Mablung

Neato! How do you figure out where to place the nails holding the upper in place? I’ve watched plenty of videos of shoe and boot making and am always just certain that the nail holes will be visible after completion. They never are, but why is about as clear to me as black magic. Are they simply hidden under the welt? The videos I have seen don’t show the holes being trimmed off as the upper is trimmed after lasting, so my only guess is that they are hidden.

Depends on how much you want to get into floral tooling. Most of those stamp kits have large stamps that make it difficult to do anything precise. I’d follow elnedro’s advice and start out with some basic tools from Tandy. They’re better than kits you’ll get at other big box hobby stores but are not too expensive, either. If you’re looking for basic floral carving tools, elnedro covered that. As far as tools for construction, I’d start with a 5mm six-prong and two-prong set of stitching chisels, a good mallet, and a groover or creaser from Tandy. That stuff will last you a long time and is decently made. I think I mentioned on another thread that something to mark hole locations and an awl work well, which is true. I do some of my stitching that way. I then thought about the fact that a good set of chisels is easier to use when starting out, IMO. The awl and over stitch wheel or pricking irons are definitely useful, but chisels are easier to start with. I’ll post some links when I have a chance.

The rule of thumb when learning to tool is generally to cut a depth of 1/3 to 1/2 the thickness of the leather. You’ll have to judge whether yours is that deep, but some of the cuts, like the ones around the moons/planets and the astronaut’s head look a little shallow. Curved cuts are tough.

Is this a first or early effort? It looks very good. I’m not much of an artist, so I’ll leave the artistic comments to those with such ability. Your beveling overall looks good, although a bit choppy and inconsistent in depth. I’d bevel a bit more deeply and then use a matting tool to smooth out the edges. How large is your beveler? It looks like you were having trouble traversing some of the tighter curves, which may indicate you need a smaller one (I hate tight curves). Move the beveler 1/3 to 1/2 its width for each strike, and work at striking it with consistent force. Beveling is the heart of tooling. Those constructive (hopefully) criticisms aside, this really does look good. Keep it up! ETA: Idiot here just reread the title, where you say it’s your first practice piece. Great work!

Pick something you want or need, learn how to make it, and go from there. Don’t shoot for the stars on your first project, but also don’t undersell yourself. I started with a fold over knife sheath because I needed one for a knife, and have branched out and learned from there. I’m not naturally good with my hands, so it was tough for me to get into some things, like wallets, that have several components to them. Practice gets you a long way, as does being patient and being willing to accept less-than-perfect pieces as adequate expressions of your then-developed skill. Mulesaw’s tool and supply list will get you going on a lot of projects. You can make nearly anything with those few tools. I’ll add that something to mark stitch hole spacing is beneficial. Even a dinner fork can be used, or a geometry compass/set of wing dividers. Pick something, try it out, and then decide if you want to go all out. I’ve expanded from using a small set of tools like Mulesaw posted to using half my basement for this stuff. Dive in and explore! This group will answer questions readily, as long as they’re reasonably specific.

Looks like the crosshatching is done with U-gouge or a V-gouge. Kinda cool.

An excellent idea. I had forgotten that the OP started with something else—deepest apologies, OP.

Go right ahead with the discussion of the lasting pliers. This is fascinating.

I’ve had good luck with the major rental companies, like Enterprise or Hertz. But those can depend on the quality of each location’s staff, too.

Using leather from the back portion of the hide will help mitigate that, as will orienting the grain to resist stretching. The stitching process itself can induce some stretch and probably won’t prevent stretching. It may prevent a little bit of lateral stretching, across the body of the strap, but I wouldn’t think it would do anything about longitudinal stretching, along the length of the strap.

The Economy leathers in particular are susceptible to inconsistent thickness grading. The manager of my local store said whoever grades them tends to go with whatever the thickness is at a given spot on the hide and assigns it a somewhat wide range, since they don’t try very hard on the cheap ones. I have a Craftsman double shoulder with a great surface and even grain marked 7-9 that I swear is anywhere from 7 to at least 10.

I will certainly do that. I found some books on archive.org on shoemaking that I downloaded a while back, but I need to find the files. Wonderful resources. Now I gotta get some tools on eBay (found a set of a couple hammers, last jack stand and a few iron lasts, some awls, and a couple other tools I don’t recall for $99 plus $55 shipping—tempted but haven’t decided to pull the trigger yet) and some shoes from Goodwill to practice on.

