High end skate shops have special heat molding convection ovens.
A boot maker might tell skate techs, for a given model, to preheat the oven to a specified temperature, and bake it for a specified number of minutes. If you do everything right, it may heat mold as well as it can. If not, you may destroy the boot, and leave yourself with a few burnt ashes surrounding a lovely melted puddle of goo.
1. Are the temperatures calibrated in Celcius or Fahrenheit? Does that depend on the brand or the country in which the oven is sold?
2. Does the fan significantly blow into the interior of the boot, or is most of the convection (and heating) around the outside of the boot?
3. I would also love it if any of you could provide what other boot makers provided you.
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Background:
I want to optimally heat mold GRAF Edmonton Special skates.
Delayne Brian, from Customer Service at GRAF Canada Ltd. just told me:
We do not suggest baking your skates at home, since all ovens are different and we cannot predict how each one will work.
That being said, retailer heating instructions are as follows:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
-Place boots in oven, allow boots to be heated for 3 minutes (less if they are JR 9035's) -Remove boots from oven and check that the boots have reached proper molding temperature -To ensure proper molding temperature, check the heel counter pliability. This is done by squeezing the outside of the heel counter. It should be soft and flexible, not stiff.
-Once the boot is hot enough to mold, place on the athlete's foot. Make sure the athlete kicks the heel back hard into the heel counter.
-Tie the skate snug, but do not over tighten.
-Keep skates on for approximately 15 minutes, or until they no longer feel warm.
-Untie the skates. The skates are now game ready once they have been cooled off to room temperature.
-It is very important that at no time the athlete stands or applies any pressure to the heated boot so that the skate can take shape to the foot in lock position.
-Any pressure points that remain after heat fitting can be pressed out using a ball and ring press.
-You can bake your skates more than once if need be.
(I have emailed GRAF again to find out if 180 degrees is Celcius or Fahrenheit; Also whether those instructions were meant only for hockey boots, because of the use of "JR 9035" and "game ready".)
In comparison, GAM told me 4 minutes at 500 degrees (Fahrenheit?) for their top end freestyle boots.
Don Klingbeil told me that Klingbeil boots fit perfectly and don't need heat molding, but 180 or 185 degrees (I forget which; time unspecified, Celcius? Fahrenheit?) was what SP Teri (who learned at Klingbeil) used for SP Teri boots, so might be safe.
Thanks!