Day five saw all our students furiously welting their shoes - and very successful they were too.
Welting round the toe is probably the hardest bit.
After welting, they trimmed the excess upper leather and beat the welt. This compresses it and makes it straight, at 90 degrees to the upper.
Day six started with leather shanks being cut out and skived.
A good trick is to use some chalk to mark the area, press it onto the shank leather and cut it out from there - works every time.
We skive them initially as in the picture above, then we glue them in with contact cement. Once in place, they continued to shape them to make a nice, gentle curve in the waist.
In the fore part we filled it with cork sheeting which we shaped with a rasp.
Once the shanks were in and the fore parts filled, they prepared their soles. These had been soaked and mellowed ready for action.
They were trimmed and glued.
They also made threads in preparation for stitching the soles on Monday.
Sunday will be a well earned day of rest. I suggested they have an early night and don't set the alarm, but I'm not sure all of them will listen to teacher in this instance!
More on Tuesday, with a report on days seven and eight.
Half way through already!
