Making boots?

[dman762000]

With my recent aquisition of the shoe lasts I have decided on totally reworking the knee high mocs. From previous posts I have stated that I intend on placing a tire sole on them. Right now I have the innersole cemented in place on one boot and the other one is currently being reshaped on its last. Hopefully, I will have a set of new pics to show within the next couple of days of the innersole being sewn to the upper through the contact cement. Then its down to the building of the sole.

[dman762000]

After letting the contact cement cure properly I have decided that stiching will not be necessary. The cement produces such a solid bond that I do not believe I could pull the pieces apart with pliers and a vice. So, I have moved on to filling in the space under the inner sole and above the midsole. Most shoe makers use something like cork to do this but as I have no cork I had to find a sutible substitute. What I found was some sheet of craft foam. It has a nice closed cell design and a nice bit of "squish" to it and will fill in quite nicely as it is the same thickness as the leather of the moc. Now on to the pics.

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 This is the innersole cemented to the leather upper. You can see that there is a lip where the upper wraps around the innersole. I am using the original moc sole as an innersole. It is made of hard leather at about 1/4 inch thick. To get the cement to adhere reallly well I had to rough up the edges with a scraping of a sheepshoof blade.

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closeup of the cementing area, showing the lip

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This shows the craft foam cemented to the innersole. As one can see it fills in the space left by the thickness of the upper wraping around the sole. It should also provide some nice "squish" to the soles, to be more comfortable on the feet

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closeup showing how the foam fills the space up to a level with the upper leather

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This shows how the boot is starting to look, now just imagine it with clunky black soles on it

[Lt. Lily Shaw]

Unfortunately, Lily we have nothing like that here, too much of a consumer culture I fear. I have been doing some reasearch and have changed my approach. I now have the innersoles tacked to the last and the mocs are being reshaped on the last as we speak. Once I get some good contact cement I should have them finished up pretty quick. I am going to apply contact to the edge of the innersole and the edge of the upper and wrap around to attach, then I will take the last out and stich the innersole to the upper on the hand turned shoe machine. After that is sole filling with a bit of leather and more contact cement and seam pressing to make them flat. then comes the fun part of making outersoles out of tire tread, replacing the shoe on the last and fixing the sole to the boot.

it's looking good.

Surely you have a fashion school somewhere? The campus I was looking at was devoted to weaving, high fashion and shoes. It was absolutely beautiful, but they wouldn't like my neck-to-ankles-covered-even-in-summer style, and i'm not going to parade a naked model down a catwalk, so I doubt i'd get in.

Also maybe places that do millinery might also do shoes. lord knows why.

Anyway, you seem to be doing really well on your own, so it's just a thought <3

[J. Williams Black]

I seem to have arrived fashionably late in this shoemaking adventure of yours, Captain, but there's been a seemingly comprehensive tutorial floating around in my Bookmarks for some time that relates directly to this topic. You may find it helpful, despite the fact that it's far more geared toward the unwashed rabble of the Renaissance Faire circuit. I'm mostly just using it for some general pointers in my own pedestrial pursuits.
Here it is: http://design.seamlyne.com/footwear/footwear_index.asp

As an addendum, I must say that I admire your resolve in the face of all the warnings the difficulty of this endeavor. I'm a firm believer in sheer force of will triumphing over so-called "common sense." Godspeed!

[Capt. Barley Wilkerson]

mr. black... that link is a godsend... tomorrow, when i drink my tea, i will drink to you and that link...

[J. Williams Black]

Always happy to oblige.

[dman762000]

Well, thank you Mr. Black. The truth of the matter is that I have a slight advantage over most people who attempt making their own boots. I spent many a year doing upholstery work. I have tools and techniques that I developed doing that that can apply very well to shoemaking. (leather seats, leather shoes, meh, same difference) Having said that, there is a great deal that I do not know, I have found a great deal of information online that has helped me, (ok so not that much, there really is very little to find).
This site  http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/CD3WD/APPRTECH/H2381E/INDEX.HTM   has assisted me in many ways, at least I can understand a lot of the terminology and can figure how a lot of it is done. The other fact that has helped me is that the major industry of my home-town for many years was a shoe factory. A great number of people in my town know a great deal about shoe-making that way, including my mother who worked there for many years.

[J. Williams Black]

I believe that site is going to assist Captain Wilkerson and me quite a bit as well. For my part, I'm going to get in a bit of practice in the whole area by making some respectable gaiters (spats that rise up to calf-level) in preparation for constructing some equally tall canvas boots.  While it's certainly not as manly as leather or a leather derivative, God strike me down if my All-Stars haven't proven to be the most ridiculously comfortable things I've ever worn on my feet (with the obvious exception of socks).

[Capt. Barley Wilkerson]

i actually tried doing this before without a guide... i even did the whole duct tape over a sock bit... i ran into trouble when trying to figure out how to make and attach a sole... the whole thing was scrapped when i did the second boot backwards... after all, we can't all have two left feet can we?

this should help very much... i even have some ideas about modification already, and i too was going to try for canvas if i have enough... otherwise, the whole plan is to make some sort of heavy material gaiters in this style... apparently great minds think alike! amiriteramirite?