Heel blisters after being fitted and baked?

[TheBert 0]

My LHS guy was recommending a re-bake of my skates. I picked them up back in January and they were heat-fitted then, but now I'm getting some heel slippage and he's recommending a re-bake. Good/bad idea?

[JR Boucicaut 3810]

Rebake will only make it bigger.

[TheBert 0]

Because baking is just the equivalent of breaking them in more, right? Any "duct-tape" type solutions? I obviously wasn't fitted properly.

[T-Dot. 0]

you know what moleskin is?

shoppers or london drugs should have it

i would say give that a try

[McDougalfaschnitzer 32]

I've rebaked my skates a couple of times, but when I did it it was because I wanted to make them a bit looser each time. That being said, I don't think it would work if you wanted to have the opposite result.

[chk hrd 164]

Because baking is just the equivalent of breaking them in more, right? Any "duct-tape" type solutions? I obviously wasn't fitted properly.

no, baking is not the same as breaking them in

[oggy_3 0]

Does this mean the pair of skates i bough ti should break them in without molding?

[Miike 1]

I've been skating in my 9K's for 3 weeks now, and didn't get them baked, and no problems so far. No pain, nothing.

[Jason Harris 31]

This won't help your fit, but try Vaseline on your feet. It allows your feet to slide beneath the socks, so blisters don't tend to develop.

[Law Goalie 147]

The following questions might be extremely stupid, but I'll ask anyway:

Is there any way to use baking to compress the heel or raise the arch of a skate? It seems to me that using some sort of external pressure (hands, a wrap of tape, whatever) during the post-bake fitting process might be able to accomplish this, but I'm not sure.

Is it possible to affect only certain parts of the skate during the baking process? I have this crazy idea of baking the skate, then sticking an ice pack on the heel so it deforms less than the forefoot.

Can all newer (non-nylon covered) skates have their toe-caps heated and stretched, or is it just Graf and Mission? I'm particularly interested in Nike/Bauer skates.

[Jordan 13]

FWIW, I have had the toe caps punched in my XXXXs. It took three attempts to get where I had to be, but it worked out fine.

The tech at the LHS said that with the Bauers you need to do it a couple of times to get where you want to be and to get it to hold. He also said the material used in the toe caps of the Grafs was the easiest to stretch or punch.

[scorer75 9]

I had a problem with heel slippage and was given an excellent solution.

First off, all credit goes to Jim and Dave at West Side Skate in NYC.

I took a Smarthockey stickhandling ball and put it in the heel of the boot. I then put the heel of the skate into a bench vise. I held the ball in place while closing the vise around the heel of the skate.

I left it overnight and the skate is awesome. You are basically tightening the back of the boot without folding the tendon guard.

At first I would redo it once a week, but now it's fine on it's own.

An excellent free solution with no downside. Give it a try.

[JR Boucicaut 3810]

What if your heel isnt the same width as, say, a SmartHockey ball?

[number21 3]

If you used a CCM fit machine after baking skates, wouldn't that work to compress an area? Or is it not enough pressure?

[scorer75 9]

What if your heel isnt the same width as, say, a SmartHockey ball?

Use a golf ball?

Seriously, my heel is not the exact same width as a smart hockey ball. What this does is bring the heel portion of the skate closer together around your ankle. The ball is there to ensure you don't just fold the skate in half which is what would happen if you put the skate in a vise sans ball.

All I know is that they spent 45 minutes working on this in the shop (on skates I did not purchase there I might add and at no charge) and as a last resort he said I should try this at home.

It works (at least for me it did) and if your heel is slipping in your skate, you have nothing to lose.

[TheBert 0]

If you used a CCM fit machine after baking skates, wouldn't that work to compress an area? Or is it not enough pressure?

You can use the FIT machine on Vectors? </stupid_question>

Edit: I worked my way through the Search and found mention that Vectors can go through the FIT machine.