xenon - wouldn't it be simpler and more accurate to make a cast of the foot and reverse mould it?

This is going to be pretty sweet to watch come together.

Good work xenon.

Are you going to accept responsibility for shooey hyperventilating and possibly fainting while reading this?

Absolutely amazing.

When can we place orders?

l am amazed at those. l also lov the notched heel and all the hand made characteristics on the shoe.

How did you get the last so accurate? Did you do lots of re-checking to see if it was right? How long to make the last and to do double checks on details?

The lasting seems decent, and this being your first time, it far surpassed my expectations. The lasting and closing would have been so difficult, so much skill in those areas needed...probably the hardest things to masetrvwhen you first start out. Actually, the entire work far supassed my expectations. How long to last the shoe?

How long to hand welt?

How long to stitch on the soles?

Do you have a close up of the wrinkled vamp problem?

Does the V opening at the lacing areaclose evenly?

This is a fascinating thread and l have read it with great pleasure. Not many could do shoemaking well...you need artistic flare, enthusiasm lots of common sense. I would have loved to have done some shoemaking part time and reckon l could have made a good go of it, but like with music, skills take countless hours to perfect, but having the time l would like to devote to a craft isn't there....far too busy promoting - teaching and living the new age lifestyle. If l wasn't so busy l would love to take up part time shoemaking, but being a guru needs to come first.

Last edited by The_Shooman (2013-11-13 15:57:11)

Make you feel like picking up the clicking knife again shooey?

TBH 60 hours is far too much for a pair of shoes from an experienced maker no matter the quality. It took me that long because it was the first time. I truly believe that a shoe should take no longer than 40 hours. I heard Lobb do thiers in 30 hours. I don't know if you've ever seen the the Corthay video where Pierre basically makes a pattern in 5 minutes-that's experience.

I think some of the makers might exagerate the time it takes in order to have less price pushback. I d'ont know why they would do that because even simple math dictates that at 30 hours work for $100 an hour all in that comes in at $3000.  Pretty reasonable and you won't be anywhere near rich or comfortable. Most car dealer services in my area run at $129 an hour, lawyers $600 an hour, It services $399 an hour. GM assembly line workers $80 an hour. No wonder shoe making almost dissappeared as a trade. Might as well be a welder,there is going to be a lot more demand for your services.

So having made a pair all myself I now know why bespoke services are a loss leader used only as a test bed and prestige/marketing to support high end machine made RTW lines. I think that exemplifies how G&G did it. Correct me if I am wrong anyone.

I can truly see now how a fairly good pair of shoes can be made using almost exclusively high grade cements/adhesives combined with high/mid grade leathers. The weakness of most current RTW is the use of lots of synthetic nonsense such as fiber board insoles, textiles, bonded leather stiffeners. All of which is seriously low grade. Additionally the whole debate about goodyear welting versus, blake, blake rapid or cement is misleading I think.  For instance having hand stitched my outer sole at 11 spi to 270 degrees, I can absolutely certify that if you wear out the baker outer sole, absolutely noone except myself or a real professional cordwainer will put on a now outer sole to the same standards by hand using the original holes. In contrast a cobbler will either glue the sole or use a sole stitcher and basically mash the welt. If you are going to use a sole stitcher, 8 spi is the absolute max you want to go from the get go in order to avoid mashing the welt. You will also notice this is why I added the topy on top of the baker outer sole. That will be the sacrificial component just like brake pads on a car. I can replace/repair the topy in a snap without touching anything else. I could not see any cordwainer putting on a new sole to the same standards I did for under $1000 and I believe Lobb will charge more. But when you think about it, it just doesn't make sense to do so. Best to avoid resoles in the first place. No?

As such a really nice pair of shoes can be made with cements only. Use top grade leathers only, with great design and make these in a quality capable factory. Cements are also more versatile then goodyear or even blake when doing fancy /delicate women's shoes. There is simply no way goodyear can be dainty enough for a woman's pump. Shooey, for sure this will not be to the same structural integrity as a top hand welt but to 99.9% of the population this won't matter. In terms of longevity the only folks who will have issues are those who perspire alot or use their shoes in bad weather often-these 2 things are hell on cements.

Bottom line top grade hand welt doesn't make economic sense. It's only for die hard folks like you and I. If you trust goodyear where the gemming is held on by cement why not trust 100% cement where a greater surface area exists? You're thinking resoles are you, well a great job is only likely at the factory and that very factory can resole a cement shoe as well!!!!!!!

Last edited by xenon1 (2013-11-16 09:11:47)