Scrapping first pair of steel toes from boots

That's some serious steel in those puppies!!

At a workshop I worked at, it got so cold during winter that in the morning.
I would light up the gas torch and run it over my steel caps so I got a quick thin red hot line across the cap and then turn it off.
A minute or so later the heat came thru the leather and kept my toes warm for the next hour...

Great place to work at. The owner was American, came over in the '50's I think.
His Father, the first owner, had a stroke in the early 80's, but while still in a wheelchair and in his 70's, make from scratch, a complete capstan turret for a Myford lathe.
No mistakes at all and it ran like clockwork.
From scratch... everything in it he machined and turned and ground, drilled and tapped himself from stock metal.
That includes the design, he never copied it from a working model.