Shown is a sellection of handmade leather tools that I made during my six years with a local shoemaker, it was almost eleven years ago now and I had just undergone two major operations almost back to back followed by the long term recovery which followed, slowly but surely on most weekends I searched high and low for those who were willing to help me learn new skills.
As I mentioned earlier in another blog posting, I found such a man and over several years I gained these valuable skills here in Yorkshire from a wonderful guy and 7th generation shoemaker or cordwainer as he likes to be called. we still have all of the shoes I made we have are still not worn out, and passed on freely to others the same knowledge.
During my training I made a wide variety of footwear from shoes to boots and a couple of medieval indoor type shoes for personal use, I will be sharing a few more videos in the future of my journey, also showing how to make traditional handmade sewing threads using pig whiskers for needles, everything done as in the days of old.
First are this pair of leather or clicking knives, these are used for cutting out the many different parts of the shoe, the upper part or known as the Vamp which can be as many as ten seperate section on a pair of brogues to a single piece taken from medieval footware.
Above are a sellection of different tools I made which are needed for constructing the insole of a welted shoe, called insole planes, these cut out a special groove for the welt that is a small strip of leather which eventually hold on the mid and outsole, these are no longer available today and had to be made in house to the older existing tools from Victoriana.
Two more specialist tools, on the right is a French style skiving chisel, this is used to pair down the very edges of the seperate pieces so they lay down neatly against the one below, the other tool is another curved skiving tool for getting into curved corners, every tool has it purpose and cannot be done properly without, there is a method and journey to many handmade items which is replaced today with modern glues in this modern world and all there is throw away science.
The next rio are more knives and edge tools need for other types of footware, two are similar edge planes and the middle item is a french edging tool, I made these from stock tool steel, shaped and semi polished them prior to hardening and back tempering them and finally honing them to a razor sharp edge.
I also teach these skills to others who want to make the tools that are no longer available, and how to hand turn and char fit the handles.