Document B5M5EjNqmbeem15gY0KBvYabm

Automotive and Machine Shop Section THE PROTECTIVE FOOTWEAR STORY By W. EUGENE STUFFING Director of Safety, Carrier Corp., Syracuse, N. Y. In 1967 it had been 23 years since Stand ard 2141.1, "Men's Safety-Toe Footwear," had been revised. It was, of course, badly in need of revision due to the development of new shoe styles, new materials, new tech niques in shoe manufacturing, and expanded applications for the use of occupational pro tective footwear. As a member of the committee which de veloped the 1967 version I can report that the committee meetings did not run smoothly as far as all areas of the Standard were concerned. There was considerable contro versy on some of the points which required a great amount of diplomacy and soul searching to resolve. The development of a complete Standard which has the unani mous approval of all members of the com mittee, who in turn represent all interested groups, is not easy. The United States of America Standards Institute has a mecha nism whereby differences of opinion and strong convictions can be resolved. This is known as the "consensus" principle, and while the Standards Institute's definition of consensus is rather vague, the meat of the mechanism is that all of the various opinions and convictions of the various committee members are carefully weighed and evalu ated before a decision is made as to the direction the Standard will take I am firmly convinced that the consensus principle is a necessary mechanism in the development of Standards; otherwise, many of the Stand ards which have been released by the Stand ards Institute would not now be in existence The Z41.1 Standard outlines the specifica tions, performance requirements, and meth ods of tests for safety footwear designed primarily to protect the toes of the wearer. Perhaps the greatest change in the 1967 version of the Standard over the previous version was the introduction of three classes of acceptable safety shoes: I. Class 75. Triis shoe must provide 16/32 inch clearance after 75 foot-pounds of im pact, and 1 l/i inch clearance after 2,500 pounds compression. 2. Class 50 must provide 16/32 inch clear ance after 50 foot-pounds impact and 1,750 pounds compression. 3. Class 30. This shoe must provide 16/32 inch clearance after 30 foot-pounds of im pact and 1,000 pounds compression. The new Standard requires that all shoes be clearly marked to indicate the class of protection they provide. For example, a Class 75 shoe would be marked USAS Z41.11967175. Such a marking technique would appear to be a fairly ample step to take. Actually, the marking of shoes became a most difficult problem because at the time the Z41.1 Standard was released the shoe manufacturers had literally millions of pairs of safety shoes in stock which were not marked in accordance with the new Stand ard. This meant that safety shoe manufac turers had to immediately start marking all newly manufactured shoes and to hold them in reserve until all existing shoes could be moved out of the warehouses and sold. As time went on it became quite apparent a deadline was going to have to be established after which time all shoes sold would be marked in accordance with their test results. It was agreed that all safety footwear manu facturers would have their shoes stamped by January 1, 1969. As previously indicated, the Z16.1 Stand ard calls for three levels or classifications of shoes: the "75" shoe, the "50^ shoe and the "30" shoe. Although the Standard does not suggest where each of these classifica tions are most appropriate, the implication is that they are, respectively, for heavy, medium, or light exposures or industries. The impact and compression tests which are required to be made before a shoe can be marked are fairly detailed and lengthy as to procedures and restrictions. The im pact test calls for a 50 pound weight to be dropped from a height of 18 inches with at least 14-inch clearance remaining between the toe cap and the insole. The compression test calls for applying a load, at the rate of 50 pounds per second, after the first 500 pounds of load, to the highest point of the 7