Fitting the Foot

[dearbone]

Rick,
This is a brilliant idea, I will try it, I doubt it, if I can find 3 buck chuck in Canada, but there is a wine store just around the corner from my shop.

[romango]

I've been doing a series of comparisons to help me understand measuring the foot(print). I actually have an Apex foot imprint system (classic pedograph tray). I've walked across this and stood still.

I've also stood on my scanner.

6307.jpg

Haven't tried foot imprint foam yet. Anyone want to comment on the relative merits of foam?

So far, I like the wine print best. The Apex seems inconsistent to me for reasons I can don't understand.

(Message edited by romango on December 28, 2007)

[rocketman]

I get it now, you take a bottle of red wine, a new years eve party, white carpet and presto, by next years party you can make all your friends shoes!
Only kidding, great idea but do you end up with purple feet like a grape crusher?
Hope everyone has a great new year, Lyle

[big_larry]

Rick,

I use the Treadeasy casting foam to assist me to get a better fit. I also use a pedograph along with careful measurements. In addition I now make a pair of fitter boots.

I was taught in The Merrell boot school to use the plaster 0f paris casting to make orthodics. I use the castings to check and double check getting the heel and ball of the foot matched up to the last. As I modify the last with leather and modeling "Apoxie Clay" I often refere to the casting as well as the pedograph and measurements.

The foam I use is "Treadeasy at: 877-755-1649 " The "Clay Apoxie is from Aves at: 1-800-261-2837."

If I have an arch to build, I use a heat gun and melt (250 to 300 degrees ) the Eva over the plaster casting and trim the exposed side flat to fit inside the boot. The boot has a natural arch support by virtue of the bend from the heel to the ball of the foot. It is rare that I have to add very much of an arch support. The plaster casting gives me a perfect form to match the bottom of the foot.

I am a little obsesive compulsive when it comes to getting a proper fit. When I first started making boots I made them too large and the fit was sloppy. I have been lucky enough to have the last eight or ten pair fit correctly. I always caution the client that the boot may have to be broken in before it feels "like an old friend."

I do not think the foam is actually nedessary if you use all the other tools. I may also be a bit neurotic about fitting. I just want to make sure I am doing the best job I can posibbly do.

I am fitting a man in Oregon for a pair of boots and I sent him the foam box along with a few sheets of goldenrod litmus paper. I had him mix a half cup of water with a teaspoon of Arm & Hammer soda. The damp foot makes a very nice foot imprint that turns red. I just didn't want to send my pedograph away. He took the measurements as per my instructions and I will send him a pair of trial or fitter boots as soon as I get the last ready. This is the first pair I wll be making for an out-of-state customer/client. He purchased a small sack of plaster of Paris and poured the foam himself. I had instructed him to wait four days before sending it back to me. All is going well so far.

I hope this answears some of your question about casting foam. If you use it be sure to push the toes down and make sure the outer side of the foot is pushed clear down.

I wish you well, Larry Peterson

[paul]

Good luck with that Oregon customer Larry. It sounds like you're doing good.

Rick,

I love your wine trick! I've been looking for something to use for self-pedographs, and this is the best! May I use your photograph?
I like to tell people that having a pair of boots custom made is an exciting experience. This adds to the thrill! Fantastic!

Relative to the Apex Foot Impression Pad, et. al., I recently had to replace my rubber mat. It was left on the table in front of the furnace too long. Even tho it was across the room, the warm air blowing on it caused it to shrink and pull away from the frame. Bummer!
Well I replaced it. But the thing I was so happy to find out was, that I could buy the mat only and not have to buy the whole kit! I got it from Aetrex, who sells all that stuff. And it was just 30 bucks or so.
I've been meaning to pass that along. Seems like a good time to do so.

PK

[paul]

Rick,

As I reread your post I'm wondering why you find the Apex imprint inconsistant? But it also sounds like you're puzzeled too.

