IHWE-Build-5 - Iron Heart/Wesco 9" Brown Engineer Boot

[neph93]

Leather stretches like denim. As with denim you should look for a fit that is snug when new, but comfortable after the break in. As with denim the stretch potential is finite so when the boots are broken in you’re done.

Unlike denim there are things you can do along the way to affect the situtation.

- take out the insole when new if the boot is too fitted. Put it back in when the boot has stretched.

- buy a boot with heavy leather. My oil-tanned Wesco’s (7oz) have stretched barely at all, my pair of these (6oz) a little and my burlaps (5oz) quite a lot.

- choose your socks carefully or put in extra insoles when they stretch

[Chap]

Showing some signs of wear already...

[Appfaff]

Those are looking great @Chap


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[Chap]

Those are looking great @Chap


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cheers @Appfaff really like how they get more and more comfortable with every wear. One of my best purchases...

[Chap]

Some indigo stains and signs of evo... shit I love those boots 

[neph93]

Some indigo stains and signs of evo... shit I love those boots 

That reminds me....

Excuse the poor quality of the lighting but I snapped pics of my custom boss shitkickers along side my IHWE-5 to show the MP toe shape. Both pairs are in need of a mid winter clean. Here they are...

[Chap]

  ❤️❤️❤️

[Chad]

Hi @neph93 , I believe you said you are a 10.5D in these. Do you know your size in the Viberg 2030?

I'm an 8D in the in 2030 and ordered the Standard & Strange Axe Breakers in an 8E but they turned out to be too tight in the toe box. I wanted to see how others size compared to the 2030. I'm not sure if going 8.5E in the Build-5s is the way to go or not.

[neph93]

@Chad I have these in 10.5D yes. Perfect fit. I have some Wesco's in 10.5E because I find the extra room with some of the tougher, heavier leathers is useful, but the domain leather breaks in relatively easily.

 
I have a pair of Viberg but not in the 2030 last, it is a wider smokejumper type boot that fits very well in a 10D.

One source of your troubles could be that Viberg uses UK sizing and Wesco US sizing. So a Viberg 8D is actually more like a Wesco 9D. This could explain the tightness.

[Chad]

Thanks @neph93 . Sounds like 8.5 is worth a try since these are discounted and 9s are sold out.

[Crit_Obs]

I'm the first to admit I can be annoying at (most) times but I'm back to this thread to wonder about sizing. The last pair in stock is the size I would go for in footwear manufactured by other prominent bootmakers in the Pacific North-West and some, like @Chris , wear the same size across different brands... While others have to go up in Wesco. Common sense would dictate that purchasing non-returnable items is not the way to learn your way around an unknown quantity but then again I have been spending nonsensible amounts of money purchasing leather jackets from Japan this autumn, with no prior experience with leather jackets of any kind, so being smart about these things is not a part of my core skillset. But I digress. The 2 reasons I keep coming back to this build are that

- no more IH collab engineers shall be forthcoming, while I think I could use a pair of engineers (never had a pair before)

- this build is by far the best-looking

As these come with removable insoles, would it tell me anything of worth if I asked the good folks of Gosport to measure the insoles of the remaining pair, and go from there? As I haven't worn pull-on boots before I'm not savvy to all the aspects to factor in.

 

[Eisenherz]

Nice boots.

[neph93]

As these come with removable insoles, would it tell me anything of worth if I asked the good folks of Gosport to measure the insoles of the remaining pair, and go from there? As I haven't worn pull-on boots before I'm not savvy to all the aspects to factor in.

Part of the explanation for the variety of solutions people have to fitting boots is of course variations in foot shape. But as Chris  has said earlier, a lot of it is in the head.
This is especially true with pull-on boots as people often dislike heel slip and mistake it for poor fit.

My wife uses the insole measurement trick and I think it is fine for ballpark accuracy but you can get that from general comparison and these threads. RW has become a sort of benchmark because they are somewhat ubiquitous amongst people who like our thing. My experience is that Wesco and RW sizing is similar and that my «standard» shoe size in EU/UK sizing translates into Wesco sizing too. I go a full size down compared to Adidas Originals.