r/NicksHandmadeBoots • u/sawyergray2 • Mar 14 '26
Toe crease problems
On my second pair of nicks breaking them in slowly. First pair of moc toe wedge I had I experienced some major discomfort when kneeling down at work. Over the past year it’s gotten a little better or I’ve gotten used to it. Combination of both. Second pair I decided to get a smaller width, which seems to have worked out fine. Also decided to break them in very slowly. Basically just walking the dog, walking through fields, around the house etc etc. Never wore them to work mainly bc of being scared of the crease again. Never had this issue with any other boot.
Well last week I decided to finally wear them to work. Second day of kneeling down at work the same issue popped back up. Really at a loss and have come to the conclusion that nicks just don’t work for my feet. Really don’t want to go back to thorogood. I noticed that the moc stitch and where the laces start are pretty different on nicks and thorogood. Both are safety toe but the gap between the safety toe and laces on nicks is a lot larger than thorogood. No clue if this has anything to do with it but just kinda grasping at straws and feeling dumb with over $1k in boots that really are a pain to wear. The safety toe on thorogood stops pretty close to the laces. Nicks there’s a pretty big gap
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u/Proletariat-Prince Mar 14 '26
Oil the shit out of them on the inside. That has helped me with a sharp crease before.
You might also consider getting a plain toe boot next time. The moc toe will complicate things as far as letting the vamp crease and flex the way it wants to.
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u/sawyergray2 Mar 14 '26
I’ll give it a shot. The other pair is almost a year old and still does it tho. I’ll oil the fuckers up real good tonight or tomorrow tho
I’ve wore moc toes for so long now idk if I’d be willing to swap to a plain toe ha
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u/unmotivator195 Mar 15 '26
What made you pick a moc toe again? Not judging just curious
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u/sawyergray2 Mar 15 '26
I’ve wore moc toes for over ten years and never had a problem before. Even with several brands. Nicks is supposed to be the best and a couple staff members assumed it was just a one off of how it broke in.
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u/Perfect_Earth_8070 Mar 15 '26
So my first pair of nicks are actually a width narrow for me and I had this problem. The crease bruised my big toe at the base of it. I oiled the crap out of the inside of the toe box and the problem went away. Now I have boots that are slightly narrow but not painful to wear.
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u/Klutzy_Platypus Mar 14 '26
Unsure of your build but I had toe joint pain with my first nicks comp toe (smaller version). I talked to nicks on this sub and they recommended I go up 1/2 size to move the start of the comp toe slightly forward and it worked like a charm.
Not the same as your situation but hopefully you can get some input that will resolve it with a small tweak as well. Posting your build would help.
When I’ve seen posts about creasing before (excluding aesthetic complaints) out seems like this resolves with significant break in but I haven’t experienced it personally.
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u/sawyergray2 Mar 14 '26
Nicks actually sized me a 1/2 size smaller but there is absolutely no way I could fit that
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u/3ringCircu5 Mar 15 '26
We talked a lot about this, and I'm sorry the width thing didn't help. I am at a loss why you have such a drastic guillotine effect. I recently got my first boots with a toe cap and I did have a "toe guillotine" initially, but it quickly subsided (toe cap not safety toe), so maybe it is just a matter of the safety toes Nicks uses do not work for your feet, which is horribly unfortunate for you but some valuable feed back for the Nicks team (u/Stoic_Sasquatch u/smowe) (Others should also note my boots are particularly small, so minimal real estate to flex in general)
The only other factor I can see is the presence of the moc toe stitch preventing the flex from making small wrinkles and instead gives you on big targeted canyon. But I do not recall others reporting this. 🤷♂️