I can indeed see the outline of the wine imprint real well. Really a much better line than the ink grid of the imprinter.
The ink could contribute some to the solution on this, I'd think. The ink I'm finishing with seems to be oil based. And it makes a much darker, wider imprint than the ink DW used on me when I was up there last year. Could that be part your problem?

Paul

[dw]

All,

I don't mean to throw a monkey wrench into the picture here because the wine trick is truly ingenuous and not only inexpensive to get started with but as Paul suggested something a distant customer could manage. That, all by itself is a revelation although the goldenrod paper (which I have seen used in the past) is a good solution too.

Nevertheless, I wonder if I can put forth an idea for some further input?

As mentioned, I ran across the goldenrod paper some years ago but never took it to heart because, like the two buck Chuck method, it requires the foot to be bare. For shoemakers, where laces are a given, this may not be a factor. In fact, I would acknowledge that a better and more accurate representation of the foot is obtained when the foot is bare. But it may make a difference for boots--pull-on boots in particular.

Consider this: at one point in time, if I have my history correct, girth measurements were sometimes taken with just a plain strip of cloth or paper wrapped around the foot and torn to length. The strip was labeled--eg. joint, instep, etc.-- and saved.

Now if we were to take a half inch wide strip of tissue paper, and wrap it around, say, the instep, and tear it to length we might have a pretty fair representation of the girth or circumference of the foot at the instep. But we would also have a pretty fair representation of the substance being added to the circumference of the foot, at the instep, if a tissue thin sock were being worn. Take that same tissue strip and roll it, as tightly as you can, from one end to the other. Eliminate all air pockets and compress the final result as much as you possibly can. What you end up with is a little cylinder about an eighth inch in diameter.

This little cylinder represents the substance being added to the circumference of the foot by a wrap of tissue!

So...the logic suggests that if a fellow could find a pair of tissue thin socks, just wearing the socks will add an eighth inch to the circumference of the foot. Yet the foot is capable of feeling a sixteenth of an inch difference in circumference!

Again, for shoes even an eighth inch may be of no import but for a pull on boot, I would not want to ignore it. Adding to that, very few sock styles are tissue thin--and most boot wearers tend toward "boot socks" which are padded under the foot. So the socks incorporate not only the thickness of the yarn, as well as the "loft" of the yarn (all socks have these two factors to one degree or the other), but also the "terrycloth" sole to add substance to the foot.

The difference in girth measurements between a naked foot and a socked foot can be significant.

And, inevitably, the way in which the foot will print...with goldenrod paper, with a pedograph, or even with wine...when naked versus when it is socked is also significant. The naked foot will surely print a narrower heel seat and tread width than a socked foot.

And yet it is the socked foot we must fit. It takes up room inside the boot (perhaps inside a shoe as well?) just as surely as if the foot itself were wider and larger in girth. It begs the question...excluding considerations significant only to orthopedic makers, what does a barefooted print bring to the party that a socked foot print does not?

So...what do you make of this? I wonder if other folks consider this as important as I do? Or if this is only significant for bootmakers? Or...thinking the unthinkable...am I just being obsessively persnickety?


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

[romango]

DW,

In comparing the wine print (sock off) with Apex pedograph (sock on). Counter to what you would expect, the wine print is 5mm wider in the heel and and 2mm wider in the ball.

I propose this to be the case because the wine will print with any contact whatsoever whereas rubber of the the pedograph imparts a slight resistance as the foot pushes down. Pulling the flesh up.

6309.jpg

This would mean I am getting some more flesh represented in the wine print.

The wine idea was the result of thinking about how to get an imprint for a remote customer, not out of a dissatisfaction for the pedograph.

In the end, I think it is most important that I become consistent in how I take and use measurements, so that I reproducibly get the result I expect from the measurements I take.

Also, the girth added by a sock is greater than the the amount added to linear measurements taken across the bottom of the heel or ball. Although, the effect is still valid there as well.

