Hard Core Tooling Boots Technology

At present, American retro tooling boots are becoming more and more popular.

I think most people have heard about, tooling boots used "Gute different process," and has a higher strength and durability , but its concrete structure and production methods do not understand.

In fact, there are many craftsmanship in seam tooling boots: such as Goodyear & hand-stitched welt craft, stitch down & Veldtschoen craft, Norweigian craft (Norweigian), inner branch craft (blake) and so on. 

1. Modern adhesive, injection molding process

The shoes we often wear, sports shoes, and the leather shoes that our families often wear are basically made of glue. The process is relatively simple. First, the upper is sewn out and fixedly attached to the shoe mold (shoe last) , and the sole is produced by the mold according to the design style. Assemble the soles only need to apply glue, press them together, and it's all alive.

Adhesive shoes will be glued under high-strength wear.In recent years, many shoes will use non-toxic and environmentally friendly glue, which has worse adhesion, which has led to the current situation of spreading glue. 

In addition, Drka boots also used an integrated injection molding process. Place the shoe body on top of the sole mold, and then inject the molten sole glue into the mold under the upper. After the glue is cold and solidified, the sole and the body of the shoe are firmly bonded together. The one-piece sole greatly reduces the probability of booting glue. This process is widely used in various professional outdoor and labor protection footwear. 

2. Basic hand welt construction (hand welt construction)

Compared with the adhesive process, the sole structure of retro tool boots is much more complicated. The most representative craft is the hand welt craft and the corresponding machine Goodyear craft.

The structural core of the hand-sewn welt process is the welt and the two inner and outer stitches on it . The sole structure can be divided into three layers: insole, midsole and outsole . Along the shoe body, there is a rim strip that bridges the insole and midsole/outsole.

The specific process flow of Handwelt is:

Slot in the leather insole to leave the suture position. Then the vamp, liner, welt, and insole are stitched together to form the first stable structure. This stitching can be called "inner thread" because it is finally hidden in the sole of the shoe.

Fill the recessed cavity of the sole with cork filling or other deformable materials to provide deformation and cushioning.

Suture the welt and midsole to form a second stable structure. This suture can be called an "outer line".

Finally, paste the outsole, and the outer outsole can be removed and replaced after it is worn out.

3.2 Changeable outsole connection form

The connection between the outsole and the midsole has a certain degree of flexibility. Some shoes do not have a midsole, and the welt is directly stitched with the outsole. There is also a suture that directly sews the welt-midsole-outsole in a string of three. There is no essential difference between these external suture methods, just understand the spirit.

3.3 Change the bottom

We often hear people say that traditional tooling boots can be replaced or even dismantled and rebuilt. After understanding the above structure, it is not difficult to understand the characteristics of the interchangeable bottom. The multi-layered structure of the sole allows people to remove worn parts and replace them with new ones. In this process, you can also appropriately change the style and shape of the sole according to the needs of customers to meet some personalized needs. For example, the commonly used materials for outsoles are leather, EVA foam and rubber. Customers can make a "second choice" when changing the bottom.

4. Goodyear welt by machine sewing

4.1 Origin of Goodyear Process

After talking about the hand- sewn welt process, I will explain the goodyear process . The word Goodyear is a calloused term in the world of tooling shoes, but most people have a wrong understanding of it, even including many people who play with boots. Time is pushed back to before the Industrial Revolution, shoe craftsmen need to use awl taper holes and hand-sewn welts, which is the Hand welt process just mentioned.

4.2 Goodyear welt process flow

The Goodyear process can be seen as a machine realization of Handwelt. The core process is : first use a machine to paste a layer of canvas strips on the insole to form a ribbed structure similar to manual slotting. Then the curved needle on the Goodyear Stitch machine simulates the manual process of using curved cone stitches to complete the stitching of the welt -shoe upper-insole .

The outer thread connecting the welt-midsole-outsole can also be sewn by a machine. The machine that sews the outer thread is called the Rapid stitch machine, which was invented by Lyman Reed Blake (Blake is also the inventor of another shoe-making process, the Blake process). The emergence of Goodyear shoe machines has greatly improved the production efficiency of shoes and boots and liberated manpower.

For the sewing of the outer thread: Due to the space structure limitation of the Rapid machine, the outer thread sewn by the machine cannot be retracted inward, and the outer edge of the sole will be relatively wide. This is not a big problem for work boots, but it is against the peace to make a wide protruding sole on formal shoes. Therefore, the waist of some formal shoes needs to be tightened, and even the stitching is hidden under the upper, that is , blind waist . At this time, it can only be sewn by hand.

5. High edge strip: storm welt

In the basic Goodyear & Handwelt process, the welt and the shoe body are often not close enough, and water can easily enter through the gap in rainy days. Using high-edge strips instead of ordinary straight-edge strips can partially solve this problem. The high side can be more closely attached to the upper. This can achieve a better waterproof effect, so it is called storm welt.

The Storm welt process is born out of the Norwegian sewing process.. Now the Storm welt in the general sense is just a high-edge strip, and the process steps are actually the same as Goodyear.

6. 3/4 welt and full welt

Some Drka'shoes use a 360° all-around welt. It is worth noting that not all boots will use 360° full-circle welts. Some shoes with heels, will use 3/4 welts in order to narrow the heel and look better. . Some dress shoes, and heavy tooling boots styles with Stitch down craftsmanship sometimes use 1/2 welts.

As for the heel and waist, they are fixed with iron nails/wood nails/bamboo nails . This method is born out of the original Nailed down process. It doesn't matter which form is more advanced, everything is to serve actual needs.

7. Fire melting process of Dr. Martens

Finally, let's introduce the craftsmanship of Dr. Martens, why did Martin boots be introduced separately? Because its Goodyear process has some unique features. Dr. Martens welt -shoe upper-insole is still fixed by stitching, which uses plastic welt. The welt-inner bottom seam is exposed to the outside and has a certain decorativeness. (In fact, this type of stitching with exposed inner thread is strictly Norwegian stitching)

Dr. Martens does not use stitches to connect the welt and the outsole. Instead, a high-temperature metal probe is used to pass through the connection between the welt and the outsole, and the two are melted at high temperature to complete the "welding" . This process can be called It is the "fire melting process". To a certain extent, the durability of the integration of the plastic welt and the rubber sole is stronger and more reliable than the seam.