One of the seams between the uppers and the soles of my latchet-fastened turnshoes is starting to fail. These photos are not the best but I can try others after sunrise if anyone wants to see something specific.
(The black bit in the upper right is the latchet)
What can I do to repair the damage before the whole seam fails? And where can I buy heavyweight linen or hemp thread? I used to have a source for waxed bookbinder's thread.
This is what I always use: https://www.michaels.com/white-waxed-li ... 68123.html
It also comes in black, brown, and dark red (maybe more?), but natural is best for any historical stuff. Though by the 18th century cordwainers and cobblers were using pitched-base wax to coat the thread, which made it black. Dunno when that started, though. You should be able to find this at leather suppliers, too, the rolls always look like this. Anything on a plastic spool is probably synthetic!
Michaels will also have a good selection of hemp cord, 10# and 20#, various colors, though I find it has more lumps in it so it's a little tricky for leatherwork.
Sound like some great sources for thread, any suggestions on how to get in and make the repair? I think that seam was made while the shoes were on the lasts and even if I wanted to take the shoes apart and turn them inside out, I do not have my own lasts to place them back on.
I actually never used lasts when making medieval shoes. So probably their shape was a bit off, but no one ever complained about the fit or function. So if you can turn it inside out, maybe after some soaking in water, easy enough to fix because the seam will be exposed. Blown seams like that never seem to happen at the back, where you can reach them easily, always just a little too far forward!
If you want to make and mix your own shoemakers wax and run your linen or hemp thread through it, go nuts. If you'd like to streamline that a bit, try here: http://www.royalwoodltd.com/cat14-17ar.htm. No last necessary, turn, stitch, turn. If turning either direction is difficult, soak first. Wear them wet in place of a last, old trick for forming and fitting boots.
Thanks for the link to them! I ordered some of their thread for scale armour a long time ago and I will try ordering again.
Edit: and oh crikey! They want USD 59.55 to ship one spool to Canada with US Postal Service Priority Mail International. No thanks!
I. Marc Carlson's site is down (Internet Archive), but I am looking at the section on shoemaking in the Museum of London Shoes and Pattens book. I think he has a section on what was in "cordwainer's code".
I am looking for my curved needles for doing that stitch without trying to turn the shoe back inside out.
If you want the deepest dive into "cordwainer's code" out there you should look at this massive endless thread on the traditional shoemakers' forum The Crispin Colloquy: http://www.thehcc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1028
That site is the best repository of hand shoemaking information but it's bigger than the Armour Archive and almost as sleepy these days, and it's a lot to wade through. Al Muckart, who was (still is?) involved with making medieval shoes in the SCA in New Zealand, is part of the code/handwax discussion and used to have a good summary of his experiments on his personal blog, but he seems to have taken it down, a regrettable loss.
Some waxed linen thread and blunt-tipped steel needles arrived from Lee Valley. I cut a length, put a blunt needle on each end, and did my best attempt at the stitch from Grew and de Neergard's Shoes and Pattens p. 46. dru picked good materials and did good work, the holes in the leather were easy to find after a few years of use and fragments of the old linen thread were still in the holes. I had to pull them out with tweezers.
It would probably go easier in bright daylight or with a focused light shining into the shoe.
I'm not sure of the best way to tidy up the ends of the repair thread. But despite the pandemic, I finished this repair! Now to finish some other projects.
