Lori - The easiest way to explain it is for you to grab a piece of 1 1/2 x 1/2, narrow it up to 1 1/4. 1 1/4 is wider than the face of your hammer so you would run your hammer around the inside of the web then the outside of the web.

IOW, you're hitting the high spots until they come down to the low spots.

It's like flattening a foot. If you dip the toe you're not going to file the toe any more right?

Lori,

Your extended heels shoe will not pass muster because the heels are not parallel with the centerline of the foot and appear un equal in length. That should be a relatively quick and easy fix for you.

Lori, I don't think any of your shoes are finished and ready to be examined yet.

Like I already said, you need to heat them up to a dull red heat and run your hammer around them until there are no craters in them. Then you need to heat them to a good orange/yellow heat, put them in the vice and file the entire ground surface of the shoe just like you would to level a foot. Rasp, file, then half round.

Once you have the ground surface filed, grab your half round and file the entire inside of the web until it's completely flat from heel to heel.

Then the entire outside of the shoe.

After this you should have a rectangle with 4 sharp corners on it. Take those corners off so they aren't sharp!

Box any expansion and extensions. Safe the shoes.

I think the rolled toe is supposed to be straight across. You can do that at a dull red heat and clean up the straight line by laying the ground surface on the face of the anvil and running your hammer on the back of the web.

Thank you Mr. Burton! You were spot on of course. I think I fixed the heels Ok? Can't believe I didn't see it. Would have been upset if I had got there and something so simple tripped me up. Thanks again!!


Eric, thanks you so much for taking the time to give me such detailed instructions. Not to state the obvious, but I had really no idea how to finish a shoe for a competition or shoe display or whatever. I went out and followed your instructions. Still got work to do, but better I think.


P.S. I am attaching a pic of the shoe before I "finished" it better. So you can see a difference. (hopefully) I can learn, just takes me awhile.

Much nicer! Do the nails fit? If they wiggle, heat the shoe up and close the nail holes up a little until you get rid of any wiggle. You won't get it perfect but it's a nice added touch.

Rotate that shoe around on the checkered grid you have it on. Place your toe nails over a line and center the heels on two lines. This will help you see where you're at with your shoe and where you need to go.

Especially if you need to file the extended heels a bit straighter!

I keep making new bar shoes for my board this one came out to big? I think? I wanted to add the pad from the get go. How much boxing on a 3* wedge pad?

Photos won't upload!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.531061528250.2030971.196902130&l=0bb91bb751

LOL, not enough boxing to make up for that length!

Hello all!! I wanted to thank everybody here. I just got back from my first certification. My shoe display passed with flying colors, (will get pics up in a bit) I got allot of compliments on it. I know that it is in large part to the great information shared here. My on site modification was my nail hole and in the process I got a great lesson on tool tuning and nail punching. I passed the written with a 91.6. I wasn't planning on doing the practical, since I had never been to a certification or pre-cert clinic, I thought that scribing would be good. However the fellas talked my into it, and I am so glad they did. I ran out of time, but got good marks on what I was able to finish. So now I just need to be a bit more organized and not let the nerves play with my head too much. Over all I learned sooo much and it was a great experience. Dennis Manning was the examiner, he was wonderful!! Can't wait to go to the next one an have another go at the practical. Thanks again everyone!!

Elizabeth81 wrote:

Lori were did you loose time?

did you have to put on 2 machine shoes in an hour?

Hello Smitty. Yes it is 60 min. to trim, fit and nail up two machine shoes. Which I know seems like an abundance of time.
One of my weaker points was I didn't really have a "system" or "routine". So when under pressure, I got a little disorganized. I also have never practiced "time budgeting" or allotting a certain amount of time for each element. It was easy for time to stand still, and to strive for perfection, instead of moving on. But I think where I lost most of my time, was after I shaped and fit the shoes I realized that it was going to be a bit short, I should have just fit up another pair, but I didn't and tried to stretch the heel instead. Had I been prepared to do the practical this time I would have made up some "in between" sized shoes, that might have helped some. However it was really good, I am glad that I went ahead and did it, even if I wasn't quite ready too. I hope that next time I won't be quite so nervous and will have a bit of time to work on being more efficient.

Congratulations Lori. One hour, two feet, sounds like a lot, but it's easy to waste it trying to fix something. When I did my CF in 1984 (I think that's about when you were born isn't it?) I remember someone coming by and saying "when was the last time you took an hour for two kegs?". I got it done, but I used all the time.

I ran over on my first try at the CJF and had to do it again. Not a biggie.

And I'll second anything you say good about Dennis, a gentleman in every way.

Elizabeth81 wrote:Elizabeth what i suggest to my apprentices is they have a wrist watch, that every horse they shoe, 2 feet have to be trimmed to exam standard in 15 mins, 7.5 mins per foot, after a month they can do it in less, but i dont advocate that. When practicing work out what you expect to happen in each heat on the shoe, initially you have to sacrifice finish to build speed, but there are no prizes for not finishing. with speed you increase accuracy which saves you time in abundance.most of us can nail a shoe on in a minute if we need to and clench it in 2 mins if its a good job. if you need anything other than a half round file to clench it then you are in trouble.
Hows that for a system?

Elizabeth81 wrote:
Good job Lori

Hey Lori, congratulations! It's the process that is most important and I think you learn more by the things you get wrong - at least that's how it is for me!
I picked my shoe before I trimmed the foot and ended up with the same issue as you. I did manage to stretch the shoe and it passed (was my second time ) but I wish I hadn't have thrown that curveball at myself!

Apart from checking the shoe after the trim was done!! what I would do next time, is use a fuller and crease to the heel. That would have been a far more efficient way to bring the shoe up to size than the amount of thinning the stock that I did. But it's about 'owning your skills' as Grant Moon says, and I guess I didn't own that fullering skill just then or I would have thought to do that.

The difference in my first and second try was most definitely in my mental game and I can't recommend more highly a book called 'mind gym', on sports psychology. The second time around I had confidence in my skills and knew how long it takes me to do each component, so I just told myself stretching the shoe was a forge exercise that was easy to do in the time I had and I set
to it. Heck, I even quenched one shoe and decided it wasn't passable so put it back in the fire to stretch some more!

Its cool how as soon as you finish you just want tot go and do it all again, I'm hooked!