How to pick the best Work boots & shoes for the Job site & why some wear out so fast

Nothing's working right yet. I burn through them every 6 months. I don't want you guys wasting your money burning through boots. Yeah, dude. I love those ladies. Good. Everybody sleep good. So, two guys are splending with two sages. Bad. You get a good pair of boots, that damn thing better last you for a while. All right, guys. Last winter I made a video and I was s just a raving fan of Keen boots, but a few persistent questions kept popping up in my mind like this whole made in America thing and I thought, well, I better check into that a little bit more. And then I kept getting questions from guys in different industries asking about how well they function in different trades. And so today I put a pair of Keen boots on Frankie who does construction work, Tim who does heavy equipment, and Xander who does basically general laboring. And I find out from them exactly what they think of them. And not everybody was as raving a fan as I was. So today we're going to Well, you know what we're going to do? Let's just go do it. Let's quit talking about it and get something done. I've been wearing these boots for a couple weeks now. I went to put on my Red Wings for the first time. Yeah, in a couple weeks. It just felt really funny compared to these cuz there's I think I maybe got the Red Wings a half size too small or something. But he's a shoe diva. She's like, "Oh, these boots don't fit right." Oh, these are uncomfortable in the heel. These look just like that, don't I? No, these got a lot of toe room. I like them. Yeah, this is pretty comfortable after wearing them. I'm just going to tell you guys straight up in all honesty. I have never heard Tim say that in my life. I've never actually heard you say you like the boot. Now, what you use them for and what Frankie uses his for completely different. Like you're in heavy equipment and you're in uh climbing up and down and in mud when you're taking your shoes off. Were your feet wet or were they okay? Yeah, they weren't wet. Here's the thing. When I was wearing my Red Wings, I would never take them off without putting them on a boot dryer. Yeah. Okay, there it is. This is where the boots get parked. There's the boot dryer. And I'll tell you right now, Frankie, I have wore Keen now for over a year. And I've never had my Keen on the boot dryer one single time. You like when your toes are squished together more? I like it tight foot. Tight toes. Yeah. Just because of walking around on, you know, beams of the roof and stuff like that, I feel more I feel more secure. Okay. know with the Keen or whatever they my foot's loose. Okay, that's good to know. So, cuz you work you walk on tight beams. What I was talking about with Tim is he's always working in mud and heavy equipment, but you're balancing and you're walking and with the teens, what happens is the toe is really wide and then it's narrow in the heel. So, it grabs hold of your heel but gives your foot plenty of room to spread out so it doesn't feel like your feet are jacked in there. But for you, you want your toes to be jacked in there cuz like a tight rope walker feels like more secure with, you know, with a tight foot. The thing about these two, these KE is you're wearing a steel toe right now, Tim. Does it feel like it? No, they're pretty light. They're they're really light compared to the other other ones. I've had my KE now for a year and a half. Well, no, a year. A Yeah, it's been a year. Not a year and a half. Yeah, I would I wouldn't buy anything but a Keen now. Okay, so the scoreboard is Timmy loves his, Frankie doesn't like his, I love mine, and we gave another pair to uh the kid Xander. Let's find out what he thinks of his catch on video, did you? I got you turning the machine totally off from high idle. Yeah, that's the wrong thing to do. Bad. Bad. And I got you almost falling. No, I did fall. I'll I'll say that. Right. What's the rule? You normally want to idle it down and let it sit for about 2 minutes to let the engine cool down so it doesn't See, he knows what to do. It's just Does he do it? He gets excited. It's a camera. It's you guys. What do you think your boots so far? I'm loving them actually. Yeah. Super nice. They're really comfortable. Like super comfortable. They support my heel a lot, which my cowboy boots did not do. I didn't notice that till after I took my cowboy boots off and wore these for a while. Timmy said the same thing. He's like, "I tried to put my red wings back on." Yeah. He was saying that this morning. Yeah. And he's like, "I couldn't stand that. Do it." No. Yeah. No. No. Right. I actually went up to uh the North Shore with these. It was raining all weekend, so I was walking through puddles, mud, all that. My feet never got wet. Really? Nope. Your next pair of boots, would you buy a pair of KE? Yes or no? I love them. Uh, I'd definitely buy them again. So, you would buy them? Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I'll let you get back to work. I just wanted to find out how those were holding up for you. Hey, you want to show the world your new tattoo? He designed this himself. That's pretty cool. Yeah, doesn't hurt anymore. Sorry. Didn't hurt when I got it. All right, guys. It's all about your feet today cuz I will tell you as you get older, take care of your feet. It's the most valuable resource you have to make you the most productive during the entire day. And so today we are going to cover the basics on how to buy a boot. But this is something that I didn't know. And so I went to Keen. I love my KE. I freaking love my Keen boots. I'm going to tell you straight up. I've done the test of time with them. And they have not failed once. And so who's better to help me understand and bring you guys this information than the guys that make these boots that absolutely rock? So we're going to be looking at them in detail. Plus, we're going to be building our own pair in Portland, Oregon. I'm going to show you how they do this process, how they test them, and how you guys can pick out your own boots. So, get ready. We have a lot of information coming. You better grab the popcorn. So, for my industry, hardcaping, landscaping, this is the boot that Keen recommends we go with. Okay. So, this is what this boot is made out of right here. You got it. [Music] And then obviously the steel toe cap would go in here. So that's how this boot is constructed. There's a lot of pieces and parts to it. The biggest and most important thing is we use this TPU uh 3/4length plate that goes all the way grab the heel but also provide uh as a shank almost that stretches out to the edges just to provide a little bit more stability. This has good torsional rigidity primarily because of how this is in the system uh within all this soft EVA material but it