Flexcut 3 Draw Knife-Traditional Woodworker. Ladies Stacked Leather Heels. Welcome back fellow shoemakers of the world. Another exciting week in shoeland. We saw one of our old interns and fellow shoe freaks this week who brought a friend of hers to talk to us about a project he has to make high end sneakers. All very exciting and lovely to see her again. It is a great feeling when people start asking you for advice. Things are afoot at Gieves and Hawkes.
The Other One was very much the film star this week. Now, back to bespoke shoes. I would say about 95% of the shoes we make are for men, so when a lady orders shoes from us I am a little concerned. Anyway, ladies shoes. Having stitched the sole, you are ready to build the heels. You will need to make sure you have enough lifting leather in a mellow state (fully soaked in water and about 80% dry) to build the heels. Put some paste on the heel, place the lift on and put 3 nails in the centre in a triangle shape. Draw round a second lift, cut it out and glue it on. You end up with a line like this. Et voila! Leather. After a very pleasant Easter break which I spent painting, eating (yes, chocolate too) and generally resting, we are back with a short week. Now this would not normally be a cause for complaint, but, as usual, we have a glut of work all coming at once which needs doing immediately. The first few months of this year have been a bit quiet and we have taken the opportunity to do all the things which usually get shunted to the back of the queue, which is good in some ways, but now it's gone crazy.
I do wish there was a way to regulate the flow of work, but it just doesn't work that way. This week's post is the third in our irregular series on the leather we use. If you remember, the insole shoulder runs across the top of the cow's shoulder from leg to leg, so the grain runs along its length. The sole bend has to be the hardest, most long lasting part of the shoe, so it is rolled very dense to compress the fibres. This is the back surface or flesh side where you can see vein marks. Finishing The Sole.
Isn't life funny. There is me telling you all last week about putting in a sock and some foam in the heel. Well, the lesson was on me. This week we received a pair of shoes back from a client because the nails in the heel were showing through and hurting his feet. Ouch! And not good on our part. We have put in the foam and sent them back, so it has all ended well, but it just goes to show how important all the stages are in making bespoke shoes. We have had some contact from an aspiring shoemaker and this week he sent us his first shoe. Matt (who made the above shoe) asked us to do a post about finishing the soles. Here you have a shoe with the edges set and the heel finished. First off is to glass the sole. You have to hold the glass at an angle of about 60 degrees leaning forwards and scrape in short movements.
In this case, glass across the ridges 90 degrees to the direction you started with. The area around the heel breast is tricky and you need to use the pointed tip of the glass. Finishing - Tips and Tricks. Greetings once again, dear readers and welcome to this week's post. I hope you enjoy it and find it informative. I sit here in our spacious workshop with yet another band of persistent rain sounding on the roof and I'm thinking that our beloved Olympics might be a bit of a washout.
That would be such a shame. I am pretty excited about the whole thing, apart from the fact that I applied for loads of tickets and got absolutely none. A bit gutted about that, but there you go. I will still enjoy the vibe. Many of the comments and questions we receive are about finishing. But don't think that it is not important. So it well worth concentrating on it and perfecting your skills.
And this is where you start. The shape must be created with the knife, not the rasp. This is the kind of rasp we use. Ok, wet the surface with water, including the edges and waist. Start at one end of the heel and work in one direction. To protect the upper from the rasp, hold your fingers against the upper. Like this. Fiddle Waist. So, dear shoemakers of the world, another week goes by. Today sees the start of the twice yearly Cockpit Arts Open Studios. The public's chance to see our working studios and either buy or commission work from the over 90 designer/makers who work here.
So if you are in Central London this weekend, why not pop in and see us. It is a great visit and you could buy some of those tricky Christmas presents Opening times are Friday 26 November 11am till 9pm Saturday 27 November 11am till 6pm Sunday 28 November 11am till 6pm £5 in. And so to shoemaking. But I have been wondering about the origin and purpose of them. The essential elements seem to be a pulled in waist and the Y shaped ridge up the middle (some thought this was not essential, but the consensus was that it was).
And here's how you do it. Start with a welted shoe with a shank and cork filler. I like to draw the line of the Y shaped ridge. Let it dry and glue it in place. Skive the edges down with your knife. Glue it in place. Metal Shanks. Once more we meet, dear shoemaker folk of the world. We hope you have had a wonderful week and that you have managed to get your hands on some tools and leather. We had a nice start to the week when we found ourselves in the Luxe London Guide With a listing in the Advanced Shopping section (whatever that is!). It felt great being next to Jimmy Choo and the other illustrious enties - deeply delish! Being modern shoemakers, we are always keen to examine our practice and explore new ways of working. An area we are currently re-examining is shanks.
