Flat Belt Shop Shoes

[Sanderson Iron]

These are the shoes I wear in the shop.  I've been making these for ten years now.  I make them larger for the winter so I can put several pairs of socks in them.  They double as my outdoor shoes, though I prefer moccasins in the woods, especially in the winter since they keep the snow out better.  These are about as close to a moccasin fit as I have found, but they look quite a bit more shoeish and not so alarming to folks who think you just have to wear boots in a shop.    

I used to wear moccasins in the shop, but the soles wear out too fast, so I began making shoes with soles out of remnants of the flat belting that drives the shop.  It makes a flexible sole, which lets me feel the treadle on the hammer for better control.  There's almost no heal, just a quarter inch, which lets me stand the way God intended instead of up on a perch, which kills the back and knees.  I first made these with no heal at all, but then the whole sole has to be replaced when the back end wears out.  With a small heal, I can pop it off and put another back on in no time.

A year and a half ago I decided I'd give commercial shoes a try again.  Shucks, I went to the chiropractor enough from those things I paid the price of those shoes six time over. So I'm back to my flat belt shop shoes, and the ones I bought are mouldering away unworn.  

I do not believe in steel toed shoes.  If your shoes are so clumsy you can't move your feet out of the way, you're gonna get hurt.  It's that simple.  Now if I were not able to move quickly, like with a health issue, I would consider wearing them, but a healthy person is just asking for injury with their feet sealed in a clumsy metal prison locked to the floor by gravity.   We don't wear steel gauntlets on our hands, do we?  And our hands are in far more dangerous places than our feet.  Our hands get out of the way, and so can our feet.  

These are all hammered together--no stitching at all--which is good for a blacksmith cum cordwainer like myself.  I've made the uppers out of all sorts of leather, from nice smooth leather, suede leather (which is what these are) and even an old chair's leather.  (That was kinda thin, I have to say.)  They're easy to make with a hammer and a stake.  I made these early this summer while I sat in the yard at my daughter's friend's house as they played.  

The first picture shows the pattern's parts laid out on the floor.  Maybe it makes sense with the pictures of the finished, though very worn, shoes.  If you have any questions, I'll try to help. 

Joel

 

[D.C.]

Those really look comfortable. Please, next time you make a pair, post pictures of the construction....a complete how to would be really awesome.

Btw.....cordwainer sounds so much cooler than shoemaker or cobbler

[Michael Cochran]

I have thought about doing something just like this. I told my wife and she laughed. What she doesn't understand is I'm tired of paying $50 for something that lasts for less than 6 months of daily wear. 

Would you mind sharing where you found the basic pattern?

Now I'm going to be looking for old shop belts on top of everything else I'm looking for  

[Sanderson Iron]

Hey, there's a thought, D.C..  Maybe I will.  Thanks for the suggestion.  The most difficult thing is making the pattern fit right.  Eastern moccasins are made of deer hide, which is very stretchy and forgiving, but the stiffer leathers for shoes are not so much.  

I was corrected once by a real cordwainer when I said cobbler.  I felt like I'd just said something about a blacksmith shoeing horses.  I guess every craft has to educate the uneducated.

I made the pattern myself, Michael.  I was on a trip in Mexico when I saw a pair of shoes with belting for soles, and it gave me the idea, but the basic pattern was quite different.  I didn't want any stitching at all--just hammering--and this is what I came up with.  

There's a side of me that's primitive and wants to be able to do things for myself.  It's a live-off-the-land kinda thing.  I know people who are self-proclaimed survivalists but have never made a stitch of clothing.  Seems sorta important to me, and shoes and pants are both pretty high on the list of needs, but most of the patterns we see today are very complex.  This shoe design can be made with a bare minimum of tools and by someone like myself who knows very little about the right way to make shoes.  On that note, I made my first pants (actually, leggings) sitting in my wigwam with a needle, an awl, scissors and a knife. (Well, and my longrifle.)  I went home with new clothes.  Very satisfying.  If you can make your own clothes, make your own shelter and cook your own food which you didn't buy, you can tell the rest of the world to stuff it once in awhile and really mean it.  

 

 

[Daswulf]

I like your thinking Joel. 

[Frosty]

I like them Joel. I think I was born a survivalist as I've always had the need to be able to do for myself. I've never made shoes though and my first pair of moccasins were pretty ratty, worked though. I had a pair made from moose hide and loved them as long as I could wear them.