Paul, feel free to use any photographs I post however you like.

[dw]

Rick,

You have all the experience with this technique...I have none...so take this for what it is worth and with a large grain of salt, but I would offer an alternate explanation:

The rubber on the pedograph adds width as surely as the sock. This may be countered to some small degree by the "sling" effect of the rubber but I see it printing a little wider than a semi-solid ink applied directly to a bare foot would print on paper. In fact, as I think about it, I can't see how this flimsy little membrane of latex/rubber can resist the weight of a human being to the degree that the weight bearing area (the print) will be altered. That leaves only the ever so slight added substance of the rubber wrapped, ever so slightly, up and around the plantar surface of the foot.

And, on the other hand, I would worry that residual moisture...no matter how slight...being far more fluid than ink, would tend to pool at the lowest point, ie. the bottom of the foot. And that further, any such pooling might be readily wicked down and diffused into the paper.

These are just conjectures based on limited experience and presented solely for the purpose of discussion.

But I agree entirely that the most important factor is consistency. There is no "scientific" method of measuring a foot. I would bet good money that even a foot scanner will yield inconsistent results from one day to the next. A lot we leave to laces and the elasticity of leather and our own idiosyncratic methods of compensating for what we know is, at best, only approximate. We can try to codify the process and eliminate as much uncertainty as is possible but in the end, the better part of fitting is intuition and experience.


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

(Message edited by dw on December 29, 2007)

[dw]

Rick,

PS...you can see that "pooling" effect around the toes (and perhaps along the lateral edge to a small degree) on the wineprint you posted.


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

[romango]

The scanner seems seductive but I have found that, once printed in black and white, it is not so easy to determine the place where the foot touches the glass. With the color image on the screen, it's pretty obvious though.

Also, my printer/scanner combination seems to be accurate but some will reduce or enlarge the image unintentionally.

I agree, there may soom bleed effect. More absorbent paper would probably help.

[btippit]

To all:

No salesman's hat on or anything but here's a picture from the Lightbeam foot scanner using a function called "Symmetry". It's a top view of the foot. If you save the picture and enlarge it you will faintly see the foot itself that has been faded into the background. The red line is basically, the "pedograph". It's an accurate representation of where the foot hits the floor as it represents the point where light from the camera can no longer detect the brightly (some would say "garishly&#34 printed sock. The socks are ultra-thin, compression stockings so VERY little is added to the length, width, and girth of the foot.

6311.gif

If this image is too large I apologize but I was afraid the details would not show up if I made it any smaller.

I agree with DW in that all of these methods (including the Lightbeam) can be inconsistent. However, I do think they are all accurate when done correctly. The inconsistencies come from even the slightest shift in weight distribution of the person being measured. However, since that shifting is going to take place with every step they take once the footwear is made anyway, all we can do is try to get them in the position we feel will be most helpful in creating the last/shoe/boot/smile and then use our other skills to make it all happen.

Just tossing this out for thought and a belated Merry Christmas to all and a wish for all of you to have a happy and healthy 2008.

Bill “The Last Man Standingâ€

[big_larry]

As a post thought,

I like to make a second set of pedograph prints that are a walking or striding print. This gives a good reqading of the elongation of the foot as the client steps. In addition it also gives a print where they bear their weight.

Thank goodmess for the fitter boot! If, after all we can do with measurements, we still have the fitter boot! If we are a bit loose or a bit tight,we have the fail safe final tweeking we can do to the last. One of the reasons I really like the fitter boot over the tape fitting slipper is that the fitter boot tells me if the opening for the foot to enter the boot is correct.

