A Manual of Mending and Repairing; With Diagrams

by Charles Godfrey Leland

By combining glue (and many other adhesives) directly with the tannin or gall nut astringent we obtain a waterproof cement of great strength, which is very useful for shoes. It is, in fact, not at all a difficult matter, where other appliances are wanting, to make from leather, without sewing, a soled shoe when tannin and glue are obtainable. The same can be done with canvas.

During the great wars in America thousands of soldiers often went barefoot in winter-time, with abundance of horses or cattle killed all round them, because they did not know that a strong moccasin can be made by cutting out a piece of raw hide, piercing holes in it, and drawing it up like a bag round the ankles, as is so commonly done here in the mountain districts in Italy. I once astonished a soldier in the war by suggesting this, and he declared he must try it. It is remarkable how rarely man in an uneducated state ever invents anything, be it a myth, a tale, or a practical invention.

If the upper leather of a slipper or shoe be cut out, it can, if wet, be easily made to assume the form of a foot by drying it on a last, or even on another shoe. Let the seam of the back jut or flap over the edge, and allow full selvage for the rest to turn under the sole. The latter may be of sole leather. If there is none, glue two or three pieces of the leather together with the tannin cement, and roll them over strongly. Then glue the back and the under-lap with great care. With a little practice a fairly good shoe can be thus made. Canvas can be used in the same way. To dwellers in the wilderness this may be valuable information. But very pretty ornamental slippers can be made by young ladies out of scraps of gaily coloured leather. They can buy a pair of soles, and get the leather at a leather-dealer’s. This is all simply substituting glueing for sewing, and strong tannin-glue holds quite as strongly as a great deal of the sewing of cheap, machine-made shoes. It would, indeed, not be a very difficult or expensive thing to shoe or clothe all mankind comfortably, were it not for the fashions followed by the wealthy.

These very cheap shoes, made with either wooden or leather soles, and that so easily that a child can learn to manufacture them in an hour, can be easily ornamented so as to be really attractive. Take the leather, moisten it with a sponge, and then with a tracer, which is like the end of a screw-driver—i.e.—

draw a pattern in the damp, soft leather. When it dries the pattern will remain. Then with a point or stamp, dot or roughen the ground. Finally, when dry, paint the pattern black, and then varnish it. Anybody with the least knowledge of drawing can make and sell such ornamented shoes for a good profit, as they are as yet hardly known to anybody. Other colours may be substituted for black, or gilding applied.

I have in another place shown (vide Papier-Mâché) how good artificial leather can be made by combining paper—best in pulp—with indiarubber and benzole fluid solution. Also how soles can be made by steeping pasteboard in the same, and how these, which are very easily and cheaply made, can be glued on to the leather so as to protect the latter from wearing out, for ever, if renewed. A bottle of this cement, combined with Diamond or Turkish Cement, will in like manner repair boots when the sole begins to split or part; and if applied when it begins to gape, it will be closed for a long time. This is such a practical, cheap, and easy method of making boots and shoes last, that my wonder is that every man who goes shod, and especially every traveller, has not a bottle of it by him. Observe that the two edges should be well pinched or screwed together (a six-penny vice will answer for this), and the leather first heated, though all this is not a sine quâ non, but only an improvement.

Leather thus attached by a very strong cement is quite as durable and much pleasanter to wear than “copper toes” or iron heels, which assimilate their wearers to horses. And it takes no longer to make and attach a heel or a sole in this manner than to black a pair of boots, as I have myself verified within a few hours.

Where seams rip out, the best repairing is by sewing as shoemakers do, which is not hard to learn, and I advise all young people to learn it. But where sewing cannot be resorted to, the cement, well applied and compressed till dry, will hold almost any break for a long time.

I urge ladies of all classes and conditions to carefully consider this chapter. They are more accustomed to repairing than men, and will take to it more intelligently. As their chaussures are made of thinner leather than ours, they need repair oftener, but are, on the other hand, so much the easier to repair. Every mother of a family will at least profit by studying this book.