Arrival of the Tools
After a lenghty period at the mercy of European customs agents, my small set of shoemaking tools have arrived from the most obvious source; a random German engineer who refurbishes and recreates vintage shoemaking tools in his free time. Included with the purchase is a dropbox file of dozens of pdf scans of antique shoemaking books that range from purely instructional to essentially Kabbalistic. More on that another time.
Received in this package is as follows:
- Knife for "clicking", or cutting leather
- Special pliers for lasting the shoe
- Various awls for creating stitching and pegging holes
- Wooden nails for affixing the heel block
- Lasting tack puller
- Bone folder for smoothing stitches and edges
- Special hammer for shaping and smoothing leather and setting stitches
- Boar bristles to make waxed ends for hand sewing
If you can believe it this is still only a fraction of what I will eventually need. But for now it is more than sufficient. Now I must work on making a master pattern, or "forme", from the last I bought from the same source.