Home Heat Molding for Vapor Liner advise

[Dacon62]

Local ski shop does not have the factory heater to heat mold the intuition liners.

Please comment or direct me to usable info.

I don't want to screw it up.

[TDET]

Try a hockey shop, they are set up to heat skates.

Several brands are heat moldable.

Maybe they could help..

[ChadW]

You can put the liner in the oven at the lowest setting (175 degrees) for 10-15 minutes. Take the liner out, place it in the boot, put your foot in, tighten the boot and wait 10 minutes.

[DanE]

Set the oven to 250 deg.(F). Keep it on for a while so the temperature is stabilized, measure temp in the oven to ensure accuracy.

Place the liner in there for 10 minutes, (not directly on the bottom), put a thin sock on your foot and be prepared.

Take out the liner, put in the footbed (if you use one), put the liner in the shell, get your foot in there and close the liner (you don´t want to crank down the laces, that will compress the liner too much).

Stand still with weight spread even on your foot for 5-10 minutes-Done.

The liner will expand quite a bit in the oven just so you know.

Imho I´ve tried both home cooking and snow ski shop cooking, home brew works the best for me.

[mikegile]

Be careful with the oven. I had a pair of Strada liners and was advised (by someone at Radar) to put them in the oven at 200 for 20mins.

I set the timer and came back to a melted boot pile!

 

[Horton]

I do not recommend great molding the Radar liners. With thicker liners you need to but the Radars are not thick.

[Chef23]

I heat molded mine to get some more room in the toe. I did it in the oven. I pre-heated to 175 and I think I left them in for 10 minutes or at least until they softened up.

 

I did make a toe cap our of some folded up paper towels that I taped on my foot and covered with the cut off toe section of a thick pair of socks.

 

Pull the liner out of the oven put it in the boot and stand in for 10-15 minutes until cool.

 

I wouldn't just leave them in the oven without keeping an eye on them.

[DanE]

I´ve recently molded three liners (my front boot and both boots for my son) with no issues.

Radar liners are excellent for heat molding, they are not thin by any means.

Like I said, leave the oven on for a long time and measure the temperature before you put the liner in there. What happened to @mikegile is a prime example of an oven being hotter than the set temperature.

Oh, and do one liner at a time, getting the expanded liner in the shell is a handful..

[Lieutenant Dan]

I use a convection oven....Fluid Motion used to have some good videos on the entire process...

[BraceMaker]

Lieutenant Dan is right - FM does have a video series.

 

I bake my hockey skates and liners at home (well and at work)

 

The trick is you need the following:

A cookie sheet - double layer type. This has two sheets of metal separated by an air space which reduces direct heat to avoid burning.

 

You want to heat the over up/preheat and then Turn it off so the elements don't turn on and singe the liner. The cookie sheet should be COLD not in the oven.

 

Have a chair, your boots, your liners, socks - For me I like the boot shells to be quite tight, but not over the ball of the foot or toe, so I took a heavy crew sock, cut it off so it caps my toes and ball of foot, then I pull a second sock over and all the way up, this just gives some toe room and ball of foot room.

 

OK Go. Oven at temperature, turn it off.

Liners go onto cold double form cookie sheet, they go into oven (do one at a time if you don't have the boots off the ski) Timer on and don't go anywhere.

 

Watch for the liners to lose their form, they don't need to be fully soft to mold some, so depending on what you want to do just a bit of heat can work.

 

Pull the liners on the foot, if you want more toe length make sure to give it a pull. Cram it in the boot, position the tongue etc in place and then draw the boot up only slightly, don't walk don't move. Let them cool.

 

If you want to play around with foot orthotics/inshell wedging etc. do that before heat molding the liner because it will lift you up and the molding will be in the wrong spot.