The Crispin Colloquy

Joel,

"Hand" is the relative stiffness of a piece of leather. I am not sure how "hand" is rated or even described but I have been told that it originally related to how the leather drapes when lying over a hand with the fingers extended upward--like you were carrying a grapefruit but no grapefruit. If the fingers show through on the grainside...dimples from each finger...the leather has a very soft hand. Such a leather might not be suitable for a shoe or a boot.

I look for leathers with a moderate hand---where the leather drapes down from the finger but doesn't necessarily show the individual fingers.

A leather that didn't drape at all or was rigid for a debatable distance from the fingers might be too stiff...it all depends on the tannage and the desired usage.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Terri,

"Struck through" means that the leather is dyed the same colour from the flesh to the grain. Cut into it and, if it is black, it will be black in the center...if it is red, it will be red in the center. Many leathers, especially chrome tannages are actually a pale bluish grey or white in the center of the hide and the dye is only on the grain surface or perhaps has penetrated just through the corium and no further. In wear such a leather, no matter what else it has to recommend it, will soon loose all claim to its original beauty because the surface colour will wear off and what's left will be that dirty grey that soon absorbs even more dirt and....

Many side leathers that are used for bright coloured tops on cowboy boots are just painted finishes...what one distributor has called "one step." In our shop we do not ever use such leathers as we feel they cheapen the boot.

BTW, it is interesting to note that chrome tan leathers, before they are finished go through a stage where they are called "wet blue." From the bluish grey colour that chrome tanning salts impart to the leather.

And even more interesting is that the surest way to determine if a leather is chrome tanned or chrome retan (some customers have chrome allergies) is to burn a small piece. If the resulting ash is turquoise blue or green there is no question that chrome salts were used in the tannage. If the ash is pure grey or black (from the burnt sugars) it is a pure veg tannage.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

DW,

Liners crimpted no problemo.

On the other hand...


...I'm not happy with this still. But, Whew! What a workout for the forarms, eh?!
I did this yesterday, (after four hours with about 45 minutes of interuptions), and I guess I'll have to hope it improves when I put it on the cruel boards, tho I can't see how. Or maybe, as you say in your book, it'll come out when it's lasted.

Your comments are requested.

Thank you,
PK

Paul,

As I've said many times, there are no guarantees...but when you turn them inside out and put them on the cruel boards almost all of that will disappear. It should...I think it could.

The pair I am working on right now were much heavier Beaumont and had similar problems (although not quite so severe) and smoothed out totally entirely.

Have faith...or maybe a refresher course?!

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

I have been reading all the post on crimping.

I was wondering why you crimp the back's on full wellingtons, but you don't crimp them on tradition 4 piece cowboy boots?

Thanks Joel

Joel,

Actually we are not crimping the backs per se, we are "crimping" the counter area. The tops just go along for the ride. We don't need to do that on dress cuts because the counter (counter cover in some lexicons) is a separate piece. We can shape and spring it while mounting as we like.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

DW,

Is the counter sewn into the backs on a full wellington before you crimp them? If so, why wouldn't you crimp the counter on the dress cuts? I just don't see why you would crimp one counter and not the other.

Also, what do you mean by "spring it" in your last post?

Thanks Joel

Joel,

Well, see...I have to admit to generating some confusion over the last 25 years or so that I've been teaching. (Although in my defense, the confusion was passed on to me by my teacher and seems to be widely spread in certain segments of the Trade.) I have at times, (hopefully not that often), been guilty of using inappropriate words to describe techniques or components.

In later years I have guiltily succumbed to an impulse to use correct terminology...this, through the belated influence of Al Saguto and several others who I have come to respect.

In any case, when I was coming up, I was taught that the "counter" was the actual heel stiffener. And that the upper leather piece that covered it was the "counter cover."

But technically...and properly...I believe that the heel stiffener is simply the "heel stiffener" and the counter is the covering piece (if there is one) for the heel stiffener. I am trying my best to correct myself and my usage. Including making the same distinction in my latest book.

So...yes, the heel stiffener is sewn into the boot (although I do not sew it all the way through as it was done historically). The heel stiffener is pre-formed but it is not crimped (or properly..."blocked" ).

The back is blocked to conform to the shape of the pre-formed heel stiffener. That part of the back blocker that covers the heel stiffener would correctly, I believe, be called the "counter."

I hope this clarifies things a little and apologize to you and everyone else who may have gotten off on the wrong foot because of this malaprop.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Paul, DW

I haven't used a reinforcing strip yet when crimping FW blocker's but I intend to use one soon. What's the criteria for the leather you choose. Do you just stitch it along the blocker edge? Is it cemented too? Is it cut into a specific shape or is it just a strip of leather?

Paul,

What's the stitching along the edge of the reinforcing strip shown in your photo above? Do you reuse the reinforcing strip?

Regards, Tom (sure lots of Tom's on this forum!)

DW

Your last post helped alot.

