Boots I Wear Often

[scotrace]

These are seasonally available from LL Bean. I Like mine very much.
Same boot since the early 1920's, but today made by Chippewa.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=63889&item=5384390705&rd=1

 

[Nathan Flowers]

I have three pairs of these. They are my everyday knockaround boot.

 

[Mycroft]

Very Indy-like, very cool too.

 

[Biltmore Bob]

I recently bought a pair from The Sportsmans Guide. www.sportsmansguide.com. I used them for work for a couple weeks, but they are real heavy. I switched back to my Wolverines. I realized that I did not have a good pair of brown dress shoes, so I put a real nice spit shine on them (the Chippewas). It took almost a whole small can of Kiwi brown, but they look real good shined. They are nice and broken in too, 'cause I used them for work (training dogs and cleaning kennels etc...).

 

[Canadave]

I have three pairs of these. They are my everyday knockaround boot.

Hey man, you're back. How and where ya been?

David

Sorry for the hijack.

 

[scotrace]

It took almost a whole small can of Kiwi brown, but they look real good shined.

Yup. I like them shined. I used some heavy leather cream, and some of the old can of LL Bean Leather Dressing I have to break down the dullness they have when new. Took several months, but they're about perfect now. My wife also got a pair. We like how the toe kind of turns up. I think Granny Clampett wore them.

 

[BellyTank]

I like...

I like these ones, another Chippewa variant but more rustic looking- very WW2 Russet/roughout service shoe -esque. Very '30s style-
Leather sole too...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5384493229&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEWA:IT&rd=1

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[Blackgrass]

Hello,
This is my first post. I have been lurking for a while but just getting around to registering.

I have a question about the fit of the LL Bean Engineer type boot. I bought a pair of these back in college about ten years ago and they didn't fit very well and I sent them back and didn't get a replacement. Now I'm sort of kicking myself. Do these boots run true to size? Meaning if you normally wear a size 11 would the boots in a size 11 fit or do they tend to run either small or a bit on the large size?

Thanks!

 

[scotrace]

My Experience

Do these boots run true to size?

I normally wear a 10 & 1/2, and that's what my Engineer Boots are. I think the construction and design of these boots means a fair amount of break-in time. For both my wife and I, it took several wearings and plenty of leather goop before they were comfortable.

I actually had to send my first pair back because of a defect. All of the shoelace hooks above the eyelets were missing! The person I spoke with at LL Bean (always an excellent company to deal with, in my experience) thought I was pulling her leg.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

Those chippewa boots look very similar to mid-to-late war German rough-out low boots.

 

[BellyTank]

Yes, they are a little- it's a good look- very vintage -it's that narrow, sucked-in bit at the back above the heel- quite ergonomic too but doesn't suit some folks' shape. Those German low-boots are really nice- I like the mixture of smooth and rough leather they use on the uppers.

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[Vladimir Berkov]

They are very comfortable too. Jackboots look a lot better to me (and on me) but I usually wear them only when I anticipate a lot of mud or water, or I don't plan on needing to march a long distance.

Apparently the German soldiers during the latter half of the war didn't like the low boots, but I wish I knew why. If I had to pick one for comfort especially when marching, low boots win every time.

 

[BellyTank]

Teutonic Tradition- they had always worn high boots until the low-boots were issued, early '40s.

These ones are available in the UK and Europe- pretty nice copy-



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[scotrace]

For Foot Bludgeoning a Recalcitrant Underling

These ones are available in the UK and Europe- pretty nice copy-

Those are very neat. Am I looking at "hobnails" in that picture? Never knew what they were.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

Exactly, those are hobnails. Foolish rubes will tell you they are for crushing in the skulls of the enemy, but in reality they are simply added to prevent wear on the expensive-to-replace leather soles. It is a lot easier to replace a set of hobnails than a leather sole on a boot, especially in wartime when good leather is hard to come by.

 

[BellyTank]

Hobnails are for grip and traction, not so much for protecting the leather.
Like we have 'tread' on modern, rubber soles....
It's actually cheaper to replace a leather sole than a set of correct hobnails nowadays- in my experience.

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[Vladimir Berkov]

I guess I am going to have to disagree with you. In my experience, hobnails reduce traction most of the time. Perhaps on dirt or grass they help slightly, but most hobnails are rounded off and it is hard to tell exactly how much they help. They certainly don't help like cleats do, or like the very pronounced soles of gebirgsjager (mountain troops) boots do. On any sort of hard surface like asphalt, concrete or rock hobnails get so little traction as to sometimes be dangerous. You get better traction from bare leather when walking on such surfaces than you do with hobnails.

Rubber soles (like on Russian jackboots) get the best overall traction, but wear out relatively fast. Hobnails take a long time to actually get worn out, and they can be replaced numerous times without having to replace the actual sole. In fact, I have seen German reenactors whose low boots are pretty much falling apart all over with wear before the sole itself is worn out.

Leather soles are expensive in wartime, especially in a country like Germany with limited resources, the USA is another matter entirely. In fact, the only reason why lowboots exist is because of chronic shortages of good boot leather in Germany. By the end of the war, the Germans were using every opportunity to reduce the leather needed to make equipment, be that by simplifying the design, or even subsistuting canvas web gear for leather gear. Boots were no exception.

By the way, you will often see in many armies were enlisted men wear hobnails, the officers boots do not have them. I assume this is because officers could afford the more frequent resoling of their boots. I know this is true of several commonwealth/British armies as well as the German army.

 

[BellyTank]

Hobnails are no good on smooth, hard surfaces, they do actually reduce traction- but I'm guessing combat boots were made for combat situations not so much for a stroll in the park. You're right, they do protect the leather but why would someone add something to a soldier's combat boot which actually reduces traction? That makes no sense at all. Hobnails are good on rough ground.
A smooth leather sole is not good on rough ground-
Hobnails are an easier field-fix than a sole replacement.
Hobnails were being used in peace time and way before any leather shortage...

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[Vladimir Berkov]

That's true, but the use of hobnails was often a military tradition. They weren't introduced because of wartime emergencies, but as a general trend in the military towards making things last longer. Plus, they do help a bit on open ground as opposed to smooth leather soles I will admit.

Some armies didn't use hobnails, and used wooden pegs or nothing at all. Some used only heel irons and "toe taps" and didn't use a full set like the Germans did. They were also something many civilian shoes and boots had, usually in earlier periods however. By the time of WW2 most people lived in cities with paved streets so hobnails were old-fashioned.

 

[Biltmore Bob]

I had a pair of leather soled Fry brand boots in the 70's. I had them resoled once or twice and the last time I had the repair guy (can he be called a cobbler?) put a heel thingee on them. It looked like a horseshoe and he put it on the heel. He also put taps on the sole towards the toe. I wore them like that for about a week. Every time I walked on tile I would slip, sometimes falling on my back and rear end. I was in High School at the time, where image is everything, and I could no longer stand the embarassment. I pried the things off with a flathead screwdriver.

I have a nice shine on the Chippewas now, and I think that I may have them resoled in leather. I'm not going to use them for work anymore, just for dress or casual wear.