The Dorestadt Shoes - Assembling the Tools

It's been a long time since I had time to write here, but I've finally been able to squeeze in some time for blogging. I'm going to try and finish up this series on the shoes I made last year (!) so that anyone dropping by the blog will have some idea of how to do the same thing, should they ever want.

Once the initial research for the shoes was done, I waded in to Step 2: furnishing myself with the specialized tools and the materials I needed to make the shoes. Overall, this kind of shoemaking doesn't require that many specialized tools or materials. These are the main ones:

1. A sharp knife
2. An awl
3. Bristles for sewing (or needles)
4. A closing block
5. A stirrup
6. A matched pair of Lasts
7. Linen thread
8. Coad (a sticky wax)
9. Leather (vegetable tanned)

For a sharp knife, I just use a replaceable-bladed utility knife. It's not ideal or historically accurate, but it's inexpensive and easy to control. I have a very nice diamond awl, but for reasons I'll explain later, I got myself another awl with a narrower, rounded blade. I got the awl as sharp as possible on my stones and strop, and later, ground it to a flat, slightly rounded tip and resharpened it.

The bristles I used are wild hog bristles that I got from Francis Classe, the fine authour of the wonderful Raised Heels blog (http://aands.org/raisedheels/index.php). Boar bristles were likely used by leatherworkers of all stripes instead of needles, though it's unclear when they were first used. 

Lystyne Lordys Verament, a late 15^th century shoe-maker's will set to verse, mentions them alongside other shoemaking tools, so we know that by the late medieval period they were being used. It seems likely, given the stitches used on shoes throughout the medieval period (and into the modern period), that some kind of flexible thread guide was used, and boar bristles are ideally suited. If you don't want to spend the money or time trying to get boar bristles, I've been told that 25-30 lb fishing line makes a good replacement.

The awl and a few boar bristles for sewing.

A closing block is a rounded bit of wood that assists in making the closing seam, the seam(s) on the upper part of the shoe. I made mine out of a bit of 2x4 that I rounded off at the edges. I'll get into the exact technique in a later post, but basically the leather is held against the closing block on your thigh by the stirrup while stitching is done with the awl and bristles. The stirrup is just a long leather belt that loops under your foot and around your thigh and secures the leather while you're working. When I made mine, I just used an old belt blank that was too marked up to sell, added a cheap buckle and made a long slit in the middle. The slit is so that the stirrup can be tightened on either side of the area you're working on to give a more secure fit.

Here you can see the awl, the boar bristles, and the stirrup hard at work.

Lasts are hard forms shaped sort of like a human foot - it's most accurate to say they are shaped like the inside of a shoe. Modern lasts are very different from Medieval lasts - in modern shoes, the lasts provide the shape for the shoe, while in the Medieval era the lasts were used mostly for a sewing support while doing the lasting seam. I'll be doing an entire post on lasts after this one, as they are pretty important to how I decided to make these shoes.

For linen thread, I used two different thicknesses - one was 3-cord linen thread for the closing seams and other fine work, and the other was 7 cord linen thread for the lasting seam (the seam that holds the sole to the upper).

I used a kind of coad called 'blond wax' for...pretty much everything I make, actually. It's a mix of roughly two parts pine gum rosin and one part beeswax. There are a million recipes for this kind of wax, many of which use tar, tallow and other substances, but this was the easiest for me to make. Alistair Muckart (AKA William de Wyke) has a wonderful post on his blog for how to make it - he does a better job explaining than I could. Find it here: http://wherearetheelves.net/making-code/

 Finally, the leather. I used 5/6 oz leather for the uppers (2 -2.5 mm thick) and 8/9 oz leather for the sole (about 3-3.5 mm thick). You could probably use 4/5 oz leather for the upper if you wanted, but the fine stitching on the closing seam of the shoes might be weak in that kind of leather (you'll see what I mean when we get to construction.) I used 2/3 oz calfskin leather for the edge binding.

When I make another pair of these, I'll use thicker leather for the sole (more like 10/11 -12/13 oz), both for increased protection when walking and for an easier time of doing the sole seam.

The tools gathered and in use!

Coming up next - making the lasts!