Bottoming techniques

[dmcharg]

P.S.
A couple of years ago I discovered a way to improve the 'lay' of hand stitches on when sewing uppers (though this may be old ground for more experienced hand sewers than me). When sewing uppers, instead of pulling the two ends of the thread straight out from the leather, I now pull one at an angle forward, and the other backward so that the threads are forced one over the other improving the definition of the diagonal lay. Hopefully the photos will make it clear

pic 8.JPG

pic 9.JPG

Happy Christmas, and may you have a safe New Year.
Cheers
Duncan

[homeboy]

[licere]

Thanks to all for the recent contributions to this discussion of stitching pitch, seam strength and leather density. Very illuminating...and inspiring to see the examples of you seeing what's possible and striving towards the limits of what's been reported from much earlier work. I have always appreciated @dw 's descriptions of the downward spiral of decisions that occurs with respect to materials and craft as compromises are made in the name of expediency. It is wonderful to see the opposite process occurring here, in your work--a virtuous cycle of seeking superior materials and more refined techniques in the name of quality. And, @dmcharg, I very much appreciate your empirical approach!

[dw]

Raw, unfinished, by eye and by hand...

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[homeboy]

Is that 18 spi? Man-a-live! Pretty darn good Dee-Dubb!

[dw]

Thanks Jake,

18+/-...19spi in the pic.

I will say that having fooled around with this I learned two things:

First, I'm dropping down to 16 spi for the rest of the shoe...this will be hidden welt so the discrepancy won't be noticeable. But 18spi just feels a little 'fragile' for ordinary wear.

And second, all this would be much easier with a fudge wheel set for 19 (I've never seen one)--I didn't use a fudge wheel, but if I did it wouldn't be what I wanted either--my 18 only makes 17 spaces.

[homeboy]

Understood DW! Very nice indeed!

[SharonKudrle]

Beautiful work Mr. Frommer!
One reason I like handstitched is because you can trim it closer to the boot or shoe than machine stitched and the boot/shoe looks smaller and neater.
Also, the smaller the stitching the less it looks machine stitched.

[dw]

P.S.
A couple of years ago I discovered a way to improve the 'lay' of hand stitches on when sewing uppers (though this may be old ground for more experienced hand sewers than me). When sewing uppers, instead of pulling the two ends of the thread straight out from the leather, I now pull one at an angle forward, and the other backward so that the threads are forced one over the other improving the definition of the diagonal lay. Hopefully the photos will make it clear

Interesting to see this...I missed the critical stuff when it was first posted (many family during the holiday). I do the same thing when stitching the welt and outsole but because I'm stitching from right to left my diagonal pulls are reversed from yours. I think it really does help and done consistently, prevents that occasional offset 'outlier' stitch.

[dw]

Beautiful work Mr. Frommer!

Thank you.

However, I suspect @das could show us a thing or two with regard to hand stitching.

[SharonKudrle]

DAS could do it in his sleep with his hands tied behind his back, yes, but stitching is stitching and yours is BEAUTIFUL.

Your post has extra benefits besides the inspiration to try it, it made me think about the trend for double stitching on the welt, rubber soles on cowboy boots, cowboy vs. english stirrups & their different boot needs, nail repelling construction boots, boot scooting boots, dirt digging boots, marching boots, paratrooper boots (the good news is the feet are okay...), and their different requirements, lots of food for thought as well as eye candy.
p.s. I don't know about motorbikle ones, my darlin' Patchy (29-4 Patcher) was left orphaned by one. I'd sooner ride Ol' Flossie (vernacular name for a milk cow).
P.p.s. It occurred to me that what I wrote might be misunderstood as being flip, when what I was trying to do was allude to the fact that boots are often tools to working people, and can make a difference between life and death, or work-stopping injuries.
I won't go into the stuff I've seen happen in front of me, or had happen to people I've known, or to me personally. It would be a long list. I have personal experience in the above except for only observing paratroopers at work (once the boots hit the ground they seem to be running an awful lot), and motorcyclers on the road or myself riding on the back of one; and have not ever worn double welt stitched or rubber soled cowboy boots.
Something like a 16-20spi closely trimmed welt might be one of several other safety features on a boot that would make it both a more functional and safer tool than another for a particular use.

[dw]

oops. attempt to edit resulted in double post.
= Never mind...... Please remove this when you have time Admin

If you look at the row of icons / buttons at the top right hand corner of your post you will see an "X" (if you hover your pointer over it it will say "delete post"), click on it.

[SharonKudrle]

None there for me. Only a 1. pencil icon 2. exclamation icon 3. left quote icon and that is all.

[dw]

OK...my mistake. Admin will take care of it.

[dw]

Shaping the heel:

Old Barnsley heel shave with custom blade ...

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[dw]

Keeping the stitches well to the inside of a Sewn Heel Seat. I do not like when the stitches are nearly out to the edge of the insole, for a number of reasons not the least of which is that any nails driven to hold the split lift and subsequent layers are far more likely to cut the threads. Horween waxedflesh at 5 (?) ounce, stiffener and liner.

heelseat_sewn.jpg

To do this this way, a very deeply radiused awl must be used and the holes made from the inside out. Here are two I have 're-forged' and the awls that I began with.

bent_awls.jpg

[homeboy]

Mighty fine! Might fine!

