Al,

Can you elaborate on the iron black causing cracking in the grain surface?

Thanks.

Here is the short answer on the use of iron blacking on the grain. There are two main problems first is not enough tannin present and the second is casehardening the grain.

This quote is from Lamb’s book on Staining, dyeing and finishing.
“In staining blacks it is very necessary that plenty of the logwood infusion should be applied to the leather, especially if this is at all lightly tanned. Unless there is plenty of tanning and coloring matter to unite with the iron, the iron will combine with what there is of tannin matter in the leather, and render it brittle and liable to crack If too much iron is used, the leather may be completely ruined.”
Logwood is the answer when using this type of dye. Logwood is the best tannin to bind with the iron and keep it from changing forms and starting acid rot (or Red rot). If any of the iron is not bound to a tannin source either in the leather or in the logwood this rot is possible.

The second problem is very common when you apply enough tannin to stop the rot then it is easy to get some much in the grain surface itself that it can become brittle and crack. A very carful oiling is about the only way to stop this problem but it needs to be a mixture of heavy fats and not just a light oil.

One way to test yourself after dyeing is to remove all but the grain surface and soak it in a nutral water over night and check the PH. It needs to be no lower than 2.5 PH, a 3 or higher is even better. This is on vegetable tanned leather and it is naturally 3.5 to 5.5 PH on its own.

I agree with Al that blackening the flesh was easier and a safer way.

David Jarnagin
darnagin@bellsouth.net

Al, do you have contact information for Atlas International my Google search was not fruitful. Would like to try the Hirschklebber.

Georgene

Al,

Thanks for the response. It did help and it makes a great deal of practical sense.

Thanks,

Mark

David,

Thanks for that information, this is interesting stuff to learn.

Dave already beat me to the punch on iron-blacking--it's neat to experiment with, but it can ruin good leather.

Georgene,

Here's Atlas: http://www.oandp.com/products/

Georgene,

You can purchase Hirschkleber from Oregon Leather in Seattle...they have to order it from Germany and from O. Baltor & Sons in California.

Sorry, Al, that link doesn't lead to Atlas (least not on my computer ), it leads routing site for orthopedic companies. But even their search engine doesn't yield results for either "Atlas" or Hirschkleber."

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

DW, Georgene,
Try this link to Atlas.

http://www.atlasortho.com/index.html

More power to y'awl.
T.

Got to thinking about adjusting for heel height on full cuts...I make four heel heights and I do adjust.

But kind of figured it out on my own and I wonder how other folks who make full wellingtons do it...if at all?


Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

I have only used a 3/4" heel but see that a 1.5 would take some consideration.
Tom

DW, Tom Matt.
I've been asking myself this same heel height question.

When I look at my CAD last draft drawings for my full cuts it's pretty clear that I could put in a different heel height last draft and then slide the front panel up or down to match the last. The front panel problem is that the slope down to the toe also changes but that probably comes out during lasting (hopeful guessing).

The rear panel in the CAD drawing can also be slid down to fit the lower heel last draft.

BUT it looks like once the front panel and rear panel are stitched together then you can't compensate for BIG differences in heel height. The boot just doesn't sit on the last right.

Without ever have done this, it looks like you can adjust the rear panel up or down by the difference in CP between the two lasts, stitch together, and then adjust the front panel to sit on the cone as it should and the rear panel should also then sit appropriately.

Now is this armchair ruminating or what?

If I can get tape last drafts of 2 of the same size last with different heel heights then I could scan them in and CAD it up and see what actually happens.

There may, of course, be a few lasting allowance concerns also.

Regards, Tom Mickel

DW, Tom Matt., Tom Mick.

The question is too advanced for my experience, but that does not stop me from commenting. Normally make only 1 1/2" heels (thickness of a 2 x4) plus or minus about 1/8" to get the boot to stand up straight. Use a french curve to draw a line through the bell line (break line), throat line, and bottom of the counter (same width as throat line). Adjust from the bell line until it is sort of tangent to the curve of the top pattern, No reason or rationale except it makes the pattern look a little nicer. Think it might help with the side seam curving toward the toe at the bottom but can't say it is a lot better than coming straight down from the throat line.

Tom Mick., Glad to see someone else is using a CAD machine to draw patterns, but did not understand "difference in CP".

Chuck

Guys,

Here's my take...if you're making boots for a 3/4" heel and want to go to a inch and five-eights heel, I'm not sure you would necessarily need to change anything. If your patterns work for the lower heel, the "vamp" must be crimped at a steep enough angle to accommodate the lower heel--what Mater Saguto calls "overcrimping.". And thus it will accommodate the higher heel as well...although you may get some forward lean in the tops.

But the reverse is not correspondingly true. If your patterns work for an inch and five-eights heel, they will not, all things being equal, be crimped enough for the lower heel and the more acute angle necessary to last and settle over the cone properly.

