You should wear thin socks or nylons to skate. (Some people even skate without socks, but that's not for me!) I hope the skate shop had you wear thin, not thick, socks when they fitted you for your skates.

Also even after you start lacing the boots all the way to the top again, be sure to leave some looseness. I believe the rule of them is about an inch, or a finger or two, between the back of the boot and your leg. Not laced snug all the way to the top.

A convection oven is the same, wheather at home or the kind they sell to shops for 300.00. Its not a regular oven but it makes no matter where its at.

Are they really that bendy that you need to stuff them? Your boots should be plenty stiff. Putting newspaper in won't hold the leather in any shape really.

There are two new-skate lacing tips that I know of, but you have to figure out if any/all will work for you. (These are just for the first few weeks of the break-in period.)

• Leave the top hook undone
• Leave the top EYELET undone

Enjoy your new skates!

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I've been wearing my boots for 3 years and I still don't lace the top.

j

Quote:

Originally Posted by jskater49 I've been wearing my boots for 3 years and I still don't lace the top.

If I didn't put the disclaimer, I would have been corrected, y'know.

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I don't have a convection oven at home and I don't know many homes that do. I have a standard electric oven. I would not try to heat mold my skates in that thing. If I had a convection oven, then I might actually consider it. But my sharpener heat molds my skates free of charge when he mounts my blades. But if you got one of those at home then that's pretty cool.


BlackManSkating

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Proud to be one of the few black men out on the ice

Goals
Pass my Silver Moves Test
Finish Choreography for Silver Program
Land a Clean Double Toe and Double Lutz
Work on Double Axel and Rockers
Speed up back Camel

Nonsense, it's exactly the same thing as a common-or-garden domestic fan oven.

We cook on gas, so would have had to have visited my mother, who cooks with electricity, but decided to very cautiously try the skates in the gas oven, lowest possible setting for just a minute, and it worked perfectly.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I've had them dented out and out and out, at a different rink where they actually have a machine to do it and not just a big pliers-like thing, (our skating shops make me depressed) and that worked well. Not well enough though. It'll need to be done again, but right now, i can skate in them. With bunga pads. Not sure how much the redness of the bones will make them grow, I hope not. At least not until I have time to travel across half the country to get them dented out again (and this time they'd have to stay overnight the guy said, which means TWO trips). My master's thesis is keeping me a little occupied these days, as are my 7 courses, so I know I should get it done ASAP but, y'know, life.

But other than those two bones at the bottom I'm loving the skates, they're actually giving the support I need. I kept flipping edge without meaning to on the old skates, not on these, I can even do change-edge spirals on these suddenly, hydroblades with the hand on the ice and all sorts of thing I could never do because my blades would just slip out from underneath me. It helped even for my crossovers! Graf sure knows how to make em!

I also noticed a significant difference in how I lace em, with the old skates that wasn't the case.

That's wonderful! Yeah, the times I've had my very stiff skates punched out in the ankles I had to leave them overnight. It really helped a lot, though, as did the bunga pads gel ankle sleeves!

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Maybe I just know people that do then. Its not uncommon at all. I would guess that at least 25 % of all sold are convection type. Or more.

Surely the "standard electric oven" these days is a fan oven, no? It certainly is over here!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

The ankle sleeves don't come low enough to even reach the top side of the little bones I have a problem with, so I'm stuck with the 2.5' gel pads, which tend to slip into the crease of my foot instead of staying in place so I need to re-lace after 45 mins- 1 hour. But that's okay. I don't skate more than 1,5 hour nowadays anyway. Overall I'm really happy with the skates though

No it probably doesn't make any difference! But it made me feel better!!

Strangely enough, I tried this after it got suggested to me alot, but I didn't like it! It felt too strange!!!

Yeah........ I believe that a lot of home microwave ovens will have 'convection' setting. This means that if we don't want the microwave setting, it's still possible to cook with a typical heating element inside the microwave oven. I'm not sure how evenly the temperature is distributed inside the microwave oven on the 'convection' setting, so not really recommending to pop skates into there, unless there's some info regarding that.

I'm assuming that proper skate-boot baking ovens are designed to give even heating all around, and with fairly good temperature control that matches whatever temperature you set. Usually a digital setting.

The last time I broke in new skates here is what I did to break them in and it worked pretty well:

First, I bought Turkey roaster oven plastic bags (the big ones) and they have to be oven-roaster bags.

Next, put them in your boot. Then pour boiling water in the bags that are in your boots...let that sit for 5 minutes.

Poor the water out (don't burn yourself) then put the boots on immediately and just sit there with them on for about 15 minutes.

Do this on and off for about a month and it really speeds up the breaking in process!

Hope this helps.

Surely all new domestic electric ovens are fan ovens these days? They are in this country. And I was told that it was fine to do your boots in one. As I said, we didn't want to drive 50 miles to my parents (who cook on electricity, so use a fan oven) after having driven 50 miles to the fitter, so we just popped the boots in the gas oven on its lowest setting for a minute or so, and that worked beautifully.

But my own skates were so comfortable they really didn't need it! They did eventually need the toe-box (which isn't heat-mouldable) punched out, but the ankles were fine from the get-go.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I've only seen convection oven features mixed with the microwave/toaster oven variety in stores.

My electric oven doesn't have a fan, just a huge heating element at the top for broiling and at the bottom for baking/roasting.

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I heard and read quite a number of recommendations before about potential problems with using home ovens. It could be that some home ovens might not have even-heating....so could be hotspots in some parts, especially in smaller ovens. Or some home ovens might not have very good temperature control. Or might not have the preferred rate of heating (temperature rise) etc.

This doesn't mean that you will necessarily be unsuccessful in using a home oven.....but some people could ruin their expensive skates if they use an oven that isn't really cut out to do the right job.

I think you could ruin your expensive skates if you overdid it, rather too easily! That's why we were very tentative indeed with the pair we tried. Worked, though!

I think I rather like the idea of a hair-dryer, or a roaster-bag full of boiling water - probably more controllable, although you'd have to be incredibly careful not to scald yourself with the boiling water!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!