Tunnel Stitching

[Daggrim]

Thanks again guys for the help. Ray, I know that the shoe rand was added around the 13th century...a small band of leather sewn between the upper and the sole , to help keep it more water tight. That was eventually made into a wider band, a welt, which stuck out from the edge of the shoe, to which was sewn a second, outer sole...the modern shoe.

They've also found insoles which were just lain into the shoes.

I riveted a pair of outsoles onto a pair of Viking boots, but I could do it only because the boots had a seam running right up the vamp, leaving the boot flayed from toe to ankle. I put in the rivets before I sewed up the seam. Not period, but very functional. The Norwegian reenactor who has them loves them for walking on rocks.

Also, I'll be searching soon for the proper tools.

Doug

[jeeperaz]

Dag,

Here is a link you may be interested in... although it is not specific to your question.

This guy blogs about reproduction medieval footwear:

http://wherearetheelves.blogspot.com/

[UKRay]

Really useful link - many thanks jeeperaz.

Dag,

Here is a link you may be interested in... although it is not specific to your question.

This guy blogs about reproduction medieval footwear:

http://wherearetheelves.blogspot.com/

[celticleather]

Who would have thought this thread would stretch so far?!

There is another element which might be part of a tunnel stitch.

Someone once brought old tools for me to identify and two or three of them I had never seen before. These turned out to be channel tools - used to cut the grooves in soles so that the leather would close over the sewing.

We visited this aspect of stitching quite early in this thread (27th July), and although the closed channel method is used quite a lot in shoemaking, I've not yet seen it used in conjunction with tunnel stitching (but I'm not a shoemaker!). We often use it in the course of shoe repairing, to stitch the outsole to the welt of a shoe, and sometimes to stitch the outsole directly through the upper and into the insole.

Just to make clear what I'm talking about, I stitched a small section of a sole in a channel to illustrate the process (see pic below).

1. Cut the channel (with the channelling tool).

2. Open up the channel.

3. Mark the stitch spacing (I use a pricking iron for this).

4. Lay in the stitching (conventional saddle-stitch or machine stitch).

5. Close the channel with adhesive, stain and burnish.

Shoemakers often use a curved awl to punch the stitch-holes, but I believe it's more often used to stitch the welt to the upper of the shoe, which is a different process.

Dag,

Here is a link you may be interested in... although it is not specific to your question.

This guy blogs about reproduction medieval footwear:

http://wherearetheelves.blogspot.com/

This video raises the spectre of the boar's bristle, which is mostly used for welting . . . far too fiddly for me . . . I'll stick to my curved needles!

Personally I'd shell out the not-very-many $s for a nicely finished curved awl, Doug - lets face it, unless you really get into this type of work it will probably be the only one you buy! Okay, I'll admit to having three - each a different size, but I'm a sad man who should try to get out more...

Ray

Ray - If you reckon you're a sad-sack with just three curved awls, then what does that make me? My collection runs to ten un-hafted, and another couple hafted!

Terry

[Daggrim]

Dag,

Here is a link you may be interested in... although it is not specific to your question.

This guy blogs about reproduction medieval footwear:

http://wherearetheelves.blogspot.com/

Jeeperaz, my man! Thanks so much for the link. It's so cool to see photos of that guy doing the same things I see in my book about medieval shoes that were dug up in England. A great resource.

Dag

[UKRay]

I'm hunting a pattern for a pair of turnshoe high 'boots' - can anyone help here? I guess I could extend the shoe pattern I'm already using (thanks Terry) but to be honest I haven't been hugely successful with it. The shoes look okay but are always the wrong size! There must be a trick to making these things so they fit. I think it is probably getting a good range of patterns together and making up a range of sizes to find the ones that fit best.

I look at those boots and shoes you make, Doug, and drool...

Ray

[celticleather]

I'm hunting a pattern for a pair of turnshoe high 'boots' - can anyone help here?

Ray

Round about 1980 I spent a couple of weeks working on an archaeological dig at Coppergate in York (now the site of the Jorvik Centre). In the course of the excavation a Viking boot was discovered. I believe it was used as a pattern to re-create a pair of boots. It may be that someone at the York Archaeological Trust would have a cutting pattern for the boots. A bit of a long shot, but may be worth a try!

Terry

[UKRay]

I'll drop them an email - thanks Terry.

Ray

Round about 1980 I spent a couple of weeks working on an archaeological dig at Coppergate in York (now the site of the Jorvik Centre). In the course of the excavation a Viking boot was discovered. I believe it was used as a pattern to re-create a pair of boots. It may be that someone at the York Archaeological Trust would have a cutting pattern for the boots. A bit of a long shot, but may be worth a try!

Terry

[amuckart]

Dag,

Here is a link you may be interested in... although it is not specific to your question.

This guy blogs about reproduction medieval footwear:

http://wherearetheelves.blogspot.com/

Hey cool, people link to that?

That's me, so if you've got any questions about shoe stuff you think I might be able to help with, feel free to PM me or start a thread with questions and PM me that it's there and I'll do my best.

The blog will get updated again once I've finished moving it to a new platform on it's own domain.

[amuckart]

Hi Ray,

I'm hunting a pattern for a pair of turnshoe high 'boots' - can anyone help here? I guess I could extend the shoe pattern I'm already using (thanks Terry) but to be honest I haven't been hugely successful with it. The shoes look okay but are always the wrong size! There must be a trick to making these things so they fit. I think it is probably getting a good range of patterns together and making up a range of sizes to find the ones that fit best.

I look at those boots and shoes you make, Doug, and drool...

Ray

What style of boots are you looking to pattern? Do you want knee high lace ups or thigh-high fold-over and buckle types?

I don't have patterns for them per-se but I can have a go at explaining how I generate patterns.