Am I correct in assuming that you pre-form your heel stiffener and then sew it into your back piece? Do you do this on all your boots?

Thanks Joel

Tom,

Those long stitches along the edge of the reinfircing strip are to strengthen the edge by helping the water based cement bond to the blocker. That reinforcing strip is not reused, in fact, to remove it, I'll be using my 1/2" french skiver to "shave" it off even with the grain of the blocker.

It's shape is a mirror pattern of the edge of the blocker.

This is the first time that I've used the fabric at the notch, the first vamp leather to crimp on long boards too, for that matter. And I think this ripstop material is a good idea.

I'll have my fingers crossed,(when I'm not wrestling with the leather), that I'm able to get those wrinkles out in the break, in a couple of days. Thanks for the encouragement, DW. Optimism!

PK

Tom, Paul,

The reinforcing strip does act to inhibit tearing but its main purpose is to provide a "tack strip" to buffer the stress at the points where tacks are driven. Particularly since lasting tacks (5 ounce) are cut metal, they create weak spots and places where rips can initiate.

I say this because I am off the opinion (but not yet brave enough to try it) that the reinforcing strip could probably be narrowed along the sides and the bottom by at least a third its present width. This might help to eliminate some of that after crimp skiving.

PS....Paul, you've done this before. You've seen me do it, repeatedly. You know it can be done. If you are having troubles that won't resolve themselves, call me. Maybe I can help you analyze where the problem lies.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Paul
It does not look like you have locked in any big wrinkles. I assume you are going to reverse it and put it back on the boards again. If so you should be able to get them out.
I do not know if this will make any sense using my terminology but it seems as if you might start with the top a little higher on the board. It seems as if you are crowding too much leather into the turn and just above, around the pass line. You should be able to take out most of the big wrinkle with a pull at both 1/2 and 3/4 from the toe. Dont be too quick to pull at the throat until the turn is laying down on the point of the board. I hope I haven;t confused you.
Tom

DW,

Naw, no confusion. I appreciate the suggestion to pull the vamp up higher on the board. That'll help lots, I'm sure. It makes sence.

I'll do that when I turn it and install it on the cruel board.

Thanks!

PK

Paul, DW, Tom Mattimore

Check me if I'm right on this. I think Tom Matt. is right about the crowding. I try to form the blocker with my fingers at the center edge of the board and when this leather can all lie flat and without any irons on yet then I believe that I have the top and toe secured at just the right location. I adjust the top location to make this happen. The outer edges of the blocker at the "heel" stick out like wings at this stage.

Then I attach the irons and start wrestling.

The problem with this technique however seems to be that I'm not expecting any leather to compress at the break but rather I'm expecting all the leather to stretch at the edge.

I've been blowing out some blockers so maybe I should allow some compression at the break.

Comments?

Regards, Tom

Tom,

My apologies. That was your comment. Please excuse me. Jumpin' to conclusions again.

Thank you for the input.

PK

Tom
(too many toms) You need a little compresion at the turn but I too get the "wing thingy" I am so used to it that I forgot. With stretchy leather I will go a little higher on the board and lower with tighter stuff. I also use a bouncer and slicker to push the compresed leather away from the break towards the edge of the board as I go. I seem to spend more time pushing with them and the heel of the hand then pulling with the screws.
tom

I been sitting here just soaking it up hoping to learn something myself. And I have no doubt that much of this will be on my mind the next time I block a front.

That said, it seems to me that you have to position the pattern on the board such that the corners will go under the iron. No matter how high you position the blocker, if the corners have to be pulled down to center on the irons, then the tops will come down too.

I don't pull too hard on either the toe or the top because I've found...1) it increases the risk of ripping. The edges--both vertical and horizontal--are what has to stretch. Everything else either compresses or does a bit of both. In fact, I pre-stretch the edges before I really start blocking seriously. 2) with some leathers you're just setting yourself up for cracked toes. A lot of that may pull out and over on the last but.... And 3) sometimes, from my experience, you increase the severity of the pipes in the throat if there is too much toe to heel tension. It's counter-intuitive but I've seen it.

I sure hope these comments will add to this discussion...like I said I am very interested...and not be taken as the final word. I've said over and over, I don't think I know all there is to know about this style (maybe no one alive does) and I greatly desire to see this discussion continue. Other perspectives, other methods...that's when you learn.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Its hard, at least for me, to do this in writing but it does make you think about it. By raising the top I mean by 3/8 to 1/2 higher on the board nothing radical. I nail the top edge at the outside and find that as you pull over the turn the top in the center pulls down. I use only one kind of leather so I have learned to tell where to put it by feel more then anything else.

The screw I use at the bottom is about where you would pull behind the ball on the last. I never stretch the toe since you can do this on the last. Also I never vary where I set the toe on the board only the top.