As I analyze it, the big discrepancy is the distance from the instep back towards the side seam..at an angle from the say, high instep, to the sideseam at the insole. Forcing a crimped "vamp" to take on a more acute angle, as when lasting a boot over the lower heel, foreshortens that distance from the high instep to the sideseam. If that distance is not enough...not correct or larger than correct...the boot will not settle down on the cone of the last and the top will lean back and the counter will never pull in against the back of the last. In reverse, if that distance is too much, we may see surplus at the side seam as it is lasted over the insole--a bunching up right in front of the sideseam than cannot be removed.

Hence, to adjust for heel height is simply to adjust the angle of curve of the sideseam edge from the throat line to the bottom of the vamp. No adjustment of the back need be made, in this process. And the throat line will always be located at the same spot on the front blocker regardless of heel height. I have seen adjustable patterns from the 19th century that had a way to make exactly that adjustment. That's what finally broke it all open for me.

I don't know if that's a viable solution for everyone but it works for me. Sometime ago, I posted a photo of a boot made at 7/8". Made from the same patterns and same general approach as when I make boots for a five-eights inch heel. It was a "proof of concept" boot for me. I just have not, to date, seen any downside.

The only other way I know to do it is to have different boards for each heel heights. But that's why I asked...to see how others were thinking about and handling this issue.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

(Message edited by dw on March 15, 2007)

DW

Just getting back from a virus that floored me. I have found in the old school ways which I use, for anything from a Civil war period full cut Wellington, with a 1" heel to an 1890's full cut with a 2 1/2" heel, the patterns are the same. I will have examples soon on my pic site

When I cut pattern, it's standad except for throat and calf, which is different for all wearers, accoding to fit (personally I like the 1800's tight boot).

When I cut back and front to pattern, the side seams are always the same, and they go straight. The 'secret' is simple. Use the 'last' that the boot is to be made on for the cunter to front for the throat. No matter the crimp, it will work. More better for about an 80% angle, thats what I use.

Hope this is of some help. I don't know the logistics of plotting, I use old methods which were simple.
Jesse

All,

I've been trying to visualize this in my head for a couple of years and just have never been able to fully come to grips with it.

When I make a pattern from a last draft as I was shown by Randy Merrell it always works perfectly.

When I use DW's standard then it always works perfectly for me too.

But I'm not experienced enough to start changing things and get a good result because unless I know WHY I'm doing something then I just mess it up.

That being said-

DW, do you mean change the angle from the throat downward on both the front and rear panel or just the front panel? How can you change just the front panel without changing the rear panel?

I sure wish that I could be in the same room with all you guys to hash this out. On the other hand, amassing that much brainpower in one room might be dangerous!

Mickel (Tom)

All,
On another note, here's my drawing for making my Full Cut blocker. I sprung (as in vamp springing) along the folded edge to minimize any extra leather there. I don't ask for any compression of the leather around the curve. The downside of this is that I'm always asking for lots of stretch from the leather as it radiates out from the break. Consequently, I can blow out a blocker which is costly and frustrating, of course.

Mickel (Tom)

All,

Jesse...That's what I was getting at when I said that if your blocker was overcrimped (enough) you probably didn't need to adjust for heel height. Although I do think that some...not insurmountable, but nevertheless, real...problems creep in when using an overcrimped blocker for all heel heights.

I might add that all the old books--Golding, Swaysland, etc.--written back when making full wellingtons was in its heyday, advocate a side draft in long work. Not that the job can't be done without a side draft...many dress wellingtons (esp. cowboy boots made south of, or near, the border) are made without a sidedraft...but my patterns derive from and follow the old patterns and so my thinking tends to be consistent with them.

That said, and to your point, Tom Mickel, I have always said each bootmaker has a system that incorporates patterns, style of last, as well as assembly and lasting techniques, etc., and that it is very difficult to merge two different systems unless they, at least, share a common philosophical and theoretical antecedent.

(Mickel again)One thing that I have found is that sometimes...in many cases, in fact...it is better to nottry to stretch the "vamp" too much. I have even had good luck incorporating a bit of slack toe to heel in the front blocker prior to really getting down to it.

Another point...I know this perhaps flies in the face of all you've been told or maybe assumed, but think about this: If the lasts are made correctly, we could chop the last in two at, say, the cone and discard the foreparts--for this exercise, anyway. If you did this to lasts at four different heel heights, my guess is that you wouldn't be able to tell one from the other. In other words, you wouldn't be able to tell which was from a last with a one inch heel or a last with a two inch heel. Now, admittedly, that may be stretching things a little bit, but not all that much. So, the upshot is that if you wanted to pattern a back for the one inch heel or the two inch heel...how would the patterns change? In my mind, they wouldn't. I want the tops to sit straight up (perpendicular) from a line parallel to the floor at heel height. Assuming that there is little or no degree in the heel, the patterns have to be the same for every back panel/assembly.

So, yes, it is just the "crimp" angle that I am changing...but I'm not even doing that because, unlike dress wellingtons, the "vamp" is attached to the tops and there is no way to mount the "vamp" on the tops to accommodate different heel heights. So cutting the sideseam is the only way to "spring" (or reduce spring) the "vamps." I address this issue in some depth in my book on making Full Wellingtons.