Thank you, Larrty Peterson

[dearbone]

Dear friends,
This is a great topic of interest to me, There is so much to say about this topic, but I do not know, how to put it in linear words, because i never done so, Nine mistakes or less out of 100 pairs is okly, The shoemakers on St James St, london make 5 or 6 pairs of shoes or boots that do not fit, so if your mistakes are single digit, you are doing just okey, but we want to do better than that, I tried the wine inprint and it worked well on thick paper and no bleeding(pattern cutting paper), than an artist walked in the shop and suggested water color paper can obsorb even more moisture, I take measures, one bare foot and the other socked, As DW said, it depends on other factors as well, I look to see what kind of foot it is, fat, slim, boney, old, young, I like a picture of the foot in my head, when,I make the shoes. Happy new year to all.
Nasser.

[romango]

I recently made a pair of shoes for myself. I adjusted the last so the ball girth and width across the insole exactly matched my foot at (a). For good measure (so to speak), I also adjusted the last girth and insole width at (b)

However, when the shoe was made, it was still too tight in girth and width forward of this measurement. So I went back and measured width and girth at c, d and e. What I found was 1.8 CM girth shortfall at (c) and .4 CM shortfall at (d). Also a couple mm shortfall in sole width at these points.

(f) shows roughly the front of the foot. So, the last does not seem to short.

I do not recall ever learning that the foot is measured forward of the (a) location other than overall length and possibly toe height (which is not a problem here).

So, my question is: Is there a system or school of thought for how to allow for this discrepancy, short of making a fitters model? I'm not trying to avoid the fitter's model. I just want to insure I've made every possible attempt to capture the appropriate measurements on the first pass.

How could I have checked for this problem in my initial measurements? What are the warning signs I should have been looking for?

It seems this would be a common situation for people with wide forefeet.

6685.jpg

[romango]

Sorry, ignore bottom black line (a) is the green line.

[dw]

Rick,

I believe that matching the bottom paper with the pedograph is the key to avoiding that problem. Some people's feet just naturally spread wider with weight on than other feet. And some people's toes "reach" more than others.

Along with that you have to look at the profile of the customers foot to see how thick the toes are, as well as to check for hammer toes, etc..

After that...the fitter's model is, in my opinion, the ideal way to sidestep such problems. The very best fitter's in Europe have the customer come in for several additional fittings before the shoe is closed and finished. A little different than a fitter's model but same principle. If nothing else, a fitter's model seems like a trivial thing against having to make the whole shoe all over again with the attendant cost of new material, etc..


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

[btippit]

Rick,

Back in the day when production shoe companies paid more attention to the development and fit of their lasts (some do today but they are the rare exception), there was a volume measurement in the forefoot area that went by a variety of names, depending on which product development department you were working with. Some of these names were "toe volume", "seven inch mark", "eight inch mark" and others. All referred to a girth location measured at a given distance from the back of the featherline towards the front. It generally was around half way between the ball and the end of the toe. Each company's "last czar" had his own interpretation of what this measurement should be but relative to each other there was little difference.

The problem is of course that, like most of the "standards", they were more or less arbitrary and only tried to get the model "in the ballpark" to fit as many people as possible. And girth was usually the only thing taken into account, not width.

I agree with DW's conclusion of matching the last bottom pattern to the pedograph and then considering the height and girth in this area to complete the fit. But in the end I suppose there's nothing like a fitter to prove your work. The trick is to get the fitter as close as possible to avoid as much additional last and pattern modification as possible.

Bill “The Last Man Standingâ€

[romango]

Thanks gentlemen,

I find this all far more fascinating than frustrating. I've discovered that once I can visualize the problems, I have the power to make it work better next time.

I overlaid my insole pattern on the pedographs and I could see at least the hint that one forefoot hung outside the margins. I like the idea of checking that forefoot girth too, particularly since I am dealing with a fixed last library (the one that I have). I also want to understand the strengths and limitations of this model last.

[large_shoemaker_at_large]

Hi Rick
Just started looking at this thread. I use a pedograph and usually a plaster cast for ortho shoes. To get a good print you must reink between feet. Don't want to defend the obvious if it has been mentioned.