I put enough tension on the throat and down at the bottom to keep any pipes out of there first. As I think about this more I realize that the direction of the pull forms a rt angle at either end of the arc created by the turn so you get compresion right along the front of the board and then imediatly behind that you need to stretch out radialy (towards the heel). When I figured this out it was more trial and error and now I do it by rote. I will cogitate some more.
Tom

Tom,

Sometimes this kind of stuff is won with so much hard work and..."blood, sweat and tears," that it seems awkward to talk about it. I never know whether what I'm laying out, especially with full cuts, is so individual that it is out in left field.

Like you, I developed my methods over a fairly long stretch of time. All I really had to go by was old boards, old patterns, and the intuition that came from studying them. Oh, and some very helpful comments from the "long lost Al Saguto."

Of course, my methods work...very well and very reliably (at least for me). I guess you can't ask for more. And, mind you, the leathers we have access to today don't make it any easier.

But if I could have one wish...it would be to sit down with you and a few other people who have struggled with this form and brainstorm for a day or ten. Of course, when I started the CC and this topic in particular, that's really what I had in mind...well, a "second-best" version, at any rate.

Which brings me to the heart of a rather sneaky way of saying "tell me more!" If you feel like sharing photos (and have a camera) I'd dearly like to see a sequence of pics showing how you crimp a set of front blockers. Something (maybe not quite as extensive) like what I did in "The Art and the Mysterie: Photo Essay." Nothing more just the crimping...I won't ask for a seminar

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Tom,

Thanks for your response....

BTW, you use a crimping machine to pre-form your blockers, don't you?

When we move the blockers to the cruel boards they are probably close to being at the same stage as when you begin.

And at that point the corners of our blockers fall easily and naturally onto the irons. Raising the top on the board is not as problematic and I have done that. In fact, I may do that sort of unconsciously...I'll have to be more aware the next time I block a pair of fronts.

But I believe that it is important to draw the "break" on the blocker down to the board without letting the top and toe slide back too much. (It's hard for me to do this in writing, too) The toe gets fixed in a higher position relative to the tops than it was on the easy board and the whole angle changes. I think that steep angle is what makes it all happen, in the end, especially if we want to be able to work with different heel heights.

Aw heck, I don't know...it works...sometimes it's counter-productive to try to analyze the magic.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

Paul,

For what it's is worth and probably too late. For me, your crimping picture looks like an excellent first cut, no fixed wrinkles, etc. I would let it dry a day, take it off the boards and re-wet it just like a new blocker. You will lose some of the crimp when you soak it. Put it back on the boards (still inside out) and do it again. Repeat as required, stopping each time just before you rip the leather (Ha). Sometimes takes me four or five times. As you get close, you can use the spray bottle. I sometimes have as much trouble going from the "easy" boards to the cruel boards as with the origional crimp. I use the spray bottle for this step. Glad to see other people doing this. Thought I was the only one struggling. I have learned a lot from the comments.

Chuck

I'm pretty sure that what I know about crimping the FW is from DW's video that I obtained from the HCC. But years of engineering experience force me to think about some things like 1)the stretch that we are requiring from the leather radiates in concentric circles of increasing stress/stretch out from the break 2) the required amount of stretch should be calculable 3) we can test leathers before crimping to see if they will stretch the required amount without tearing.

But of course only some pretty hard nosed cerebral person would really want to do this. So I like both the idea of pre-stretching the blocker edge and also first placing a bottom iron and throat iron and pulling the leather outward from the break before doing anything else.

I guess what I was trying to explain in one of my posts above is that I like the idea of starting with the blocker formed to the curve of the center of the board and this sets the location of the top of the blocker. I don't ask for hardly any lengthwise stretch from the centerline of the blocker. I don't end up pulling the blocker down to the board but rather pull leather away from the break.

Additionally, I've ended up kind of doing what Chuck Deats suggests just as a matter of survival.

BTW - I'm actually holding off crimping FW's right now just to see if I can learn a little more from this discussion before I begin again.

Thanks all, Tom Mickel
(I once worked in a place where there were 5 Tom's and the company's operator never did learn to page us using both the first and last name - mass confusion!)

D.W.
I just use the one board and crimp once. A machinery company tried to sell me one once and they sent back a mangaled piece of leather and told me I was nuts it couldn't be done. I will take some pictures the next pair I do and send them. You will do better at posting them than I would.

All,

I designed my FW's from a last draft that I scanned into some CAD software and then I ended up trying to use all Patrick's, Koleff's, and Sharp's methods to come up with my own standard. But I just didn't like what I came up with so I instead used DW dress wellington criteria for tops and that gave me what I wanted. Pics of my first pair are shown on this forum.

But I'd like to close up the throat area a little and so I superimposed a scan of the back crimp board over the last draft to see what's up and it looks like I either need to move the break up on the back board or let some crimp allowance hang over the bottom edge.

Can you guys who are making lots of FW's tell me where this break should be located with regard to the last draft heel? Pic is below (hopefully)

Regards, Tom Mickel