Please understand that I am just a beginner, too! I don’t have The Truth, just my own experience, a willingness to share it, and some tools, like this forum, to welcome others of a similar mind.
For the process of making boots, I have had no trouble using shoe-height lasts with alpha hinges, like the ones @Customboots sells. Neither, apparently, do all the boot companies in Spokane. Several other hobbyists I’ve met online have done svelte boots on lasts that stop below the ankles. It’s done, and done well.
I’m working on making original boot lasts now. Those will be divided rather than hinged, because it’s will be way easier for me to make a block, saw it into parts, and drill for screws than engineer, acquire, and install a hinge. Some Internet friends 3D printing lasts for boots are also dividing, for the additional reason that they can fit the pieces into the working areas of their printers that way.
My lasts will also be boot height—above the ankle—because I have been dogged by the problem of getting the curves of the quarter facings right through the ankle, given a shoe-height last and using the last taping method:
I’m getting better at patterning quarters so they end up close to my target facing gap when laced up. Not perfect, but close. The big helps there have been:
- using half the short heel measurement to plot an arc the curve needs to intersect
- taking ankle girths at specific heights just below and just above the ankle bones
- taking another ankle girth at the intended shaft height
- plotting the last form over a ground plane, with the heel lifted up by the heel pitch, so I can plot a perpendicular, vertical line for the fronts of the facings up the shin
- prototyping the pattern in cheap shelf liner foam to test fit