In the last three days I gave the boots a test run, walking 3 miles plus standing at my job for 6 hours, wearing them.
When I first got the boots from eBay, they felt too big. No problem. I knew that in advance, since I have owned real hiking boots before, which I purchased while in Switzerland back in the 1980s. I know boots run in large sizes because you are expected to wear a special inner sock with winter boots, which is why I ordered the boots one half size smaller than I normally buy shoes (measured in centimetres so as to not make a mistake with Eur/UK/US size definitions). And I wore a double sock...
Hmmm.. still to big. Or should I write "too tall" inside? Alright, so I carved out four insoles made out of neoprene, 2 for each foot (double insole), and added them to the furry foam insole provided. Still too big, but the boot is passable. So I walk in them to work an back.
Monday started and ended great, and I wore the boots on Tuesday too. But as I walked back home I noticed on Tuesday that my left foot's socks tended to inexplicably "bunch up" under the ball of my foot. Same thing happened the day before, and only on the left foot. I didn't notice that pattern until late Tuesday.
By the time I got back home the second day, my heel was hurting as well. Something was rubbing against my heel. "Uh-oh" I said. I'm old and I have owned many shoes, and I know this symptom well. It is what happens when the heel collapses under your weight, due to the fact that modern shoes have hollow cells in the heel, and these may be flexing too much (and I'm not that heavy). Usually this is because of poor design.
Regardless of the type of shoe you're talking about. Dress shoes, hiking boots, ladies shoes, mens's shoes, tennis, track, and running, since the late 1990's I have seen a truly disturbing trend; Outside of traditional dress shoes, I have not seen a single true solid-soled shoe (and don't give me that hiker's sales pitch about "modern shoe technology incorporates light-weight materials and extra cushioning, while having 'tactile transparency' to allow your callused feet to 'feel' the ground under your feet" - Because where I come from this is called "poorly designed shoes"
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Apparently for the last 25 years, people- even professional hikers- have been running around in very poorly made shoes, most of them made in China, and what used to last for many years, now you'll be lucky if it lasts a year, or maybe just a couple of months, if you're unlucky.
Checking the boots carefully, I saw that between the heel of your foot and the cell-rubber sole, there is nothing but a thin composite felt material, which under my weight was already showing "dimples" where the hollow cells are in the rubber heel structure.
This is really bad news. It means the composite insole floor is too thin and is flexing, so the side walls of the rubber cells can't hold their shape under my weight. I've seen this happen in skate shoes, boots, and casual shoes, sold in the last 25 years - all very different animals, but with the same f&^*ing "cell technology." Usually I don't see this kind of deformation until I've been wearing a pair of boots for about a year or more.
In the 1990's and 1980's my boots or shoes did not have that problem at all because... you guessed it - solid soles. Seeing this effect after two days is definitely bad news. This is what was rubbing against my heel: the rubber cell walls.
And the sock bunching up on the left foot? Simple, I took out the furry insole they provided and the left insole is about one size shorter than the right insole. The left insole was shifting as I walked, thus causing my sock to slide as well. *Facepalm*
Alright folks, so this is my diagnosis. Engineering 101: The boots are just incomplete. Unfinished. The interior of the boots are just missing a thick 3/18 inch or 1/4 inch leather or composite insole which is actually an important structural part of the sole of the shoe. This is also why the shoes felt too large, even when wearing double socks. They're missing parts!
Without that extra rigidity, the rubber cells are too flexible. I'm also guessing the centre of the shoe is missing another important component found in many shoes, including (and especially) dress shoes, namely a solid steel bar glued or riveted under the arch of your foot, to keep the centre of the shoe rigid. Only the ball of the foot should be flexible. Even other cheap Chinese boots have that component
All the problems can be fixed by adding a very rigid thick insole, probably a piece of tooling leather, as thick as I can get it, solidly glued to the composite insole, so as to keep the rubber cell walls from flexing, and to distribute the weight load evenly to all the rubber cells. The removable furry insole should be glued to the leather to keep it from shifting.
If I can, I should also rivet in place a solid metal bar, like a steel tie, under the arch of the foot. I just checked, and I can scavenge two of those bars from a broken pair of boots I have.
If I don't fix this problem very soon, it will take very little time, as little as a month, before you will actually see parts of the heel wear unevenly and start exposing (opening) the cells to the outside, making the boot unwearable in wet weather, not to mention see your heel painfully dig into the rubber heel on the inside of the shoe, generating a myriad of blisters on your heel. So give the boots one month of life maximum without urgent repairs (based on my experience with other cheap Chinese footwear).
As of right now, I don't want to wear the boots without the necessary repairs, so as to not damage what is essentially a brand new item. I may be able to wear them once or twice (next week we have rain) if I use a thin rigid carboard-stock heel between the Neoprene and the insole. If I didn't know how to fix the problem, I would be boiling mad, right about now. But being a Steampunk, and fresh out of cash and patience, I'll make the best of it and exercise my engineering nugget while playing cobbler for the next two days...
