Project #3!
Happy memorial day!
Where to start, this has been what feels like a super smooth build so far, and the vast majoroty of it happened this past weekend.
Another set patterned on a DW frommer last, with his geometric method in his Western Packers book; it feels nearly fool-proof at this point in time.
My wife saw some work done by BJ Rhodes, on a set packers he did, with a hatchgrain Vamp/counter/backstrap and tooled quarters and went “i want something like those, can you do that?”
The pattern layout went very smooth, and the clicking went very well also. I made the mistake of not checking the exact layout of my tooling on the quarters, and ended up with some leaves under the backstrap, but i didnt feel like it was significant enough to build another upper to remedy that.
Definitely had better luck this time around trying to get the cylinder arm machine to work with me, but i laid out the half gunslinger stitch just a little too small for the miniumum stitch length available to me on my machine, and it ended up looking a little strange.
Lasting went great, a quick 20 -25 minute soak of the lower part of the upper made everything super pliable, and the chromexcel and economy veg lining were super agreeable to get lasted nice and neat, even the counter went right where it was supposed to. I gotta say, i felt a little like an imposter in that moment.
I was concerned i was gonna have some blowouts in my holdfast, so i tried winding a 2nd thread in the welt stitches that i had seen @kemitchell mention and it did a wonderful job of keeping me from tearing through, the welt went on nice and flat, and i credit alot of that to the channel knife i use to prep, it does a wonderful job of creating a nice level feather all the way around.
Pegging through a rubber outsole, a 9oz shank cover and a 9oz leather midsole was an adventure, and i found that hirschkebler makes a great lubricant to get the pegs through the rubber.
I built heels with pegs for the first time, and ive gotta say, i think i like it better than nails; but i think swapping my bottoming cement from barge’s, to Renia CDC played a super large role in that.
Slipping a 5D last out of those was an ADVENTURE, i ended up popping the hinges with my jack, and trying to fish the last hook i bought recently into the hole at the back of last, and then running a bakers strap through the hook, standing on both ends, grabbing the counter, and pulling with all the gusto itd let me. It turned out that i had driven the shank pegs in a little too far, and had decided to test the tensile strength of my counter stitches; and fortunately the peg ends gave way before my stitching did.
Still have to stitch the welts down, and do all the finish work, but i did manage to get the heels halfway shaped, and more importantly, they fit!!
Thanks for lookin!