[amuckart]

I'm working backwards through this thread right now so I don't reply to things that are already covered.

As usual, Terry has hit the nail on the head. Unless you have the right tools you really can't hope to get up to speed with this task. IMHO, the triangular section hole could actually inhibit speed because the sides of the hole will close up when the needle is withdrawn.

Personally I'd shell out the not-very-many $s for a nicely finished curved awl, Doug - lets face it, unless you really get into this type of work it will probably be the only one you buy! Okay, I'll admit to having three - each a different size, but I'm a sad man who should try to get out more...

I've got a small collection of 12 or so curved awls for various things, mostly old Barnsley and King awls but by far the nicest was made by Dick Anderson at Thornapple River Boots.

That said, when I'm making medieval shoes I use what they did, which is a straight awl. Curved awls are a post-medieval thing. Back in The Day™ they used straight awls even for tunnel stitching. It's quite doable but it's a very different technique than using a curved awl (which I'm not very good at).

All the shoes on my blog were sewn with straight awls I made myself out of random bits of tool steel. Mostly old allen keys I chopped the bent bit off of, threw in a drill mounted in a vice and went after with a dremel while it was spinning. Man, I hope there aren't any machinists on here, that'll probably give them conniptions

The awls I use are round, tapered with a slight chisel point and a mirror polish. They're not quite the same as the shape of medieval awls but my forging skills aren't up to reproducing those yet.

I meant to throw in a few words about stitch marking wheels. I like to use the 'pricker wheels' that were popular in the 1920s/30s. They can be purchased quite cheaply on eBay and IMHO are a much nicer thing to use than the standard TLF offering. The little spikes make less mess than the big chunky markers and the neat little holes are easier to see.

Regarding thread, I'm in complete agreement with Terry (again). Get thread that suits the awl and the job you are doing with it. I use linen thread for most of my historic work because it is what would have been used at the time. IMHO it also seems less likely to cut the leather than synthetic - particularly important for shoes which are sometimes wet - wet leather is often soft leather. Linen seems to have more 'give' and 'tolerance' to use.

I haven't used anything but linen for a while. With a good hand wax it locks up way tighter than I can get with synthetic and if you ply up your own cords you can tune the thickness to exactly what you need for the seam you're building.

Personally I don't use a pricking wheel, I just eyeball things. I've only got one and it's 13SPI which is a lot finer than I need for most things. Extant medieval shoes show the natural slight variations in stitch length that comes with an awl-as-you-go technique done by eye. Still, I mostly manage fairly tidy seams on things.

Now I have a question : how do you guys finish the soles of your shoes? I ask because single thickness sole turnshoes are notorious for soaking up moisture (okay, I know they should really be worn with patterns). I saw a pair a week or so ago that had a 'riveted on' sole that seemed to work quite well but I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

From a historical perspective, is there anything to suggest that they may have had extra soles added?

Not in medieval work, no. Distinct outsoles don't start being used on new shoes as a matter of course until the very late 15th century/early 16th century. There are oddities of shoes with built up soles, but they're oddities. The vast majority of medieval footwear was single soled. Sometimes you see ones that have had repair soles put on but that's often a pretty temporary and crudely-done repair.

I tallow my shoes, but there really isn't a lot you can do to make a medieval shoe waterproof. If you walk in the wet and mud you're going to get damp feet after a while. Pattens are the real answer, and they aren't nearly common enough in reenactment IMO. It may be that they had specially heavily curried leather in medieval times for use as shoe soles but I'm not aware of any research to back that idea up.

[truetruth]

Hey all - medieval shoes had wooden soles that could be attached underneath them to keep them dry...found some at the York dig...FYI. Cheers, Don

I'm working backwards through this thread right now so I don't reply to things that are already covered.

I've got a small collection of 12 or so curved awls for various things, mostly old Barnsley and King awls but by far the nicest was made by Dick Anderson at Thornapple River Boots.

That said, when I'm making medieval shoes I use what they did, which is a straight awl. Curved awls are a post-medieval thing. Back in The Day™ they used straight awls even for tunnel stitching. It's quite doable but it's a very different technique than using a curved awl (which I'm not very good at).

All the shoes on my blog were sewn with straight awls I made myself out of random bits of tool steel. Mostly old allen keys I chopped the bent bit off of, threw in a drill mounted in a vice and went after with a dremel while it was spinning. Man, I hope there aren't any machinists on here, that'll probably give them conniptions

The awls I use are round, tapered with a slight chisel point and a mirror polish. They're not quite the same as the shape of medieval awls but my forging skills aren't up to reproducing those yet.

I haven't used anything but linen for a while. With a good hand wax it locks up way tighter than I can get with synthetic and if you ply up your own cords you can tune the thickness to exactly what you need for the seam you're building.

Personally I don't use a pricking wheel, I just eyeball things. I've only got one and it's 13SPI which is a lot finer than I need for most things. Extant medieval shoes show the natural slight variations in stitch length that comes with an awl-as-you-go technique done by eye. Still, I mostly manage fairly tidy seams on things.

Not in medieval work, no. Distinct outsoles don't start being used on new shoes as a matter of course until the very late 15th century/early 16th century. There are oddities of shoes with built up soles, but they're oddities. The vast majority of medieval footwear was single soled. Sometimes you see ones that have had repair soles put on but that's often a pretty temporary and crudely-done repair.

I tallow my shoes, but there really isn't a lot you can do to make a medieval shoe waterproof. If you walk in the wet and mud you're going to get damp feet after a while. Pattens are the real answer, and they aren't nearly common enough in reenactment IMO. It may be that they had specially heavily curried leather in medieval times for use as shoe soles but I'm not aware of any research to back that idea up.