The Gallery

[bcFour]

first of the new year.

[homeboy]

Nothing wrong with those! Good job!

[nickb1]

Some ankleboots I finished recently for my fiancee:




Quite pleased with them overall but the flaws are: finishing the sole... I oversanded and got too much nap on them... secondly the topy edge is not flush with the sole, nor is the edge rebated, and the fudging is not well defined all the way around the welt. Next time I will try "pricking up the welt" with a stitch pricker, (I don't like the risk of "babies"), and applying the topy before finishing the edges. If anyone has any tips about these things please let me know!
Nick

[homeboy]

Looks like you're on your way Partner! They look great! Keep a going!

[nickb1]

Thanks. If only I could get her to maintain them!

[martin]

Very nice! Kudos!

[nickb1]

Just finished some more ankle boots. This time I used the stitch pricker :-) Think I will do it this way from now on, I feel I have more control over the finish than with using the fudge wheel. These are stitched with vintage linen thread that I found on Etsy and finished with an edge stain made to a 1930s recipe by a guy in London.






Still got too much nap on one of the soles, and I didn't get the channel close enough to the edge, as you can see. One heel is also slightly fatter than the other. But I think they are overall a bit better finished than the last pair. N

[George]

Awesome!

[homeboy]

Good-looking! At-a-boy!

[martin]

A pair of ca. 1750s working class shoes I made last year for my dear wife inspired by the 1756 painting "Broken Eggs" by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Eg ... 52-001.jpg). The interesting thing is that the seams and top line are covered by a colored band (like higher class cloth upper shoes) and are closed by a sort of ribbon instead of buckles.

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[martin]

The finished pair:

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[nickb1]

Beautiful. Are these made "rough out"? how did you treat the uppers?

[martin]

Hello nickb1

Yes, these are "rough out". For lack of properly curried leather I gave these a base by dyeing them black with alcohol based dye and then applied black ball I prepared myself.

Cheers,
Martin

[bcFour]

Finally getting around to posting these. Hand welted and hand stitched soles. ...and first time pegging a heel... I tended to like it...

[dw]

@bcFour I like them. I've always liked the casual convenience of chukkas. And in appropriate leather, a chukka, or even a George boot, can be suitably dressy, without sacrificing that convenience and comfort.

[homeboy]

Nothing wrong with those!

[bcFour]

thanks to the both of you. @dw , that's pretty much the exact 'pitch' I used when I was asked for input on what to make. A chukka is as do-it-all as they come, imo.

[nickb1]

@bcFour
Very handsome boots. Is the topline just above the ankle bone? Also, how did you do the "storm welt"?
Thanks,
Nick

[bcFour]

thanks nick! Yes the topline is just above the ankle bone. The 'storm welt' is pre-made Barbour welt. I ended up with a TON of it when I visited Euroleather in February.

[nickb1]

@bcFour So pre-made storm welt is normal welting strip with a ridge that catches against the upper when you draw the thread tight? If so does the ridge do anything functionally? Thanks, Nick

[carsten]

Hello everyone,

ok here is my first post. May I show you my latest seamless one piece pair. I used 2,5mm thick leather, which I found quite hard to work with. Lining is goat and seamless as well. Usually I use an 18mm welt but this turned out to be rather narrow for the tip. Compared to other pairs I made before the leather is very hard. I wonder how long and how many blisters it will take to brake them in.
Any suggestions what to improve? I never learned shoe making - so please forgive me if I missed the most obvious.

Thanks, Carsten

[nickb1]

Here's another pair of ladies ankle boots (Edwardian style balmoral boots?) I just finished thanks to lockdown. These are for my sister who lives in Italy; I had to post her a trial version which was braced over the insole and stuck to temporary soles. She said they fitted perfectly but I somehow doubt it ...
I did a couple of things differently thanks to the forum. There are no nails, only pegs, and the heel breast is cut straight down rather than pitched under as I was doing previously. The London makers tend to pitch the heel breast and I was told that this had its origins in horse riding. But so far as I can see there is no historical evidence for this and the discussion on the forum indicates this is not what riders ask for. It makes sense to me that the stirrup could lever against a pitched breast and cause the lifts to separate. I also tried a natural finish on the sole just to do something differently and because it's more of a challenge. And to get a more rounded shape on the heel than before, with no flat spots.

