u/Accomplished-Cow-607

Went to ACE hardware Friday for their 4th of July sale for their $7.99 a bag / limit 5 per customer and bought 5 bags of their new made in the USA " Flag Bag" and they threw in a free bag of the old Mexico made stuff for free. I did the same today ( Sunday) bought 5 new flag bags, got the Mexico bag free.

They have the old ( Mexico) bags knocked down to 1/2 price, but still can't sell them, so they are giving a bag away if you buy 4 or more bags of the new stuff.

I thought the old stuff was like gold to everyone? From the way it sounds on the internet, it's like people are tearing each other apart to get their hands on it?

Apparently, not so much around here. They had about 30 faded bags of the old on Friday and today they have about 18 left. Yet they had a full pallet of the new on Friday and today about 1/4 of that is left.

Bought new in 2016. Used in road maintenance until 2018. Sole seperated from midsole and footbed seperated from gemming from spraying them with diesel fuel when working with asphalt.

Had a stroke in 2020 and boots sat in closet, in pieces, for the next 5 years.

My father had a shoe repair shop in the 1980's, so I decided to see if I could repair them from what I remembered and what equipment I had available to me.

I first I chucked them into the washing machine and gave them 3 wash cycles to get all the diesel fuel and tar out of the leather and the footbeds. Then once dry, I cemented the footbeds back into the boots and then recorked them.

Then I purchased leather midsoles and cemented them onto the cork and welt.

Then having no way to sew them, I sent them to Red Wing explained what I was doing, and asked them to sew them and charge me appropriately. A few weeks later the boots showed back up at my house with the midsoles sewn to the welt at absoutly no charge. Many thanks to Red Wing!

Then the boots sat forgotten for another year until a week ago when I ordered Vibram christy soles from Montana leather. Once I got them, I cemented them to the midsole and then after a 3 day cure, I ground the soles down with a bench mounted belt sander from Harbor Freight, threw in some new leather laces and this is the end result.