Designing & Grading a New Boot

We learned to work alongside a senior bootmaker using slide rules, Vernier calipers, pantograph machines and scale rulers… and the methods were taken from old text books… my favourite book which I still find useful was written in 1917… on the outside cover it claims to have been written by ‘Practical Men of Wide Experience’ … and the calculations and instructions contained in these old books are as true now as they were all those years ago.

I usually begin by making a pen and ink drawing of the idea I have for the boot… I try to draw it as near to ‘scale’ as possible. Then I use the forms taken from the last to construct a ‘pattern standard’ and from the standard I make the section patterns.

The card section patterns are used to cut the leather or fabric pieces for the boot upper. Sample revisions are made and revised uppers are cut many times. This process is repeated until the bootmaker is happy with the sample size of new boot.

At the end of the design process we have one size of boot. Now it is necessary to convert the sample size into all sizes. This process is called grading.

At Altberg I still grade in the way I was shown by William Shepherd and his son John of the old Richmond shoe factory. From the centre of the pattern, radial lines are drawn to all key points. A grading number is calculated, this number is used to set the Vernier dividers. The sizes are then marked along each radial line.

The graded pattern sections are hand cut into card for all sizes… these are used to cut the upper for the trial. If all goes well with the trial then steel cutting knives are made and production can begin. It usually takes me between 3-6 months or even longer … from new design to production. Nowadays with the new technology, computer aided design and laser cutters… the process can be less than three days! But I still continue to work in the old way … and ‘rightly or wrongly’ I remain connected to an era that has now almost disappeared.