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I tried to do a "light square waist" ie thinned out towards the waist, to be accentuated by the topy.

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Stitching was at 12spi. I used Fiebing's edge dye for finishing, which seems a decent product. It got a lot darker when heated irons were applied with wax.

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What did not go so well was the natural finish, which was messy in parts. I'm wondering in particular how the area just above the heel breast can be finished nicely? It's hard to scrape the grain off the sole in this area cleanly and applying water to the heel lifts means you get staining where the first lift meets the sole. Does anyone have any pointers for this? The other challenge is to neither under- nor over- sand. I think I erred on the side of under-sanding, as I can see circular sanding marks in some places, which were not visible to me when I decided to stop sanding. The natural finish seems *much* harder to get right than a dyed one.

[dw]

Nick,

Nice looking pair of shoes.

I think you're spot on about the heel breast and I am perturbed whenever I see a slanted breast. I suspect that there are those that think it looks rakish or 'sexy' but the mechanics of it, esp. for a riding boot / shoe, mitigate against it. Not 'best practices', IMO.

As far as finishing the outsole just forward of the breast, I think one has to be super careful and plan things out well in advance of mounting the heel, etc., and not damage the grain surface any more than necessary...and sometimes even that is too much. Scraping, lightly, is probably better than sanding. That said, there are ornamental wheels...or you can even use a a fudge wheel...that can be run just at the breast that will camouflage any roughness, tool marks, or discolouration there. Not to put too fine a point on it, however, I suspect that's the reason for the universal popularity of coloured waists.

[nickb1]

Thanks @dw. I think the slanted breast is purely an aesthetic preference that came in when the horse went out. So what I was told seems exactly the wrong way around - not having to ride meant one could have a rakish pitched heel breast! None of the riding boots currently done seem to have it either. Concerning finishing around the heel breast, perhaps a good compromise (as I like the natural finish) is to do a two tone finish with the waist dyed and the forepart natural. Then I'm not sure how one would get the border looking nice though. I've read that one could use a compass to score the border line but you're still going to have to be fairly handy with a brush to not go over the line. I'm wondering if people mask the area with tape or use some other method to stop the ink penetrating over the line? Like waxing above the line?

[dw]

@nickb1 I suspect that here are any number of ways to approach this problem. I know I've done it several ways. I've used tape...still do for certain parts of the procedure...but mainly it's a little cut work and real careful brush work.

I have a template I made out of a piece of zinc sheeting that defines the shape of the edge of the waist. In fact, I have several different shapes. But the templates could be made of paperboard just as easy--they're just shapes of edges. So I lay the template on the unfinished outsole and use an awl to scribe the edge. Then I take a swivel knife and make a real shallow cut along that line. If the template is made of zinc, theoretically you could use a bench knife and cut along the edge of the template.

Next I moisten and open that cut up using...anything handy, really--a stitch prick, the tip of a burnishing bone, etc.. Then, using a small French skive, I take one side of the cut off. So now I have a real shallow ditch, kind of like this: |/ That's the 'border' you want. You can dye right up to the edge of the cut from either direction and the dye or ink will not bleed or wander. You can also use the last 1/16" of a fudge wheel to make a series of tiny ornamental indents right up next to the cut edge of the 'border.'

Next, I use the zinc template to cut a piece of masking tape exactly the same size and shape as the border I've just created and I affix that to the unfinished waist just at border edge.

Then I finish off the forepart--burnishing and waxing. The masking tape keeps the wax, etc., from straying into/onto the unfinished leather of the waist. I put a fairly heavy coat of wax on the forepart--I even 'bull' the forepart...to protect it from errant droplets of ink or dye. That said, although nothing will ruin a natural forepart faster than careless brush work--let the dye 'flow', don't brush it on like some antsy Tom Sawyer whitwashing a fence.

Finally, I remove the masking tape, revealing a clean unfinished waist ready for whatever crowing or ornamentation (at the breast of the heel, for instance) you want. At which point I proceed to dye and ink and burnish/wax it.

Just one approach...hope it's helpful.