Making Boots
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just wanting to know how much of the boot you make hemi? or are you just a designer? Either way looking great and will be coming to NZ for a pair!
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I:
- Design the boots
- Handpick the leather from the best NZ Tannery
- Select imported leather sole bends
- Design the rubber sole/heel then have them made in NZ
- Have the boots put together by a fantastic NZ craftsman
Its quite a process, I work with a minimum of four other parties to bring these boots to life. Next week I travel to Melbourne to visit the master last maker to work on a new model. He's the only guy left in NZ/Australia still doing this on a commercial scale.
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Stoked on these!
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Sorta making boots http://www.shop.outlier.cc/shop/retail/upgrade.html now all i need is a box cutter and some hide.
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Tasman Tannery makes the world class leather I use on my handmade boots so I thought it would be a good idea to spend a day going through the plant and learning about the process.
The Tannery has been operating since 1953 and is situated next to the Whanganui River where it meets the Tasman Sea (there just happens to be a surf break down the road so I made sure I got their early to check it out). It’s the only bovine tannery in Australasia still making finished leather from raw hides so the operation is relatively big with approximately 250 employees processing around 14,000 hides a week. I can tell you, these guys work hard and long hours with certain sections of the plant running day and night. Even with state of the art machinery every single hide is checked by hand at each stage to make sure it makes the grade.
All of the raw hides are by-products of the meat industry and come from local farms between the central North Island and the top of the South Island. The quality of the original raw hide is still key. Each hide is unique, and reveals its history in its texture, grain, and its scars, nicks and rubs. Lucky for us New Zealand has the perfect climate and landscape for farming strong and healthy cattle with high quality hides.
Here are some photos I took of the operation. I was going to write about each process but its so involved and technical that my head started to hurt! Let’s just say it’s an incredible combination of old and new technology, science and experience.
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Here are some of the leather samples I took from the Tannery. They are called Crust because they haven't been polished and are considered lower grade. You can see the scares, marks and hair follicles which I actually prefer. The leather is actually better quality (from a funtional point of view) in this state but people prefer the aesthetic of a cleaner polished hide. I find Crust far more interesting and it fits with my philosophy of keeping things as simple as possible without sacrificing quality.
What do you guy's prefer?
The images are close ups so you can't see a lot of the natural markings.
