zip fit liners / omni fit removal ?

[MountainMonster]

Can a portion of the omni fit fill be removed from zip fit liners ?

LTD Edition Grand Prix stealth liners, I ordered for a shell I no longer use/have.

Id like to use them in my Tecnica Mach1 lv shells, however, there is not enough room for liner/footbed/ & foot.

I tried heating shells in a rice cooker, & microwaving liners ( short bursts, 50% ).

I skied two days with stock (almost flat ) footbeds, pain all day.

I also tried them in an older inferno shell, a little better, but still too much pain.

The couple of boot fitters I have taken them to dont seem to want to try.

Any ideas ?

 

[Jersey Skier]

Hopefully you don't need to remove too much, because it will be time consuming. If you heat the liner you can use your fingers to (slowly) move the material up through the same place it is inserted. Watch the Zipfit videos on adding Omfit to see where it is added.

I'm not a bootfitter, so there may be an easier way to do this. But while slow, this way will work.

 

[Brad J]

I have the same set up , it took more than two days to settle the liners out, do you have custom foot beds?, I now have about 40 days on them and they are good , when you heated them up did you flex them as in the zipfit video??' I would be careful not to remove to much at one time . Good luck and be patient

 

[Turnoisier]

If you have a plastic tube of roughly the same diameter of those that come with the 'spotfit kit' (about 1/2 inch diameter, I think) then you can just insert it into the particular part of the liner from where you want to remove the omfit (see the zipfit site for a video of where the various pockets are in the liner) and squish some of it into the tube. A certain amount of it will insert itself into the tube as you jam it in anyway. Remove the tube, empty out the omfit and repeat the process. Just do that as many times as necessary until you've removed the desired amount. Warming the liner will make it easier, but I imagine you could do it on a cold liner. However, given that you'll need to heat the liner for refitting once you've removed some omfit anyway (as the removal process will change its shape significantly) you may as well warm it up first. This is what I did, anyway. It only took a few minutes.

 

[MountainMonster]

I have the same set up , it took more than two days to settle the liners out, do you have custom foot beds?, I now have about 40 days on them and they are good , when you heated them up did you flex them as in the zipfit video??' I would be careful not to remove to much at one time . Good luck and be patient

I have new superfeet carbons, I can get the liners nto the shells with stock/flat footbeds, but too much volume with custom foot beds.

 

[MountainMonster]

I'll try the heat & squish up technique when I get home. Footloose /Mammoth says it's a lot of work....

Tnx

 

[Turnoisier]

Without using the tube, it will be a LOT of work. The liner is designed to keep the omfit on the inside. With the tube, it only takes minutes, and the tips of your fingers won't ache...

 

[MountainMonster]

Ok, tnx, I'm on a tube hunt then...

 

[cem]

you don't need or even want a tube to do this.....

warm the liner in the rice cooker or gently with a heat gun (very gently) starting with a very warm liner makes it easier 60-65 degrees C
open up the ports where the cork OMfit goes in, if it has not had any material injected you need to break the seal on these so either just cut the very end of them or seperate the two sides of the port
using thumbs inside the liner and hand on the outside, work the material form around the ankle areas towards the exit point
it will take time but you essentially milk the material out of the liner
try and take approx equal amounts from both medial and lateral sides
i have taken well over a golf ball sized amount out of a liner (from memory the difference between GP and Gara is 70grams of OMfit)

good luck and remember, you can always get a spotfit kit and put some back in (it is so much easier that way round )

 

[Turnoisier]

CEM, I bow to your superior knowledge and experience of Zipfit liners. Could you tell me, though, whether I am likely to damage the liner by using the tube method? I have used both 'milking' and 'tube' methods, and find the tube method to be much faster and less painful on the thumbs. However, if there is a chance of damaging the liners then I should (a) stop doing it, and (b) stop recommending it to other people!

