[TheForge] Re: Comfortable shoes

[RIES NIEMI]

I wear rubber birkenstock clogs- they are the most comfortable shoes I have
ever worn all day on concrete floors. They are waterproof, which is a big
plus here in the pacific northwest. They last forever. They dont catch on
fire when you drop hot stuff on them. They melt, but slowly as the rubber is
pretty dense. The other day I stepped on a red hot piece of 3/4" square. The
clogs smell just enough so you can tell you are on fire- not like those
nasty redwings that stink up the whole shop for hours when you burn em.
Ended up with a pretty cool looking 3/4" x 2" rectangular indent in the sole
of my shoe. I mig weld in em for hours, and rarely get a spark in my sock.
Put on my real boots when I have to stick weld, though.

The clogs also work pretty well when you drop stuff on your feet. Over the
years I have developed the no doubt bad habit of dropping long bars of steel
onto my foot, then sliding it off onto the ground. Makes less noise and
bounces around less than just dropping it straight down. I can do this in
rubber clogs with a bar up to about 100 pounds.
They arent steel toes, but they are lots better than leather shoes.

Of course, if you work in a place where they require steel toed boots, no
way will they work. I keep a pair of steel toed red wings in the shop, but I
only put em on when I absolutely have to.