Hot Seating

The flakes are pretty thin and they dry out immediately. They were very dry under the microscope. I also tried the opposite, to soak them for a few minutes and still there were no pores or holes visible even at great magnification, ie when the diameter of each tubule was an inch wide on the screen. So no, drying or soaking does not make any difference. The tubules are not hollow at the distal end of the wall as far as I can see for the moment.

Very cool Christos!

Thanks for taking the time to do that.

Yes, Ray, I do.

First is the microscopic examination. If whatever pores of the bearing surface of the wall can be displayed on the microscope, then it should be easy to verify whether these pores actually melt together and seal on a burned surface. For the moment I am still trying to see these pores. May be I am doing something wrong, but even at 1000X magnification I can not see any whilst I can see the tubules and their core, which does not seem to be hollow.

Another way would be precision weighing of a cube of very dry wall material. Or several of them. Let's say 10 of them raw and 10 of them burned on all sides to seal them. They do not have to be absolutely equal in dimensions, just somehow close. With a precision scale it should be easy to weigh the water each batch will absorb in a given time as a percentage of their initial weight. If the sealing theory is valid, the burned cubes will absorb less or no water.

Then of course we can try a small round slice of wall as a seal on a thin high pressure hose and see what drips and whether raw or burned makes a difference on drops per minute, if any.

The major complication with all these is the temperature and time of burning. But I'll start over the weekend with two sets, one with black heat and one red, both for 3 seconds, and see what happens for a start. I do expect that higher heat will melt things and seal better (if any sealing effect is observed at all) but it wouldn't be a huge surprise to find that too much heat destroys the material and makes it more porous.

I was too busy today to work on it, but I expect to have some first results during the weekend.

But one thing puzzles me the most. Apart from the pure science of it, does it really matter ? What is the difference, sealed or not ? Even if the end of the tubules is absolutely sealed by a hot shoe, the wall will for sure absorb water from the environment. You can easily see that with glues and epoxies, which are really waterproof. The whole surface of the sole and the face of the wall is porous and will absorb water. Does it really matter whether we seal 10% of the surface or not ?

I do understand caring to disinfect it with a hot shoe. I do understand caring to make it harder. I do understand fitting it better. But sealing it ? Do we really care ?

It doesn't matter to me because I'm going to hot fit no matter what.

Christos the science of it is fascinating.

I have been recieving phone calls from a man who says he is Bill Adams in California....
Sure sounds like Bill Adams....
Will the real Bill Adams Please stand up !!!

my 2 cents worth

any help ?

I think you got that one trimmed a little too short, Bruce.

Hmmm...I was just about to say me too, and then then I found this : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9932088

The way I understand it, Dr Kasapi of the University of British Columbia has found that the tubules not only do not draw water into the hoof wall but they help dehydration, they expel the water absorbed by the face of the wall. Don't know about you all, but that is a surprise to me. It means, if I understand correctly, that my idea of sealing the surface on a wet softish hoof to prevent more water from entering, would actually just prevent the hoof from drying properly when it gets a chance out of humidity.

So if hot seating seals anything, the effect of that sealing would be the exact opposite of what I always thought. It would help the feet maintain humidity, it would make them softer, it would prevent them from drying out. So, if hot fitting seals anything, it may be better to hot fit dry hooves and leave the wet softish ones raw so they have a chance to dry out ? We'll see.

Yeap, it is, and though I initially thought it is just for fun, it seems that this one may lead us to some useful conclusions.

At least I know why my feet are so wet now. Cold shoeing here I come! And no more paint!

Years ago the most expensive and labor intensive thing to make or have was a rasp. So they would nip the foot as level as they could leave a little length and then burn a flat shoe on the foot to help level them. I don't know if it dose or doesn't seal the feet but I do see improvement with wet or dry feet with hot shoeing.

Wish I could be good enough to do that. lol

I've felt that hot fitting feet that were having problems was to the horses benefit. That said, I don't know if it "seals" the foot/tubules or not. I do think it toughens the foot though. Kinda like those stupid f**ks that walk on hot coals. I don't hot fit all horses, just a plater at heart, but I hot fit those that I think will benefit from it/need it. No hot/cold debate here, just a need to use it when needed.

So you leave a couple of nail holes open so the hoof can let the water in and out.
Any one else ever hear the barefooters talk about feet "breathing", and how shoes restrict this? I guess with all this water flowing back and forth they must have gills in there somewhere too.
Additionally we must surmise that feet must need the wet to dry and back to wet variations as frogs are amphibious.

Ray, try making one and tell us about the labor involved!