Word: leatherizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Felix tears the soles off shoes, pastes barge glue onto leather, hammers the new sole on and pares away the excess. His head angles forward after a lifetime of looking downward. Without interrupting the rhythm of his work he says, "So what questions do you have?" I ask him to talk about his work...
...answers the telephone and keeps on paintingthe soles with glue. A minute talking is a minutelost. Within reach are the tools of his trade:knives, pliers, punch, awl, pincers, hammers.There are a score of old shoe-boxes filled withvarious grades and thicknesses of leather andrubber. There is a box of scraps used to fill upthe hollow chambers is the heel of a woman's shoe...
...leather shoe has four main parts: the upper,the lining inside the upper, the insole directlyunderneath the foot and the outsole which scrapesthe pavement. Until the middle of the 19thcentury, all shoes were made by hand. Massproduction had to wait for the rival of a machinethat could sew the upper to the sole. Gordon McKayarrived in 1860 with the McKay sole-sewingmachine, an improved version of the one LymanBlake patented...
More often, Felix is only asked to rebuild aheel or repair a sole. Customers often bring in anew pair of shoes so he can attach a rubber bottommade by Pirelli, the Italian tire company. Thisrubber bottom protects the leather sole from wear.Most jobs cost 10 or 20 dollars, but he works onshoes that cost $200 or $300, or more. Shoes asdressy as a Brooks Brothers suit but ascomfortable as a well-worn flight jacket. "My timeis your time. I'm gonna be taking the time toexplain to the customer what it is that I'm doing.That...
...Became an Admiral"; William Carey, "TheShoemaker who Translated the Bible into Bengaliand Hindostani"; Samuel Drew, "The MetaphysicalShoemaker." John Greenleaf Whittier began as ashoemaker's apprentice and honored the occupationwith his ode, "To Shoemakers," not one of his moredistinguished works. ("Ho! workers of the oldtime, styled/The Gentle Craft of Leather!/ Youngbrothers of the ancient guild,/ Stand forth oncemore together...