Tony,
I have skied Langes all my life and I would say just about every pair of Lange boots I have owned have developed a similar crack. That's how I know its time for a new pair of boots (I usually get 5-10 years of life span) It is not necessarily a defect or due to misuse. My experience as a design engineer with plastics tells me its a stress crack that develops over time. It is time dependent and stress level dependent. When I take my boots off, I pull the tongue one way and use my hand to open up the shell (as does probably everyone) and that puts stress on that area of the boot. I don't like pain, so I open it up as much as I can, hence highly stressed. I do unjam the tongue right way so its not wedging the shell open for more than a few seconds. It also gets stressed in that area from flexing the boot. Otto's post is also true about plastic flow in the mold. I always used a FEA software program called "moldflow" that predicts where the plastic flows and you can optimize the injection ports accordingly. The term when two plastic flows come together is "nit line". Otto is also talking about grain structure, which I am not that knowledgeable about.
Anyway, its not you, its a common thing in boots because they need the overlap to be thin enough to get your foot out, but thin plastic is more highly stressed. They walk a fine design line in that area. Lange's new dual core uses more flexible plastic in the overlap area, which in theory should really help this issue (maybe that's why they did it????) Since your boots are pretty new, give Phil's advice a try and see how you make out. If they won't give you a new boot, use Doug's trick to keep it from getting worse. I should have done it to my boots when I first noticed it.
My 9 year old Lange RS 140's (left and right boot). I always pull my tongue to the outside and that seems to be the side that cracks. Maybe that is a factor?
PS: I don't have my fingerprints on file with any Police agencies, so please I would like to keep it that way.
I have skied Langes all my life and I would say just about every pair of Lange boots I have owned have developed a similar crack. That's how I know its time for a new pair of boots (I usually get 5-10 years of life span) It is not necessarily a defect or due to misuse. My experience as a design engineer with plastics tells me its a stress crack that develops over time. It is time dependent and stress level dependent. When I take my boots off, I pull the tongue one way and use my hand to open up the shell (as does probably everyone) and that puts stress on that area of the boot. I don't like pain, so I open it up as much as I can, hence highly stressed. I do unjam the tongue right way so its not wedging the shell open for more than a few seconds. It also gets stressed in that area from flexing the boot. Otto's post is also true about plastic flow in the mold. I always used a FEA software program called "moldflow" that predicts where the plastic flows and you can optimize the injection ports accordingly. The term when two plastic flows come together is "nit line". Otto is also talking about grain structure, which I am not that knowledgeable about.
Anyway, its not you, its a common thing in boots because they need the overlap to be thin enough to get your foot out, but thin plastic is more highly stressed. They walk a fine design line in that area. Lange's new dual core uses more flexible plastic in the overlap area, which in theory should really help this issue (maybe that's why they did it????) Since your boots are pretty new, give Phil's advice a try and see how you make out. If they won't give you a new boot, use Doug's trick to keep it from getting worse. I should have done it to my boots when I first noticed it.
My 9 year old Lange RS 140's (left and right boot). I always pull my tongue to the outside and that seems to be the side that cracks. Maybe that is a factor?
PS: I don't have my fingerprints on file with any Police agencies, so please I would like to keep it that way.