Great stuff, @Tastech. Looking forward to your other words of advice. I’ve read up on cobbler’s tools and looked on eBay enough to have some notion of what the various tools are, but I don’t know which ones are truly essential and which ones are not. I also see a variety of styles of curved awls and, as you pointed out, hammers. That there are different patterns and numbers associated with various ones within a pattern set is easy enough to see when scrolling through eBay listings, but I don’t understand their different uses. So, pictures of your tools would be much appreciated indeed. In a somewhat similar vein, I have seen some videos of people stitching soles with a jerk needle, others with a speedy stitcher sewing awl, and some other techniques I can’t recall. What’s your preferred method? And, I agree entirely about the “sneaker generation,” being squarely a product of it. I like my various lightweight synthetics for certain purposes, but I also buy “barefoot” shoes that end up being pretty expensive, especially in relation to their relatively short lifespan. I wanted a chukka-style (or vellie, if you prefer) short boot to wear to work but wasn’t willing to pay a semi-bespoke maker over $1000 for a pair. Assuredly, those are much better than the ones I make, but I decided to learn to make my own instead. So, here I am, having made kinda ugly but very comfortable and mostly functional shoes. I also just like having something that can be repaired, last, and is something I made myself. I’m an attorney by profession, and it is rare that I can point to something and say, “Hey, I did that! I made that thing!” Leatherwork is thus quite satisfying, especially when I can point to something like a shoe.

Huh. That’s an interesting conundrum. Which is to say, I don’t know what the answer is, although that may simply be because I haven’t tried to dye chrome tan leather; all the chrome tan I’ve dealt with is already colored the color I wanted. Could it be that the chemistry of chrome tanning prevents the hide from holding dyes? I don’t know the chemical makeup of the Angelus pro dyes, but I know the Fiebing’s pro dyes are spirit-based, allowing them to penetrate veg tan more effectively. That tells me there’s some manner of chemical reaction going on there, which may not play well with chrome tannage. I’m just spitballing/thinking out loud, in case one thought or another turns out to be helpful.

How did you dye the hides? Airbrush, daubers, etc.? Were the hides sealed before you dyed them? Few more specifics on the hides’ pre-dye condition and your methods would be helpful.

I have heard the CEO can be made to boil over somewhat easily over issues she gets personally invested in. Don’t know what that will mean for the growth of the company, but I have gotten the sense from my local guys that some changes have been made a little precipitously. Hopefully that won’t translate into other hasty business decisions, but it sounds like she’s concerned about cost-saving to protect the bottom line. Not a bad thing in itself, but if that becomes the primary objective, then other business objectives suffer.

I may need to try giving my dog carrots. Never thought of that. It’d be better for her gut than the amount of rawhide she goes through otherwise.

Couldn’t possibly want to use the resources God actually gave us, instead of the ones we want to create for ourselves, huh? That sparks a thought. It seems human hubris (if not something palpably evil) is demonstrated in such a mentality that inverts what is good and what is not. God made animals, gave them to us for food and their skins for clothing, yet now the prevailing line amongst those who have the microphone is that those things are abusive, disgusting, and unhealthy, whereas humanly-synthesized plastics and other synthetics are what are really safe for us and the planet. We try so very hard to be God that we ignore and even outright reject His good gifts to us, including in the form of leather. This twaddle about all things non-leather being better makes me want to go make another pair of shoes just to really show them. All that said, synthetics have their place. Once I get good enough, I plan to make a pair of tall hunting boots using a Vibram lugged sole. Synthetic materials are useful. They’re just not the answer to some made-up ethical dilemma posed by using leather, or the ecological savior (quite the opposite).

A few questions for you. What are, in your mind, the essential steps in polishing a shoe? You may have meant simply that no one under 40 knows how to select, apply, and buff a shoe polish, which really isn’t hard to do, but I just wonder what else you think is necessary to really polish a shoe well. For someone getting started cobbling, what tools are essential? Outsole stitchers, sanding machines, so on are all helpful labor-saving devices, but what is truly essential to getting going in the craft? What do you consider a high-quality shoe that would get you to work on it? I’ll use a couple of my shoes as comparison jumping-off points. I have a pair of Johnston & Murphy Oxfords I bought for $100 or so on sale close to ten years ago—I think the outsole is either cemented or has a closed stitching channel, but I’m not sure which. I also have a pair of Wolverine 1000 Mile boots that are Goodyear welted with open-channel stitching. Would you decline to work on either one, and why? I have taken an inordinate interest in making and repairing shoes, so I may have more questions for you, if you’re willing to take a little time to answer.

What a beautiful dog! I love GSDs. I have a Husky/GSD mix that looks much more like a GSD, and she’s wonderful. Fortunately, not as capable of destroying things as your dog.

Dang! Sorry to hear that. That really sucks. I’d feel high and dry if my local Tandy closed, and I’d sink a lot of money into materials as well. That’s really too bad, Sheilajeanne.

Time to become one’s own cobbler, right?

Awfully nice bag. She looks happy with it (and she’s awfully pretty, too).

I have a pair of wolverine boots that need to be resold. Watching that video got me thinking that I could probably manage to do it myself. I found a last Jack on eBay for a good price, which I might grab so that I can start doing some more advanced shoe making and repair work. if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, at least I will be able to make and repair shoes.

Might try it on a scrap piece. Put some Hi-Lite on it, let it dry, then paint over.