About a decade old, but barely worn. I really want to rescue them if I can.
If stored away from heat & light then, and only then a maybe.
It also depends on where and why they are too tight. Comments below mainly relate to a shell that is uncomfortablly tight, rather than the liner….
Maybe the best bet is to find them a suitable recipient and then start again…
The older plastic boots may not have the same degree of moldability - can depend on the quality of the plastic. Some cheaper stretched plastic shells also don’t fully retain their stretch over time.
Equally, only tight at the toes or only tight over the arch or at the broadest part of the foot can be easier to fix than two or three out of three.
Sometimes having to stretch outwards limits the capacity to stretch upwards as well and vice-versa.
There are also limits to how much one can stretch a boot without impacting the integrity of the boot or potentially warping the base of the sole which renders the boot useless.
Many bootfitters only really make adequate margin on the combination of mark-up on the boot retail plus mark-up on the provision of a custom-made footbed or sale of inners.
The sales volumes/ turnover in Oz make it difficult to make any decent coin out of boot adjustments alone.
Most bootfitters are quite rightly a bit leery to try and fix an imperfect boot that has no chance of fitting in the first place.
A bootfitter will be able to determine whether or not the match between skier and any given boot is redeemable, but that will mean a consultation which either the boot fitter or the client can end up losing out on.
Besides expanding the shell there are other options
1) going for a lower/adjusted bootboard (the bit between the shell and the liner at the bottom of the boot,
2) opting for a thinner alternate liner (if one has access to another already comfortable /packed out one that fits the shell one need not buy a new thinner version),
3) removing the footbed (inside the liner)
4) selecting a thinner footbed (including a thin liner from a pair of runners)
5) Unfortunately, as the old joke goes about preparing eels for eating - mostly its a case of follow steps 1-4 and then throw the damn thing away.
All the above options are best tried along with a bootfitter. Compromises to make an unsuitable boot liveable are just that. You’re still going to end up with an unsuitable ill-fitting boot, just slightly less ill-fitting.
Old time bushwalkers unfortunately too frequently have too a high tolererance for discomfort and pain and many who ski then put up with bad boots because they start with warped expectations…. (guilty as charged)
Disclaimer: I have only a little knowledge of boot fitting issues and a little knowledge is probably even more dangerous than ignorance.
I myself have taken a perfectly good pair of less than optimally fitting ski boots to a boot fitter and on their advice have chosen to start from scratch with an alternate boot as that would deliver a better outcome. The boot fitter got nothing out of providing advice most clients don’t want and aren’t willing to hear, but equally their reputation is on the line.
Boot fitting is frequently a step by step process in any case - it’s best to keep boot adjustments to a minimum and to make further adjustments once the impact of initial changes are tested out.
So frequently it takes a bit more than a single shot to get things quite right.
We mostly have the expectation that a single adjustment will address matters once and for all, but it doesn’t always work out like that - feet contract and swell with heat and exercise, and boots ski different on-piste to what they feel like in the shop.
I’m penning this for general interest, not primarily in response to
@Bogong ‘s query, as many punters may not get some of the complexities of the arcane aspects of boot fitting… certainly I don’t, not having any orthopaedic experience myself, just odd feet….
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