Here is a thought for soles the pair I bought are made from scrap yard conveyor belt. It's kevlar cord with a high traction texture wear face, think stiff rubber hook pile. Very comfortable soles, flexible nail proof and will stick to a slimy rock in a creek. 

Since the TBI even the smallest obstacle, dip. . . texture under foot can make me unstable, I just need something stiff for soles. It's killing me trying to find shoes or insoles that aren't foam or gell or some other smooshy crud, the stuff feels like my socks are wadded up under my toes. I seriously lust after the old fashioned smooth polished hard leather insole. Polished so my socks slide on the shoe instead of my feet sliding in my socks.

Man, I've about got myself talked into making my own shoes now. I wonder if I can get Deb's expression on video when she finds out.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Here in America a lot of blacksmiths did shoe horses and their daybooks show it!  IIRC "To draw upset and weld", Penn State University Press, has a couple of pages from a daybook.  I wish I had my great grandfather's day book as he was a smith in a small Arkansas hill town, I know he used to shoe horses as well as do anything else that was needed.   On the "frontier" you usually didn't have the luxury of specialized craftsmen that city folk did.

[Michael Cochran]

Frosty, your idea of using a conveyor belt is very similar to what I was thinking last night right after I saw this post. I was thinking about that treadmill I just brought home. I disassembled and trashed most of what I didn't see a need for but saved the belt 'just in case.' It's not all that thick but back it up with a second layer or with a layer of leather and it might just work.

[starbits]

21 hours ago, Sanderson Iron said:

 I was on a trip in Mexico when I saw a pair of shoes with belting for soles, and it gave me the idea, but the basic pattern was quite different.  I didn't want any stitching at all--just hammering--and this is what I came up with.

Are the uppers stitched to the soles?

[Charles R. Stevens]

Econo spare tires make exelent soles for herachies and mocs. Thinner than other radial tires. 

[Sanderson Iron]

3 hours ago, starbits said:

Are the uppers stitched to the soles?

No. Hammered.  No stitching anywhere.  The uppers are tacked to the soles, with the tacks crimped over on a stake out the bottom, and all other joints are with copper belt rivets.  Me blacksmith.  Me hammer.  Ugh.  (Which might be why my shoes don't look any better than they do!) 

12 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Here in America a lot of blacksmiths did shoe horses and their daybooks show it!  IIRC "To draw upset and weld", Penn State University Press, has a couple of pages from a daybook.  I wish I had my great grandfather's day book as he was a smith in a small Arkansas hill town, I know he used to shoe horses as well as do anything else that was needed.   On the "frontier" you usually didn't have the luxury of specialized craftsmen that city folk did.

If he shoed horses, he was a farrier, Thomas, or at least he was trying, which is not to say he wasn't also a blacksmith.  Taking care of a horse's bottom parts is a completely different set of skills, tools and knowledge than is needed by a blacksmith who makes things out of iron.  About all they've got in common is coal.  If you don't believe me, get a horse.  

I never thought about using tires or conveyor belting.  Probably would last better, but then I couldn't call them Flat Belt Shop Shoes.  They'd be Conveyor Shoes, which actually does sound better.  Thanks for the suggestions. 

[JHCC]

I've made sandals out of the tread from motorcycle tires, which worked very well.

[Daswulf]

JHCC, I just recently was binging on YouTube and saw a video of a company in Africa making sandles from tire tread. It was interesting and got me wanting to try to make a pair. 

[ThomasPowers]

He might have been a farrier as well as a smith but the term used was "blacksmith" at that time and place.  We have a tendency to look back at history and want to get very picky with terminology when the folks living there often tended to lump broad categories together---just look at "swords" for example.

[Frosty]

To true Thomas, we want to categorize everything down to the smallest part. I had a good coffee shop friend who called folk who had a knack for figuring things out and getting them to work, "Mechanics." It was a broad description of type not limited to working on machinery, were he still alive he'd certainly call the guy in England building sophisticated structures with no tools he couldn't make with his bare hands a Mechanic. You know the guy who made the blower to power a little bloomery and fire ceramics from cook pots to roof tiles. Definitely a mechanic. 

The village or where ever  "Blacksmith" would mean about the same thing, he might be the only person who not only had the mechanic knack but the tools to make the tools to do whatever needed doing.

I have a pair of junk yard conveyor belt mocs and love the feel on the ground. Very flexible, high traction and you can't poke a sharp knife through them. When I was told that I asked the guy making and selling them how HE cut the belt, he just smiled and said, "Secret."

Frosty The Lucky.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Leatherworker.net has a whole section on shoes and boots.