German-language YouTube video by SWR Handwerkskunst featuring Zwick Schuhmanufaktur, especially Benno Zwick
Notes
- starts showing a fully pegged shoe
- “If you buy cheap, you buy twice.”
-
foot measurement
- Heider Device
- ball girth
- instep girth
- short heel
-
foam impressioning
- both feet at once
- standing
- full weight
- making based on an existing model shoe
- combination of smooth and suede leathers
- reviewing a hide
- so stretchy on the edges that can only make two pairs out of the superior middle
- stretch direction
- veg-tan calfskin
- silver pen
- cuts quarters direct with knife to pattern
- tanned in Germany
- people want to know what it’s made of, where it’s from
- make sure children haven’t worked on it
- mentions Indonesia, Bangladesh, South America
- “It’s not my thing, simple as that.”
- talks about pull loops
- goes over the clicked parts, showing them against the model shoe
- white felt piece to pad the tongue
- mother worked for shoe companies at home
- father quit construction, did a couple months’ internship at a company, set up his own business in the basement
- left school at 14, didn’t have a choice
- “today I’m actually quite happy about it”
- bell skiver
- explains folding and stitching a seam
-
closing
- chip brush with bristles cut short
- reinforcement tape
- brushes glue on over a sheet of paper
- contact cement
- hammers over a marble block
- connects lining vamp to lining quarters
- peel and stick adhesive patches at the derby corners of the upper vamp
- fusible backing for vamp
- prevents stretching, but allows bending
- Pfaff sewing machine
- stretches quarter panels before sewing backseam
- machine for pounding seam flat and applying reinforcement strip
- “uni”: thread matching upper, so blends in
- aside: business
- 80% orthopedics, 20% shoemaking
- made to measure, small collection of ready-made
- uses machines where they do a better job
- peel-and-stick eyelet stay and topline reinforcements
- edge folding
- slits the leather inside the curves
- hammers over cobbler’s anvil once folded
- sands down back of quarter folds and vamp seam allowances with sanding drum on rotary tool
- can hammer good folded leather as much as you want without cracking
- completely closes the upper, then inserts the closed lining
- uses a triple-needle sewing machine on lining
- lining has a trim allowance all the way around the facings and toplines
- post-bed machine to sew lining to upper
- uses a trimmer to remove the trim allowance at the same time
- “derby bar” bar tack at corners
- pneumatic eyeleting press with hole punches and setter tooling
- rollset, not split
- smooth surface
- no lace tearing
- rivets at derby corners
- 90% quality assurance, 10% looks
-
lasts
- HDPE, plain grey and bright red
- designed his own last
- Pirmasens company makes the lasts
- measured 800 people’s feet in a pedestrian zone, then made last
- “The feet are getting wider, the instep is getting higher, and nobody cares about it.”
- cover 70–80% of people with good lasts
- “Not everyone needs a bespoke shoe.”
- made to measure between
-
insoles
- “burning in”: sweat burns in
- leather important, not cardboard like in industry
- thin steel shank
- punches holes with a punch for mounting the shank with rivets
- staples the insole to the last
- used to use nails
- he doesn’t spit tacks, uses pneumatic staple gun
-
lasting
- solvent-activated heel counter
-
drafting
- from toe
- using small lasting pliers, maybe Schein 200
- then back point
- then balls
- checks alignment
- 23:54 points out a small mistake with lateral alignment, pulls the staple on one side and adjusts
- 24:27 “You can try to do it perfectly 90, 99 percent of the time, but perfect craftsmanship is not possible. It’s hands, not machines, doing this.”
- laces up using a pattern that holds tension
- coats insole with glue
- process
- shank and heel seat lasted, upper and lining together
- forepart lasted separately, lining then upper
- keeps lasting with the pneumatic stapler
- hammers after stapling
- removes staples through insole into last
- has had customer get bloody toes
- [very clearly Schein pliers now]
-
toe lasting
- lasting the lining separately because need to insert toe puff
- don’t need clamps with stretchy material
- thermoplastic toe puff at 130 degrees in oven
- sands bottom of puff flat on line finisher
- sands puff to shape above featherline, too
- lasts upper with pneumatic staple gun
- removes all the staples, roughs the bottom of the upper below the featherline
-
bottom filling
- sheet cork
- meanwhile, prepares bonwelt
- uses a short section of bonwelt to mark where the edge will lay on the upper with a silver pen
- roughs to line with a rotary rool
- hammers oversize sheet of cork to bottom with contact cement, then tears away excess by bending
- cements the bonwelt on
- sands the cork flat
- leather midsole
- “same quality as the outsole”
- hydraulic sole press
- trims the midsole to the bonwelt by hand
-
wood pegs the midsole
- marks distance from edge of midsole with compass
- pre-pierces holes
- not too deep or nail the sole to the last
- working in lap, no pin or anvil
- good sole, so pegs don’t go in easily
- tip of peg into last
- voiceover: pegs swell with moisture like shoe
- has enough wood pegs to last until he’s 100
- worried they won’t be available in future
- aside about Pirmasens history
- many makers left
- retirement age or just can’t survive
- knows a handful
- small community
- help each other
- have all kinds of specialists
- sands midsole flat on line finisher
- checks stance balance, great camera angle
- outsole
- heel building: foam rubber top lift for damping
- Brockfieper brand sole press again
- trims by hand again
- pit tanned oak outsole leather
- dense, not fibrous edge
- good that hard to cut
-
heeling
- marks the heel breast line on the outsole
- cuts a flap behind the breast line, then sands the rest
- more stance balance checking
- no air gap at back
- glues on, back to sole press for 20 minutes
- later clamps, but not shown
- smooths edges on line finisher
- too much pressure can make burn marks
-
Delasting on a bolt mounted on a machine
- shows imprints from points of pegs
- shows points of pegs on the inside of the boot
- floats with a long, thin rasp
- feels with fingers
-
sock liner
- latex small heel pad that extends into arch
- leather top same as upper leather, just split and perforated
- foot climate
- glues in back first, no glue on the whole thing
- then folds back and applies glue to front, rolls forward
- try on
- uses a shoe horn
- advice: always open the shoe well and never force it on
- recommends squeezing with laces, for support
- “I’m not reinventing the shoe. But for me things “Made in Germany” are still the absolute.”