Charlie Dunn: At Last

video program about Charlie Dunn’s bootmaking

also shows Carlos Rodriguez and a young Lee Miller at work

Notes

• uses a broomstick with a hook to fetch lasts from hooks on the rafters
• shows wood lasts marked “Santos” [perhaps Taller de Hormas Santos]
• born in Arkansas, 1898
• fourth generation bootmaker
• great grandfather from Ireland
• 1905: started apprenticeship under Ed Lewis in Paris, Texas
• Jerry Jeff Walker song and word introduction
• came out of retirement in 1977, with his own shop
• the most important thing: fit

• If they don’t fit, they’re not worth a darn.

• shows foot tracing
  • wearing socks
  • standing
  • on measurement book
  • “double diagram of each foot”
  • after that, have them cross legs, take girth measures
    • balls
    • toes
    • arch
    • instep
    • heel measures
    • about five total
    • feels for veins in foot
  • traces with pencil held straight up
• “The last comes first.”
• last build-up
  • with leather
  • [wood last shown is scoop block]
  • shaping last bubbles on line finisher
  • long paddle strop to hone pocket knife for cutting sole leather
  • 5-in-1 and square-point knife to skive
  • hammers the bubbles into curves
  • Teflon glue pot
  • lights the cement on fire to cure on last and bubble
  • [naumkeag mounted on bench top edge]
  • as much setting up last as making boots
• measurements will remain the same for at least seven years
  • after that, will recheck if they want
  • if gain or lose 25 pounds either way, have to re-measure
• shows designing with pen on cardboard
• people tell him to pick out stitch patterns for them
• uses sewing machine like a tracing wheel, without thread, to transfer holes through cardboard pattern onto leather
• dusts talc to transfer topstitching holes to the top leather
• materials
  • find out what the customer likes
  • elephant one of the strongest
  • ostrich, will get three pairs out of a skin
  • skin costs over $500 each
  • alligator, shown finished and unfinished
    • story about a woman who didn’t understand that the hole in the hide is the alligator’s asshole
    • the most expensive
  • anteater
  • kangaroo
    • not exotic, but wonderful
    • same class as French calf
  • French calf
    • best all-around
    • can be used for work boots
  • cream cow
    • lining material
    • tops and vamps
• “top man” makes the patterns and designs
  • cuts out and makes
  • one of the best ever
  • Carlos Rodriguez
  • has a great helper, Maximiano Fernandez
• mentions spur piece as a synonym of counter cover
• flat bed sewing machine, a Singer, for topstitching
  • first line one the outside
  • later lines on the inside of the first
• shows crimping over a crimp board with lasting pliers and nails
• up-close shots of multi-row, multi-color topstitching
• shows closing of vamps and counter covers to tops
• shows closing tops on a Landis Model L stitcher
• “bottom man”
  • Lee Miller working
  • soften the forepart and the heel counter with water, but not the toe
  • talc into the top before lasting
  • nailed heel seat
  • checks counter height with wing dividers after back lasting
  • Lee uses bulldogs with two hands free by draping his leg over the handle of the bulldogs to keep tension.
  • toe box made of sole leather
  • “hard cement” to fasten toe box to lining
  • shows Lee notching the lasting allowance of the toe puff with a square-point knife after cementing it to the top of the toe, before folding in
  • shape toe puff with sandpaper
  • “toe box hardener” once finished
  • Charlie says “Goodyear welt” for the welt process
  • Lee looks to be handwelting through a carved holdfast
  • Penn’s hand shoe wax
  • thread making
  • 8-10 strands to sew welt on
• “we make the boot to support the arch”
• shows nail shank
  • “bridge timber nail”
  • cover with leather
• pegging explanation
  • square object in round hole: been doing it many years
  • square wood pegs
  • round awl blades, round holes
  • hard maple pegs only
  • four corners of peg hold in the hole
  • round pegs won’t hold in round holes
• bottoming
  • [shows lee burnishing with a wood handle]
  • 5-in-1 to trim
  • Landis outsole stitcher
• heeling
  • “one layer at a time”
  • Paul Storelli
  • tall lip knife to trim
  • line finisher to sand flat
  • tape to mask fishtail pattern for dye
  • “heeler”
• delast after five days
• calls the sock liner “heel pad”
• always try to make the next pair a little bit better
• never reach perfection
• “we can have a lot of fun trying for perfection along the way”
• slideshow of work
• [shows Charlie doing a trick with his hand where he bends in ring finger over his pinkie, his middle over his ring, his index over his middle]
• [gives names of makers before video credits]