Thank you Ray and Jack. Its actually not to much work until you try to level the shoe. Shaping and leveling is a bitch. I imagine it is the same with the original. I think I could cut about 10 minutes off the next shoe. First go you spend time trying to determine the next step. Made that out of 1/4 x 1 I could not find any 5/16 in my shop. This steel just won't hold a heat either.
TFT out of Deming NM still makes a shoe simler to what your discribing Jack .I rilly like the way they go in them but as you say there a bich to shape. Shoe in this post remindes me of a shoe in one of my arkaic books disigned for traviling in sand ,beleave it had a concave steel plate in the center though .I will see if i can find it
