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Half leather soles


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As I'm trying to improve daily on my repairs I'm curious to how people do the "graft" on half leathers? I looked at the how to pictures Lee put up and found it very helpful and I also came across the shoes he done for a competition and they looked flawless! Are people's everyday repairs to this standard? I've tried experimenting and cutting the waist line with a knife and skiving it then doing the rest on the machine. Any help will be much appreciated 😁

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You need to make sure that the 'graft'  is as thin and long as you can get it, at the point where it meets the waist - My grafts were about two inches long as short grafts tend not to be as flexible and are susceptible to 'popping' when the foot bends.

 

We don't do half leather soles anymore but when we did I used to scour mine thin on 24 grit. I reckon the angle was less than 2 degrees. I had to do it in stages as, sometimes, the leather would get too hot and caramelise. I also used something solid behind where I was grafting to support the leather as it got thinner.

 

When it comes to the actual waist, I never, ever, cut into the leather with the scouring band as you risk causing a split.I basically just scoured it enough to open the fibres for the adhesive to stick correctly. You have to ensure that the angle at the waist complements the angle on the graft so that the leather is the same thickness all round the edge of the sole when finished.

 

I also use tek10 primer as a leather sealer on the shoe and the new sole before I applied the adhesive. (The same way a carpenter uses sanding sealer).

 

We don't do half leather soles anymore for the reason that you can see in the picture below. The waist on the shoe was pitted and rough as hell when we attached the half sole and even though I thoroughly sanded it with wet and dry and filled it as best as I could, it still didn't look good enough for what I would deem an acceptable repair for the money. We now take the sole all the way down to the breast of the shoe, (we scribe it with a pencil and a standard metal washer to match the curve at the breast), and as you can see in the second picture, the result is flawless.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Rick.shoe.jpgshoe full.jpg sole.png

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Thanks a lot Rick for taking the time to reply to this. That was very helpful. Great work on them repairs I would have been over the moon with both of them! I've found that I've had the problem with the leather going a bit caramelised before so what you explained has opened my eyes a lot to different ways of preparing the shoe and sole 👍

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Thanks a lot Rick for taking the time to reply to this. That was very helpful. Great work on them repairs I would have been over the moon with both of them! I've found that I've had the problem with the leather going a bit caramelised before so what you explained has opened my eyes a lot to different ways of preparing the shoe and sole

 

No probs, mate - that's what the forum is intended for :)

 

Count's right: get better bands. It's not always low quality leather that caramelises - the top end stuff will, too, if you scour too quick or hard.

 

I gauge the quality of leather like I would have gauged a piece of wood when I was a carpenter: lots of fibrous bits and loose grain = crap; no fibres and really tight grain = good stuff.

 

Rick.

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You need to make sure that the 'graft'  is as thin and long as you can get it, at the point where it meets the waist - My grafts were about two inches long as short grafts tend not to be as flexible and are susceptible to 'popping' when the foot bends.

 

We don't do half leather soles anymore but when we did I used to scour mine thin on 24 grit. I reckon the angle was less than 2 degrees. I had to do it in stages as, sometimes, the leather would get too hot and caramelise. I also used something solid behind where I was grafting to support the leather as it got thinner.

 

When it comes to the actual waist, I never, ever, cut into the leather with the scouring band as you risk causing a split.I basically just scoured it enough to open the fibres for the adhesive to stick correctly. You have to ensure that the angle at the waist complements the angle on the graft so that the leather is the same thickness all round the edge of the sole when finished.

 

I also use tek10 primer as a leather sealer on the shoe and the new sole before I applied the adhesive. (The same way a carpenter uses sanding sealer).

 

We don't do half leather soles anymore for the reason that you can see in the picture below. The waist on the shoe was pitted and rough as hell when we attached the half sole and even though I thoroughly sanded it with wet and dry and filled it as best as I could, it still didn't look good enough for what I would deem an acceptable repair for the money. We now take the sole all the way down to the breast of the shoe, (we scribe it with a pencil and a standard metal washer to match the curve at the breast), and as you can see in the second picture, the result is flawless.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Rick.attachicon.gifshoe.jpgattachicon.gifshoe full.jpg attachicon.gifsole.png

 

"The result is flawless" I have never achieved that in my life.

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We don't do half leather soles anymore but when we did I used to scour mine thin on 24 grit. I reckon the angle was less than 2 degrees. I had to do it in stages as, sometimes, the leather would get too hot and caramelise. I also used something solid behind where I was grafting to support the leather as it got thinner.

 

 

 

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Rick.attachicon.gifshoe.jpgattachicon.gifshoe full.jpg attachicon.gifsole.png

When leather burns and caramalises, it's normally because the band is 'blunt', always use sharp bands when scouring leather.  If you have speed control on your finisher use the lower setting, it helps :-)

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