Trimming

Step 4: Cleaning the Bars

The knife is the best tool to clean up the bars.  We remove the dirt and mealy, flakey sole that lies beside the bars.  We trim until there is a clear, definitive line between the sole and the bar.  We also want to clearly see the white line in this area.  The sole will no longer be flakey or cracked in appearance.  Actually, the bar will be flat on the sole. We find basically two types of bar.  Some bars clearly are upright and others are laid over.  In the upright bars, we basically take them down to the level of the sole.  The laid over bars need tissue removed more from the side than the top.  This is the situation that requires removal of the dirt and dead sole that lies beside the bar.  The bar will originally be very wide until this dead tissue is removed.

If the bars are non-weight bearing, we often only trim the first inch to half inch from the heel triangle.

Very laid over bars - untrimmed	Very laid over bars - trimmed
Up-right bar - untrimmed	Up-right bar - trimmed