So we have always used leather shanks. This has led us to fitting metal shanks as standard now in men's shoes much as we would for women's shoes. And this is how I was taught to do it. Once you have welted the shoe and you are ready to put the shank in, you have to shape it to the curve of the last. Then, with contact adhesive, glue both the shank and the waist. Let the glue dry for 10 minutes and then glue in place. But that is all for this week. Bruce Johnson Leatherwork - leather tools. L’Indispensable Knife, Clicking Knife. Flat Knife and Brass Scabbard When I asked our manufacturer what tools were sold most often, I was surprised to hear that this little guy made it to the list. It’s bulit like an Xacto knife but with a thicker high quality steel blade that runs the entire length of the handle meaning that you can sharpen and resharpen this blade for a long time and never run out.
You can use this knife as a straight clicking knife or clicking blade to cut patterns and cut into corners. The most common things that happen to your primary leather cutting knife are snapping off the tip and rapidly dulling the blade. Since this is a small blade, you can resharpen it fairly quickly and its length means you can grind the edge back often to get a new sharp tip. Sharpen after every use to both maintain the tools but also for good practice in preparation for sharpening trickier blades like skivers and head knives. I Love Edward Green…..And You Should Too! – The Shoe Snob Blog. There are many reasons that companies become great and stay that way for many years after. The fact that Edward Green has always been a industry leader in the high end/quality footwear sector, for me, is due to their constant ability to not forget the detail, or rather their ability to create a detail that is not only elegant and amazing, but that has never been done before.
I can wholeheartedly say that I have never a medallion/brogueing done like this, where is just sits on the cap line as opposed to being positioned as a centerpiece. For me, it’s simply amazing and beautiful, and makes me jealous that I can never do something of the sort for fear of being a copy cat. Oh well, there will be other things that I can do to separate myself! But nonetheless, Edward Green never ceases to blow me away and this just adds to the list of great things that give me inspiration. Well done EG, I commend you! Cap Toes Dress Shoes Edward Green News Oxfords Tan Dress Shoes Toe Medallions. Medallions – The Shoe Snob Blog. I’M BACK!!!! Well, for those of you that read my blog religiously, I just wanted to say sorry that you had to go 4 days without a new post. It even felt long for me, as I was almost going through lack-of-writing withdrawals.
But alas, I am back in full effect and have some interesting things to share with all of you. While I can’t talk much about where exactly I went (as in the name of the factory) I can tell you that I was in Spain. However, I will dwell more on this subject in my long post tomorrow but for now just share with you my experience while I was on the plane. As the procrastinator that I have always been, I found myself on the plane over to Spain (to turn my designs into actual products) without a toe medallion that I was really satisfied with. It turned out that the phrase ’3rd time’s a charm’ really came to life in my crash course experience in medallion designing.
Well, I am happy to be back writing to all of you. -Justin, “The Shoe Snob” Footwear of the Middle Ages - Some Stitches and Seams used in Sewing Shoes. In describing the stitches and seams used to make shoes, or do any other sort of leatherwork, it soon becomes clear that the traditional description conventions that have come to us from sewing with fabric are inadequate to that task with leather. Up to a point, certainly, but soon things become needlessly confused.
Moreover, shoemakers have their own nomenclature, much of which is unique to them. Further exacerbating the problem is that archaeologists and shoe conservators have created a jargon for describing shoes that is different from that used by shoemakers, either now or historically. The reasons for this are fairly simple, and mostly derive from the fact that the study of mechanics of shoe construction has a different focus from making shoes as a profession.
One is interested in individual techniques, one in process. Neither is better than the other. As with the Glossary, most of these terms will be modern. Basic Holds Return to Contents, or [Next] to the next page on stitches. Western Boot Lasts, GC-975. Receipe for making glue. The Crispin Colloquy • glue to close the channel. DW, Hide glue is an old staple in woodworking shops. The stuff Nasser is making is used hot - but no more than 160 degrees. Luthiers use this glue a lot, and it can be purchased in flake form, with instructions as to how to reconstitute it. My father told me of working in a cabinet shop as a young man. As the last hired, it was his job to get to work early enough to turn on the glue pot so it was hot enough to spread once everyone else got there. The hide glue is applied hot and sticks as it cools.
It should be left to finish curing/drying/hardening for 16 to 24 hours. Be aware, though, that hide glue is water soluble, and this is one of the reasons it is used in lutherie - the instrument is easily repaired or tuned up. Hide glue also tends to be increasingly brittle as it ages. I have also used white glue, AKA PolyVinylAcetate, or PVA, as well as wheat paste.