YouTube video on shoemaking at Tuttys
Notes
- examples of orthopedic accommodations
- metatarsal bar
- rocker bottom for short leg, short foot
- platform for shoe for very short leg
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I’ve all my life at it, and I’ll never know it all.
-
George Tutty
- set up in 1946
- learned in Dublin and Country Clare
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feet don’t come in standard sizes
- feet not equal
- not a luxury for those who need
- shows foot measurement of a customer
- wants a copy of current shoes in brown
- customer says “high arch”, shoemaker notes as “extra high instep”
- “sunken heels” to take pressure off
- last straight on the inside
- assistant filling out blue paper printed form
- “Oxford style, full brogue”
- shows many exotic leathers
- shows Swedish calf leather for customer’s approval
- prides on taking measurements once, can then order more by post worldwide
- lastmaking
- laying on the fitting book
- leather bubbles
- TS-Boy-style glue pot
- Tutty damages arches of both feet playing football
- fallen arches
- boss made special pair of boots with wedge heels
- had to wear for three months, even in bed, to cure problem
-
therapy of a good shoe
- “surgical work” top priority
- new materials
- clicking
- patterning on cardboard
- brother Joe Tutty the clicker
- clicking knife
- always cut along the grain
- more waste
- big rap stick
- lining from calf
- skives by hand
- Nelly the closer
- rotary hole punch for eyelets
- glues together
- closing hammer
- post-bed sewing machine
- machines, but no computer control
- company
- 8 workers
- up to 40 pairs per week
- once had 21 workers
- cheap, foreign imports, consumer society
-
fashion, and the people who dictate it
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built-in obsolescence
- some styles never go out
- Barbour’s thread on cone
- bottom stuff
- Edward Tutty in business 20 years
- traces the lasts onto a side
- traces split lift for a pair
- many clients referred by doctors
- lasting
- lasting post on bench
- “done rounded”
- whittles the insole by hand
- shoulder leather heel stiffener
- French chalk to prevent sticking
- 16:46 drafts with the toe of the upper held in a clamp, pushing the last down at the heel
-
stretch-clamp-stretch-tack
- toe puff of belly leather
- stretches down by hand
- lasting pliers called “a dog”
- lasting tacks called “tingles”
- pleating
- splits pleats by slashing pleats with knife
- passing off to bottomer
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full brogue Oxford shoes
-
very same sample
-
tidy leather welts
-
medium weight leather
-
inch and a quarter leather heel
- Frederick O’Neil, Cockney
- steel shanks
- like suspension in a car
- 19:48 “slip welt” to give the center of the forepart “body”
- welt
- shoulder or belly leather
- “undersole” to which proper sole sewn
- nails the seat
- “beaking machine” sews welt to insole
- looks like a chain stitch Blake Stitcher
- rotary outsole press
- closed channel
- fudge wheel
-
hand outseaming
- strap over lap
- saddle stitch
- pig bristles
- “threading needles with both hands at the same time”
- square awl
-
-
heel building
- “split lifts”
- “quarter rubber”: rubber back corner of heel, attached to broader but thin sheet laid under the last leather lift
- nails lifts down
- decorative work
- stitch pricking called “dividing the sole”
- welt knife
- machine to do edges
-
line finisher
- wax on wheel for edge finish
- embossed stamp on waist of outsole
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if it dies, we will be the poorer for it
- George Tutty retired
- handed to two sons, Edward and George