Of course this is all just a system...my system...and your mileage may vary depending upon how much you choose to engage the system.

I'm going out of town for a week or so and may be out of touch for at least a day or two. But I am extremely interested in this conversation.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Tom,

Great drawing, BTW!


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

I will also be out of touch for several days, but very interested. Think Tom Mick. may be on to something. Moving the break line on the front with respect to the throat line on the back for different heel heights, as I understand it. Have not thought it through and have messed up this area before. Just can't get it through my head why the distance from the break line to throat line is constant for all boots. Know it works, just don't understand it.

DW

Agreed, an over crimp works well for a low heel but can be overkill for, say a 2" heel. I always use a side draft, as I am copying that era of boots from original patterns. I have also done a straight side with good results, but there the crimp is crucial.
Cheers,
Jesse

I don't know that moving the break spot (crimp point for Al's sake) vis-a-vis the back panel throat line, wouldn't work. But...from personal experience--ie. several years of experimenting with that exact approach--it never answered for me. I found that if the break spot were moved up, I got surplus in the throat area and in extreme cases the throat of the last would not tighten down suffiently to draw the sides of the boot into the side of the last.

And if the break spot were moved down I often found that it constricted the throat so much that it would pull the tops back and the side seam in under the boot to the point where the side seam was angled towards the toe. And consistant with all that, the counter would pull away from the back of the last.

You might say, the obvious answer to all that would be not to raise or lower the break spot so much. But I'm talking no more than three-eights of an inch all toll--three-sixteenth in either direction--for all four of my heel heights.

I honestly think my approach is logically consistant with other forms and, more to the point, it works better than anything else I've tried. Why should we have to invent another whole set of "special rules" ...sometimes flying in the face of everything we know about boots...just because we go from four pieces to two? I can't imagine Golding or Swaysland taking that approach.

As for the distance between the break and the throat line being constant, my take is that very probably it is not, but the difference is so small that has no impact. This would fall into the category of a "grading discrepancy." Or...think of it this way...how many times have you measured a short heel at say 13 and 3/16"...if you were really being precise? But how many times have you used sixteenths in makng your patterns. I don't know about you but I don't use sixteenths when patterning (or thirty-secondths either) although I probably, theoretically should. The leather is forgiving enough that it doesn't seem to make a difference.

So...not a very good answer but like all grading questions (and that's really what this is) a pattern made to fit one size will often "reach" a size or two in either directions without noticible problems. Not that it is "technically" correct.

Just some thoughts...

DWFII...
logging on from the hinterland

OK, I am talking to myself and answering my own questions based on the comments, but driving down the road will do that. The distance from the break point (crimp point) to the throat line being a constant for all boots bothered me and not sure this has anything to do with heel height. The important issue is the distance is the height of the break point above the insole. The throat line is the top of the counter. When we grade the height of the counter based on size (1 7/8" small, 2 3/8" large), we are, in effect, grading the height of the break above the insole, which makes sense. I am slow but finally get there. As someone once said, " If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Chuck

Chuck,

There's something in what you say. But I'm not immediately certain it is all that significant to the issue of adjusting for heel height...if that's what you were addressing.

One thing I would remark upon, however, is that if we consider the process of grading...whether we do it by hand or with some aid such as a computer....the distance from the break point to the throat line is generally somewhere in the neighborhood of say, two inches (I am being less than specific here because not everyone does it exactly the way I do). If we grade from a size six to a size five, for instance, how much...more or less...will the pattern change? I think less than an eighth inch. I think less than a sixteenth.

At the same time, grading the height of the counter does not affect fit...it is done mostly to create esthetic balance (although for really large lasts it may heighten the sense of security for the foot inside the boot).

I may well be wrong about this...all of it...but I see the throat line itself as almost imaginary, since it ends up deep inside the boot and relative to the crimped vamp such that there is no absolute constriction along the throat line until the boot is actually lasted. And what constriction there is, is wholly dependent upon the size of the last.

Think of it this way...consider two lasts, both 7's. One needs a heavy build-up over the cone of the last, the other may even need a lower profile than the default (meaning we may even need to cut the cone). Would you then try to adjust the break point vis-a-vis the throat line? Maybe so...I don't know the answer to that in the most technical sense, but I never have. In some sense, I suspect we "overthink" the problem at that point.

Does that make any sense...?

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

DW,

Thank you for the comments, and, yes, they make good sense. I doubt this has anything to do with heel height, just between my ears as to why I am doing something. Using the same dimension going from size 6 to size 12 just bothered me. You are correct about overthinking (over engineering) a problem that is not a problem to start with. "If it ain't broke,-------"

DW,

I justed crimped my 1st pair of blockers. It took about 15 minutes for each side. I took my time and after I figured out how to take a good strong draft with the lasting pincers things kind of fell into place.


I was wondering if they were far enough up on the broad? How do you decide where to place the blocker on the broad? (reference point) Thanks for you help, Joel