r/goodyearwelt

I know Thursdays don't have the best reputation here. However, I got these waxed roughout(!) for $140 USD delivered from Amazon AU. The delivery was delayed by a few days so I complained to customer service and they recommended me to cancel and reorder with a $20 gift card... Why not...

They were heavily discounted here, not sure why, but I was needing a new boot so I thought I'd give them a shot. It's my first Goodyear welted boot. For that price, I wanted to experiment with them.

I didn't like the original colour, shown in the last photo, and it didn't fit well with the rest of my wardrobe. They looked a little "flat".

I do a bit of hobby leathercraft so I wanted to dye these to a darker shade. Feeling the leather in person, it wasn't heavily waxed or oily, so I think it had a very light factory finish with a gum resin, commonly used for edge burnishing, to flatten the fibres and give it light sheen. Due to this I decided not to strip it of the wax, after patch testing some dye in the hidden part of the tongue I decided to go straight into it.

I used fiebing's pro dye in Walnut, heavily diluted with 100% IPA for a lighter, even shade. Applied with a wool dauber in 2-3 passes for each area. Then using a fine tip paint brush for the tricky areas like near the welt and around the eyelets.

After drying, I conditioned with a wax-based oily conditioner (Artisan's son leather conditioner), gave them a brush and the colour just popped.

I used some scraps of natural veg tan kangaroo leather (I live in Australia) to make some kilties and pull tabs as an experiment. Kangaroo leather is very thin, about 1-1.5mm so it doesn't have much padding at all, but very good abrasion resistance. I may double it up later.

I traced a rough outline of the tongue on paper, then transferred to the leather. I did it the same width as the tongue but I next time think making it slightly narrower would be better to avoid too much creasing when lacing it up.

The kangaroo leather was also dyed with the same colour, although it turned out a bit darker probably because it didn't have any finish applied, then I conditioned it with the same thing.

The pull tabs are folded over for strength and riveted in with solid copper rivets. They don't protrude on the inside so no difference in comfort and no snagging on socks.

As far as the actual boots, the construction is nice, leather selection is okay, the quarters and heel have a bit more fuzz and looser grain than the front. Not too fussed as they are made to be scuffed up and patina nicely, hopefully.

Stitching is mostly consistent, with a curve on the inner heel straying very close to the edge of the leather, I'm hoping that does not tear out after significant wear. The right boot welt stitching is also a bit too close to the edge near the toe but structurally fine.

I have an Ian Harold Murray boot which has a leather insole and cork nitrile rubber outsole, and these Thursdays feel much harder at the heel despite having poron foam in them, the outsole seems to be very tough on first wear. My next project will be to make some insoles with veg tan and natural latex foam to ease the break in.

Overall very happy for the price. Will give an update after a few months.

New boot week, more to come. Received ½ of my whites’ order from the Baker’s Father’s Day sale (3.5 months from order to doorstep). New member but longtime goodyear welt enthusiast.

Specs:

• Standard Semi Dress 55 last in Seidel double shot BT
• Single celastic toe
• Cream lined uppers
• 269 Vibram sole.

Impressions:

Seidel BT is chrome tanned unlike my veg tanned dress brown pair. Initial break in of 45 minutes has them ready to taken to the street, this is much shorter than the brown dress. This BT has a red undertone that I know will fade but is lovely. Leather is supple and pliable. Whites QC is hit or miss. Stitching and hide imperfections are acceptable, a bummer on the uppers where the needle appears to have impacted the leather prior to stitching, resulting in a few mm deep channels above 10 stitches. Not sure its formal complaint worthy but likely will be a failure point in 7-10 years. Also you can note the machining marks around the upper stitching, seems to have been an off day.

Sole:

Vibram 269 is my go-to on these boots. The part of the sole above the heel stack is about half as thick as the toe, resulting in a smaller visual “spacer” on the heel stack but offering enough grip for everyday wear. The 269 on my dress brown pair lasted 5 years of all condition wear and was only replaced because that pair suffered the famous squeak from the leather shank. Hoping for a similar outcome here minus the insufferable squeak.

Comparison shots:

Photos are alongside my 8 year old SD in brown dress which are simply perfect and the gateway boot to a lifelong white’s buyer. These veg tanned seidel masterpieces have seen it all: thousands of miles, rain, snow, even disrespect. When freshly conditioned, you’d think they were freshly broken in. I would buy brown dress boots again in a heartbeat, but I simply do not expect to ever need to do so.

Pricing

A lot has happened since 2018; pricing of these boots has followed suit with no surprise. This BT pair came in at $830. Even on the 20% Father’s Day sale, this was 60% more expensive than the brown dress pair without a sale. Part of that is due to double shot leathers being partly excluded from the overall sale. I still believe there is tremendous value in a US handcrafted boot that requires a new sole every 5 years.