Jake

[dw]

Thanks Jake.

Learning how to bend and harden the awls so that they don't just flatten back out first time you use them was not a 'gimme'...at least not for me.

[homeboy]

Dee-Dubb,

I hear ya! After much research, for the record, here's what I do:

Heat awl and bend to desired shape
Use olive oil to quench red hot awl
preheat oven to 450 degrees
lay metal on aluminum foil
heat for 30 minutes
let cool
steel wool to polish

Works for me!

Adios, Jake

[dw]

So much more exacting and professional than I do. I just heat to red hot (not white hot), let cool in air, bend and then reheat to soft grey-red and then quench. I do all this over my spirit lamp.

Tried quenching and then annealing and couldn't get it hard enough.

I love this process. I love Forged in Fire (those guys never anneal)...but I have a mental block about this. Been trying to get good awls for years and never quite hit it.

[dw]

I have never been happy with filling the forepart of waist of shoes with granulated cork. If sheets are used they must be mounted with All-Purpose cement which is occlusive. And whether in sheet form or paste, it tends to be fugitive--eventually breaking up into crumbs which migrate out from under pressure points in the foreparts. So put off by that disintegration, I used leather for years. But again if not cemented in with AP (which is occlusive), it will cause the shoes to creak.

Searching for a solution, I tried wool felt. When mounted with paste this seems like an ideal solution. It will not break up, it moulds itself to the plantar contours of the foot and shoes don't creak.

Some years ago, @das sent me a couple of deconstructed 1930's(?) era West End shoes. I was particularly struck by the insole liner in both shoes. It was a tarred felt.

I experimented with trying to tar my felt with Stockholm Tar, Real Stuff, etc.. It never would 'dry up' and I just ended up with greasy felt.

And the 'tar paper' that is available on this side of the pond is just that--paper.

In any case, recently a fellow on another forum pointed out that the tarred felt I had seen on the vintage West End shoes was, in fact Irish Flax Felt aka shipbuilder's felt and available at Schooner Chandlery. And real felt, not paper.

A dab of HK here and there secures it and eventually the tar will meld with the fibers of the leather enough to affix it to the insole. My only reservation is that it is a little thin compared to the wool felt that I have been using. But I remember the vintage stuff being thin as well.

Irish felt2(1024_x_768).jpg

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[das]

That's the stuff! Holy Jeez! Good going, and send me some

[dw]

It is available at Schooner Chandlery (and nowhere else in the US, AFAIK)... by the linear foot (32" wide), at less than three cabbage leaves per foot.

I bought a couple of yards...just to see what it was and test it. What with the chinese flu, it took a couple of weeks to get but no problem other than that.

[bcFour]

@dw , I was following that conversation on the other forum and have been interested in the results. A few questions:
- The migration of cork doesn't seem like a horrible thing. In essence, its movement away from pressure points would accentuate the effects of the footbed taking the shape? no?
- A positive of cork is how easily it is to shape and rasp down to the proper shape and level with the welting. How is this achieved with the Irish Flax?

Having never used the Irish flax, but hearing your (and others) rave about it - I'm really jonesin to give it a try!

thanks,
bob

[dw]

@dw , I was following that conversation on the other forum and have been interested in the results. A few questions:
- The migration of cork doesn't seem like a horrible thing. In essence, its movement away from pressure points would accentuate the effects of the footbed taking the shape? no?
- A positive of cork is how easily it is to shape and rasp down to the proper shape and level with the welting. How is this achieved with the Irish Flax?

Having never used the Irish flax, but hearing your (and others) rave about it - I'm really jonesin to give it a try!

thanks,
bob

Just my opinion, albeit after near 50 years of experience: It doesn't take much pressure at all to make the cork break up / disintegrate into the constituent particles (mostly no larger than 0.125" x 0.125"). It is the loose particles that migrate...mostly to the waist. I have opened shoes that were originally filled with cork and found nothing under the forepart...just bare insole...and then pulled the shoe off the jack and had a couple tablespoons or more of loose cork come spilling out of the waist. So there was no footbed mitigation whatsoever---wasn't any cork under the footbed, at all.

But the real problem with cork, as I said, is that it is fundamentally occlusive. It prevents the insole...given that the insole is leather at all...from breathing. Simply because the cement used to mount the cork seals the fleshside of the insole.

Some makers aren't concerned by this...whether it is because they don't understand, or see, the need for the insole to breathe; or because they don't know any other way; (and it's too much effort to learn); or because they don't believe, or want to believe, that a .5+ mm seal of neoprene is a significant barrier to moisture wicking away from the foot, I can't say. But it has been a major, decades long, undercurrent in my career to not only eliminate as many of these occlusive procedures as I can but, in my work, to dispense with the need for petro-chemical based cements, as much as possible. Not good for the planet, not good for me.

Much of that comes down to rediscovering (at least for me) older procedures that relied on paste--at one point in time there were no All Purpose cements yet very fine quality shoes were made. Go figure.

As for trimming the Irish Flax Felt...the real issue is trimming the welt and inseam. The felt is thin enough that if there is no significant gap 'hollow' from one feather to the other, the felt just needs to fit in-between...no trimming, rasping, skiving, etc., needed. And I suspect...maybe @das could weigh in on whether this was a common practice...if more fill is needed, another layer could be added.