Baking Grilamid Shells in a Home Convection Oven?

[ryan b]

Has anyone tried this yet? Any advice? Or warnings?

I picked up a pair of tlt6p's on sale last spring and after a few days on them i'm convinced I need a bit more volume over the arch and in the toes and maybe a bit of room around my ankle bones for long tours.

They are the green grilamid version and a shell mold sounds like it would be perfect. I've done liners before a few times with good success and have a jenn air convection oven and an inferred thermometer to check temperatures so I think it should be doable. I also live a long ways from a good bootfitter.

The instructions posted in the "vulcan fit issue" thread here and one of the wildsnow backland blog posts say pad problem areas, heat at 240f for 12-14minutes, use a plastic bag (and maybe silicone spray?) to aid foot insertion, buckle tightly and stand on a hard flat surface for 15 minutes with a level stance to cool.

My oven isn't quite tall enough to fit a boot with liner vertically so my one debate is if I should heat the shells laying on their side with the liners in or heat the shells without the liner but either way would probably work unless I'm missing something.

[John_B]

I would hazard a guess that if you heat the boot on it's side it could result in the boot "settling downwards" and possibly changing the shape of the boot in an undesired way. Take it with a grain of salt since I've never done this before. Thanks for the website too!

[ScrewYou]

Mmm I love fresh baked gorilla mud shells

[gregL]

I've baked a number of TLT6 shells, but all in an oven that I am well familiar with in terms of temperature and how boots and liners react in them. There are many experienced bootfitters who have never done this or even done manual punches in Grilamid shells, FWIW.

My recommendations are to take the liners out of the shells before baking (they should be upright and may fit in your oven that way), go 9-10 minutes at ~235-240 F. on convection (shells are thinner than Vulcans), don't use silicone but put the liners in manually before your put the boots on (the plastic bag, Intuition sock and silicone spray are all techniques for putting your foot in the shell with the liner already on it).

[XXX-er]

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I picked up a pair of tlt6p's on sale last spring and after a few days on them i'm convinced I need a bit more volume over the arch and in the toes and maybe a bit of room around my ankle bones for long tours.

You didn't mention if you have the stock dynafit liner but in the mercury vulcan it creates pressure over the instep and is just a POS in general ...try a new liner

[gregL]

Regarding the Wildsnow posts on the Backland Carbon, the Atomic Backland cooking process is a little different - Atomic says to leave the liners in the shells when baking (they told me 15 minutes @ ~235 F and it worked great). With Atomic and Salomon, heat molding of the shells is a documented part of their fit process. Dynafit neither recognizes nor condones baking their shells, so if you warp the boot or pull hardware out of the shell you are SOL.

[ryan b]

Thanks guys! Still seems doable though I may hold off on the full bake till I have a chance to ski them a bit more and/or take a trip to somewhere with an experienced bootfitter.

Does anyone ever mold just the tongues? The instep feel okay until I add those, and they have a distinct arch that could be made to take up less space and spread pressure out..

I am still skiing the oem CR liner though I just cut off the elastic bit over the instep which does help. I've considered a new liner but there isn't great consensus online on what will work without taking up more volume then the original. I tried some old scarpa/intuition liners I have and a 27.5 maestrale liner took up way too much space while a 27 spirit 4 wrap liner actually felt like it would be okay with a remold. Both felt like they would do a much better job cushioning my ankle bones.

I may still decided to try stretching a 26 pro tour or alpine wrap or wait and see if the new tlt6 cl liner gets good reviews.

[gregL]

I swapped out the CR liners for my old TLT5 liners (almost the same as the new CL liners) and gained a significant amount of volume - they also weigh less.

[RockinB]

I'm tuning into this thread in hopes I can get some confidence from hearing success stories from other folks. I have had a punch on my 6's that wasn't quite enough across the forefoot. I'm know no longer living in an area that I'm comfortable with any bootfitter doing work on these. I'd sure like to eliminate having to travel. I'm a boot Jong and am scared to mess things up. Maybe I'm thinking it will be harder than it will be. How much room for error is there?

[gregL]

I have had a punch on my 6's that wasn't quite enough across the forefoot.

If you don't need a general volume increase (just more room at the met heads) then this isn't the right technique. You may even lose some width when the boot is in the oven. When I do this the punches always come AFTER the baking. Wait until you can find a bootfitter with Grilamid experience to work on them.

[RockinB]

Good advice. Thanks Greg. I will find a good bootfitter and let them work their magic