provides a lot of structure. Uh we found that this technology which I just showed you this this only has one set of ribs. This particular boot has an even longer piece that goes further up the boot has three sets of ribs goes all the way up to these indicator which gives even more torsional stability. So if you're on really uneven ground Yeah. This can challenge a welted boot. It gets so like that. Um, can you actually show me the exact boot you'd recommend for a guy in the concrete industry? Somebody that's not working on uneven ground as much, but just a lot of dayto-day grind on the body. If you are wearing a leather boot and you're in concrete, I would suggest a certain leather called SPR leather. Uh, it's developed years ago by uh one of our competitors. Uh, which is now used in a few of our boots. It looks like reg regular leather. You'd never know the difference. But this SPR leather uh can handle all sorts of acidity chemicals. Uh it will last longer in harsher, more toxic environments like concrete. Uh especially in the farming industry, but it can handle that kind of toxicity. Handles lime, things that actually usually eat leather. Cuz there's guys out there that especially in those industries where they're burning through boots. Some guys have an insane success ratio and they're like, "I've got boots for 3 years or 5 years." And other guys are like, "I burn through them every 6 months." God, there's a reason. And you I don't want you guys wasting your money burning through boots. You get a good pair of boots, that damn thing better last you for a while. Okay. So, here's something else I learned is this boot right here is a great boot. Metatars. Yeah. So, that's got metatarsal protection. So, metatarscils are the top bones in your feet. Uh, it's a requirement. It's actually certain types of boots and this can be their external. So here it is in an external piece, regular boot underneath. Okay. Uh and then we have some boots where it's actually on the inside. Okay. So if you guys may be asking why do I care about that? Well, if you are in an industry where you got to have that protection or um one of the guys uh at the at the factory was talking about how he likes it for chainsaw work, forestry work because his laces aren't getting caught while he's walking through the woods when he's cutting wood. He prefers it. Um and then you have one you have a boot that actually has that built in. Yeah. Uh this actually has it built in. Um, I know it seems weird, but that boot with or that shoe with and without, you never notice cuz it's essentially this piece of material that's soft and squishy is providing the same protection as this. No, totally sounds weird, right? So, look how thin that is. Yeah. This is the EVA squishy material I was showing you. That's thicker, right? So, uh, same ball bearing bounces like crazy, right? Yeah. Holy crap. It's very weird. It's a chemical process. What? So, it's soft. it without anything happening to it. A little bit of energy like an impact does this whole chemical thing which turns this thing rock solid for a moment which allows it to absorb all that energy and stop it and it's so much thinner. This thing is rock solid and honestly if you have to bend on your knee you get this thing jamming up into your shin. So it's really limiting but some companies want to see it. Some companies will demand it but don't care if they see it or not. But uh at least you have the ability to do this. So, I can make a boot with and without this. You'd never know it was in there. Um, so it's a really great technology that's been added. See that that ball thingy again? Sure. So, bounces on EVA, right? That's insane. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Who would have thought boots could be this interesting? One of the things that Keen does different is they have a left and a right toe cap. So, you can see how this is actually angled to accommodate your big toe. A typical toe cap is just a universal. They go on left or right. They're interchangeable. If you also notice, one other difference between the toe caps is ours kicks at the low pers. Theirs fits inside ours. Clearly, there's more room. Oh, okay. Which is nice. Um, but if you also notice the shape, ours swings out wider. Uh, and here, not only is your big toe going to start feeling it, but your little toe is definitely feeling it. Don't be afraid. Right on. Oh yeah. Don't be afraid to grab. Yeah. Close up. This is harder than it looks, guys. You know, one of my big questions is, are Keen boots actually made in the United States? Well, I kind of figured that one out when I built my own pair. As you can tell, I've been using the heck out of them since then, right in Portland, Oregon. Now, Nikki could have built her own pair of those if she wanted to, but she opted for something pink. button. There we go. Switch back and yell auto. Y auto. Auto. Perfect. Okay, so we're going to do our seal toe impact test. This force drop at a force of 101.7 jewels. After the drop, it should the space between the clay and our steel tail should be at less than half an inch. So you you still have your toes? Yes. So here we have our team dry flower flex machine. We test all of our dry boots in here. The red dye is to identify any leaks that may be happening in the waterproof booty. It'll sit here and flex for 100,000 times. 2 and 1/2 days. 2 and 1/2 days. 2 and 1/2 days it does this and the if these machines which have sensors in them register anything it'll stop and at which point we'll go in and cut the cut that is good to see. So then you'll cut it apart to see where you are where you're finding any of your red dye. Now she's getting it set up and all she's going to do is hold that eyelet until either the lace fails or the eyelet fails and then we'll record what that strength is. So that was at 59 kg force. So 59 kilos that's 100 almost 130 lb of force to pull it out. Selene, your job is to randomly go out, pull shoes off from the floor, and destroy them. Yes. Okay. That is my job. And you like your job? I love my job. I've been doing the test of time with them. Meaning that the payer I got last year, I'm still using and abusing. And to this day, I haven't found anything wrong with them. So, when that happens, I like to report back to people and let them know how well they hold up. I hope this video's helped you guys out. Let me know in the comments down below what you want to see next, cuz we've got heavy equipment, we've got power tools, and I think you guys tell me, should I start concentrating a little bit more on education? Because if the if the answer's yes, I'll put out videos like I did with the 10X thing where I talk about how that's not applicable for contractors and small business owners. If you like that, you got to tell me you want more education. God bless you guys. Let's go get