A rule of thumb the girth of the ball is 1/3 width x 2 times volume. Ie if your ball measure is 24 cm the width at the widest point should be 8 cm. This is for the " normal foot" not to include a rigid high arched foot etc. and does not account for undercutting the ball for a nice fit.
Just some room for thought.
also some feet are thin from the heel to the ball and some start to widen from the front of the heel to the ball. This may make you scratch your head trying to get a girth around the waist and instep to make sense and blend to a fair curve.
This look evident on the pic posted. Try adding a peice from the from of the heel to the ball and feather it in. Make a fitter and see how it feels. Yea I know fitters seem like a waste but in the big scheme I would rather trash 2 hours and 40 buck of materials than cut into $$ worth of leather time to find out that a couple scraps and some time at the finisher are time well invested. I don't know your skill level of level of daring/inginuity or anxiety. Don't be afraid to forage ahead and make a few mistakes, that is a part of the the learning curve.
as one of my old mentors said "the first 100 are the hardest"
One last thought slight pun intended. Are your feet " normal" of do you have a Ball of the foot running in the same plane as the heel perhaps your 1st met head is dropped or you have a flat foot. Some last remodeling may be needed many shoemakers believe the bottem of the last is sacred. if you need more info e mail me maybe I can help out
Regards
Brendan

[jenny_fleishman]

Rick asked a question on this thread awhile back that I don't think has been addressed, and I have had the same problem.

When I walk in my most recent pair of shoes, the forefoot seems to slap the ground, rather than rolling though the stride.

One thing I was thinking might be a factor is that my homemade lasts had a continuous slope from the back of the heel to the tread area. I am wondering if this might throw the weight forward, but I have no idea if this really has anything to do with it.

I have adjusted my lasts to make the heel area more parallel to the floor before curving down to the tread area. I'm working on a pair of shoes now on the revised lasts, so I don't know yet if this will affect the "slapping" problem.

Any advice appreciated!

Jenny

[relferink]

Rick

I don't have much to add to what was said before other than that I do take another forefoot measurement. It generally runs from behind the medial ball across the 5th toe. In your image roughly medial at the black line to around the end of line D laterally.
I do this mostly to get a good measurements of bunions as that's one of those frequent problems I encounter but taking the measurement even in the absence of a bunion would not hurt.
From there follow the tracing and get the volume on that circumference correct.

Just

Rob

[relferink]

Jenny,

Nice to see you back here again. Not sure if the change to your last would make all that much difference but one thing that generally helps is rounding off the back of the heel some. (the top lift) It allows the foot to roll more, taking away some of the slapping as the ball of the foot approaches the ground more gradually.


Rob

[relferink]

Not sure how I missed Rick's earlier post on the heel slapping.

on the subject of missed posts; I also have some experience with optical scanners. The best one I found is a regular flatbed scanner. It can be re-enforced to take a person's weight but unlike some 3D scanners I worked with they have the least distortion of the scan.
It works even better than using wine as it doesn't leave you with a hangover. On the downside you can't write off your liquor store tab to the business.
The problem with the edge of the foot not being all that clear can be lessened if you scan in color mode and use a "skirt" to block outside light when scanning feet. It will stand out nicely against a dark background. Before you print the image use a drawing program to mark the edges of the foot.
I have worked with a piece of software from Vebana that would do that automatically. Unfortunately not available as freeware. The software works well, they have not convinced me that their orthotics are as good as they claim. Probably just a matter of time before someone else figures out what they did to make that work and use it in other applications.

Rob

[large_shoemaker_at_large]

Dear Jenny
I to have encountered that " slap" when first making shoes. First heel is to high. drop it so you have some toe spring. Second the heel extends to far back. as a rule of thumb. the heel should not extend backwards past the point were the top of the heel bone attaches to the achilles tendon. usually close to the top of the upper for an oxford.
If you wear the shoe for a time you might develop shin splints
Post a pic It would make it easier to help
Hope this helps
Regards
Brendan