YouTube video by Tony Slinger showing the whittling carving of an insole for handwelt construction
Notes
Tony does everything with a European shoe knife and edge beveler. No feather plow, welt knife, or other specialized tool.
- roughly whittles an insole with a bare knife, off the last
- tacks to the last over a footbed spacer with the back of a rasp
- finely whittles the insole on the last with the knife, pulling backhand
- when done whittling, he runs the spine of his blade around the whittled edge
- 2:04 runs an edge beveler around the top of the insole under the featherline
-
2:36 marks lines with a blue Bic pen
- uses the body of a pen to gauge heel length and mark the concave heel breast on the insole
- then marks the ball points on inside and outside
- line for feather, using middle finger as a depth stop
- line for channel, same technique
- [holdfast looks pretty thin]
- marks where the feather crosses the heel breast
- freehands the contours of the waist with the pen
-
3:21 cuts the feather
- bevels away the feather at about 45° with the knife
- short, sawing strokes
- deeper in the waist
- carving the channel
- carving the waist
- 6:03 wets with a brush
- 6:09 burnishes feather and channel with a flat stick