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Building And Fitting The Heart Bar Shoe For Remodeling
When using heart bar shoes as a hoof-remodeling tool, Steve Teichman of Chester County Farrier Associates in Pennsylvania says critical factors are function and fit. Those are the key things to keep in mind whether you build your own, use 
commercial versions or work with alternatives, such as Myron McLane’s heart bar pad.
“I’m all for whatever works,” he says. “If you’re handy at building them and you like to do it, that’s cool. But sometimes we’re doing 2 or 3 sets of these a day. We want to get this done reasonably quickly and make some money while we’re doing it.”
Teichman shapes shoes and then welds in pre-cut frog plates. He contracts with a local business that does plasma cutting to cut the plates in three different sizes from scrap metal. The plates wind up costing him pennies apiece. He says that welding in the inserts after shaping the shoe makes it easier to fit the shoe properly.
“Fitting the shoe is important. They are a nuisance to shape and knock around on the anvil if the heart is in there, especially if they’ve also got studs or pins in there,” he says.