Also, if I might derail the thread slightly, I have another zipfit related question (that does sort of have something to do with omfit removal and replacement) that I wonder if you can answer. I have a pair of 26.5 zipfit grand prix liners in a tecnica mach 1 lv boot. Shell fit is fine without any work done (12-15mm gap), and the stock liners fitted very well, but I prefer the feel of zipfits. The fit with the grand prix is excellent around the heel and ankle, tight but still comfortable over the instep, but a little roomy around the cuff even with a booster strap (chicken legs), and there is a little more room around the toe than is ideal. Adding omfit doesn't seem like the right approach because there is nowhere in those areas to add it. I also happen to have a pair of the lower volume gara liners in 25.5, which I tried in the boot the other day. Now, these liners haven't been fitted to the boot, but I think I prefer the feel of the gara liners on my foot. They are a little snugger around the cuff, which I like, and a little snugger around the toes, whilst still seeming like they'll be fine as regards heel hold and ankle fit. Interestingly, there is barely a couple of mm difference in sole length between the smaller sized garas and the larger sized grand prix, so I can use the same footbed, and my foot does not slide forward at all. So, I thought, maybe I can put the smaller liners in the boot, reap all the benefits without risking black toenail type injuries, and add a little omfit to the ankles if I needed it. Unfortunately, they are very tight over the instep on both feet. LIke, can't-close-the-second-buckle-screamingly-painful-tight. Do you have any idea why this should be happening with a smaller and lower volume liner? Is this something that could be solved by properly heating them, or is it a lost cause? I don't really want to go to all the trouble of heating the liners, shells etc. if there is no chance of it working. Any advice you could give would be most welcome!

Apologies for thread derailment/hijack. I just thought you'd see this if I posted it here.

 

[cem]

never had an issue with damaging the liner, but i have always found milking the liner to be the most effective way (there isn't an easy solution to getting the OMfit out the liner)

as for the gara verses the GP, the difference between the two liners is the amount of OMfit in the ankles and tongue, the gara has less than the GP.... how old are these liners? what boot were they molded to before or have they never been molded?

with a bit of heat you can massage the OMfit up the tongue to give space over the instep, this will hold the ankle back more and give space over the foot, you could also heat the shell and the liner and mold with a piece of dense 3mm fitting foam over the tight spot to help push material away form the area and re-contour the shell a little.... if it is close with the GP there is no reason why it wouldn't work with the gara

 

[Turnoisier]

Thanks, @cem. I'm not sure precisely what year the gara liners are. They have the black plastic coating on the outside of the cuff instead of the leather, which the gp liners have. That may be slightly thicker and pushing my foot further forward, I suppose. They've never been molded, I don't think, but they still give a very different instep fit to the gp liners, even before they were molded. I suppose I could heat the liners without heating the shells to see if that improves things, and then, if it seems promising, go the whole hog and try heating the shells with the foam over the insert.

Still seems weird, though. I am under the impression that zip fit liners are 'hand made', which may account for a certain amount of the variation...

 

[cem]

@Turnoisier zipfit liners are hand made in a s small factory in montebelluna Italy, there is always a little bit of variation but the packs are filled and weighed prior to goign into the liners

heating the liner will make a massive difference, it could be something as simple as the ankle huggers are pushing you forward and into the instep of the liner, it depends on who put the liner together as each operative varies the way they stitch so there can be some where the ankle pack is spread out across the whole sack or some where it is quite aggressive, a bit of heat and things even out nicely

by heating the liners that material will settle back into voids and allow your foot to move further back in the liner/ shell which in turn will give you more space for the toes and the instep.... in cases where it is tight like this i favor using a toe cap and any padding on the instep... it hurts like hell for the molding but the space it creates is very welcome when it comes to skiing

 

[Turnoisier]

@cem, many thanks for your help with this. I'll go ahead and heat the liners, and see what happens.

What you say about the manufacturing process is very interesting indeed. I've had several pairs of zipfits now, and they have all seemed slightly different to me. Even the ones that looked the same had a different slightly feel to each other. What you say about the different styles of the operatives makes sense of these observations. It's also rather nice that in an age of mass production, there is a small factory in Italy turning out such a high quality product by hand. It's almost enough to restore a little faith in the world. It also accounts for the price...

Thanks again!

 

[cem]

if i can get the guys at the factory to share, i will see if they will send me some pictures of the production process

 

[Turnoisier]

That would be great! I'd love to see them.

 

[T-Square]

@cem Definitely would love to see them. I'm a nut for that sort of thing.