boot was common. The other old idea was put your skates on and sit in the bath tub with warm water. Did I ever recommend either of these methods? No, I didn't. I thought the tub idea was just stupid as now your brand new skates would take days to dry out. You have also totally soaked leather in water. That is not a good idea. I was never a fan of the wet sock method. I did not like the idea of water against leather. The wet soak on the leather interior will negatively effect the properties of leather. The leather will dry hard and crack. One of the other reasons I never recommended the wet sock idea back then was because you had just spent about $250 for pro model skates. I recommended skating and sweating in them to break them in. This was when skates truly had to be broken in to shape to your foot.

As for using the wet sock method in the last 5-10 years, I don't see any benefit at all. Leather has not been used on skate interiors since the late 80s/early 90s. Leather skate interiors were constantly rotting away at the bottom of the heel. I think the Bauer Custom Supreme 2000 of 1991 was the first skate to use a clarino interior liner. The clarino would not crack after being sweat in. Your foot still held snugly inside the boot to give the same benefit as leather. Going forward since that model, leather interiors were never used again. Without a leather skate interior liner, I do not see the benefit of wearing a wet sock in today's skate to accelerate skate break in. The man made materials used in skates today are hydrophobic. Perhaps this is something the pros do and that is where JR heard of doing this with today's skates but in my pro shop I never would have brought this up to Devilsrule711 since I do not recommend it. I don't see the compatibility with today's skate construction and a wet sock.

As for baking skates, I believe the benefit to today's skates with baking is to enhance shaping them to your foot. I never tell a customer the baking will break in your skates. It will not. The baking will shape the skate to your foot by pushing the foams around your ankle and bring the boot over the top of your foot if necessary to secure the front width situation at the ball of your foot. The baking will put your skate into a ready-to-use boot for your foot the first time you hit the ice. The skate break in period will just be accelerated by having a boot that shapes to your foot.

I think baking today's skates is a positive step to shaping them to each player's foot. I think that not baking skates is a step backwards towards not getting the best possible fit with today's skates and today's skate technology. At the end of all this, it is still just my own personal opinion.

[MLSman 22]

This is turning into a really good technical discussion. I am enjoying this.

With respect to the wet sock, you may be correct. It is more of a habit than anything. I have never believed in putting skates in a tub or a full bucket of water.

With that said, I think baking is the new misnomer. Let's face it...hockey skate technology is not solely used in hockey skates. Hydrophobc materials are used in the medical community, and the EPP thermoplastics found in skates are used in many many other places. So let's talk about heat and tensile strength.

Heat is actually counterproductive to tensile strength. Here is a simple example....bent steel. Steel is made at a certain grade and certified to a certain tensile strength - based on density. The densitly, however is minimized when steel is bent, because the material is stretched over a greater surface area. This is a property of EPP, the most common thermoplastic in a hockey skate. There are some thermoplastics used in high heat environments, but would take an urn to form and would would drive the price of a hockey boot to several thousand dollars. The exception to the rule is carbon, used in the outsole. Carbon is brittle, thus having no tensile strength. Heat doesn't help or hurt carbon. When it reaches it's bending point it does not warp.....it snaps...heat or not.

Hydrophobic material is used to decreased water absorbtion thus preventing the materials in the midsole from retaining water, and antimicrobial thus preventing mold growth and "stinky boots" (technical term). Heat actually only has one benefit on hydrophobic material - it will kill bacteria on the liner. This, however, does not effect the material....it would take an awful lot of heat to effect the properties of the liner....it will start to burn.

So with all that said...heat molding a boot MAY provide a formed fit.....but it certainly DOES effect the tensile strength of the materials, thus effecting the durability. It doesn't matter if it is a hockey boot, a building, a car.....everything has the same effect given the same materials.

[defence18 1]

MLS has brought some great ideas here. The "to bake, not to bake" question is something that is heard frequently in our shop, however not in the hockey world. It is a question in the figure skating world. Our manager, who specializes in competitive level figure skates, often has this discussion with his customers. Simply put, he tells them that if the skate feels comfortable enough, he does not want to bake it because it hastens the break down time of the boot. He reccomends "punching out" ankles and other problem areas as opposed to baking the whole skate for the reasons that MLS has outlined. Also, he will NEVER bake a skate that does not have the blade mounted already. This is because you have too great a chance of bending the steel shank that is in the sole of the boot. This is similar to the argument I made when we discussed the possibility of baking adversely affecting the epoxy of the sole to the boot in the One90's.

As I said in that post, and I will reiterate again, I am not an expert. I do not pretend to be an expert. However, I am fortunate enough to work in a place to expose me to these concepts and have the support of men who have been in the industry for over 50 years combined. I am not proposing that this is gospel. I am not proposing that this is even fact. I am simply proposing that these are concepts that are not given enough thought on these forums, and they may in fact be a vital aspect to the growth of hockey technology. While I will be the first to tell you that figure skating has a lot of catching up to do technologically speaking, the hockey industry can certainly learn a lot from figure skating.

[DarkStar50 679]

I would like to add to defence18's info about baking/not baking. Please remember that the high end figure boots that we are selling are still 99% leather. The outer sole, the boot heel, boot interior,and boot upper are all still leather. Jim's point of view to keep these boots out of the bake oven is simply old school thinking. The beauty of the leather figure boot is it will shape to your foot like those great old 80s hockey skates I mentioned. Now consider, that the leather figure boot can break down in 6 months of training when adding up all the stress on the boots by double and triple jumps. The serious figure skater will train on ice 4 to 6 hours a day. That leaves little to no time for the boot to adequately dry. Now there are two things to consider.

#1. If we were still using leather hockey skates today the life of them would be no longer than 6 to 9 months. They would break down quicker than today's skates. They would also rot away as the leather cracked and simply tore apart. The salt from your sweat would destroy the boot. While those skates had plastic outersoles, the interior sole was leather. The Daoust 301 were extremely comfortable with the leather interior and leather interior sole. However, when a Tuuk cracked and it was time to replace it, the first thing you did was take out the leather foot bed and look at the interior leather sole. Skates that were never dried out would just rot away the interior sole until there nothing for the split rivet to grab on to. Eventually, the flat head of the copper wasn't enough to grab on the inside and your skates had just rotted away. Again, Bauer was the first to use a plastic interior sole to correct this problem. Those soles would also crack and chip away but they did extend the life of your skates much longer than the leather interior sole could. I would like to add that now as I think about it this constant complaint about skate durability is rather weak. Perhaps those 90s skates that you remember as wearing forever really weren't as great as long as you think they were. Also, in the 80s when pro model skates were $250, they would also die within less than a year. So, this constant search for the everlasting skate is going to be futile.

#2. With today's hockey skate technology, the baking is designed to shape the boot. Sure the 180* will effect the boot. It has to but given the boots construction and materials, the benefits to baking for shaping outweigh any "damage done" by baking. The Flo-lite gel in the original Bauer Custom Supreme 100s was a breakthrough in skate fitting. The gel was in pads around the ankle. The only way the gel would shape to your foot was through the heat generated by your wearing the skate. Skate baking was going on then. Its just that nobody knew it! Today's high end skates won't shape as easily without the baking process as those old foams previously used. In the end, the baking may just be a "necessary evil", if thats the way you choose to look at baking a skate.