I’ve run into a couple terms from the cowboy boot world that I don’t think I quite understand. Might others here correct or confirm my understandings? I’d like to get these on the wiki.
Rounder (Pattern)
I’ve seen this used sometimes for pattern pieces made from last taping, mean formes, or geometric methods, but covering just one side of the last—inside or outside—and not yet combined with the other side to make a complete vamp or counter cover pattern.
Blockers
I’m gathering this might mean a vamp cut out oversized for blocking/crimping, but not yet trimmed to the shape of the final pattern piece that will be sewn up to make a boot upper.
Some makers also speak of “blocker patterns”, which I take to mean patterns they keep for cutting out blockers. They may use a handful of blocker patterns, like small, medium, and large, and pick the closest one to work for a particular boot’s vamps.
I can only share my understanding flawed as it can be, that blockers are meant to be crimped and include some allowance for the distortion that comes with it, and a rounder is like the half pattern that is used to re-cut that crimped piece into its final shape.
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These seems like a relevant passage from Brophy especially around the page break. Using castor instead of blocker.
Believe me brother, I get you.
Gotcha. So a blocker would be a pattern for cutting a crimped rounder to final shape for closing, not a pattern for cutting blockers oversized for crimping.
Of course there’s another term.
I think the other way around, a blocker or castor is a full but flattened pattern, it’s cut out and blocked/crimped, then in its new folded form a half pattern “rounder” is used to trim it down to final shape. Brophy talks about making the castor oversized because the crimping/blocking process unpredictably warps the castor/blocker so the rounder (Frank Jones calls this a “half vamp pattern”) is then laid over it to mark and cut the precise outline.
Unless that’s what you just said and i misunderstood
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@thenewreligion, I really appreciate your comment. Unfortunate, it’s been a long, exhausting week, and my brain has basically shut down. I’m gone into the wiki and basically just marked all three terms—blocker, rounder, castor—as needing help.
I’m just sitting here having a melt down over a Wawak order that went haywire so I’m not doing much better 
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