The Boot and Shoe Manufacturers' Assistant and Guide. / Containing a Brief History of the Trade. History of India-rubber and Gutta-percha, and Their Application to the Manufacture of Boots and Shoes. Full Instructions in the Art, With Diagrams and Scales, Etc., Etc. Vulcanization and Sulphurization, English and American Patents. With an Elaborate Treatise on Tanning.

by Unknown

Remarks.—The toes of the smallest sizes of children’s lasts should be made two sizes wider proportionately, than the largest size, i. e., one-sixth of an inch, as the small foot is wide and soft, requiring more room for its expansion. Thus the practical advantages to be derived, by cutting the patterns by the packed diagram principle, (No. 8,) are made clear, as the foot of a child grows faster in length than in width.

By the foregoing scale the length of the foot and other measurements in inches, and all shoes from the smallest child’s to men’s elevens, are obtained, and by following the same rule, smaller or larger sizes may be cut.

By having all lasts, diagrams, and patterns, made by the scale, and all proportions of fulness of lasts regularly graded, making the children’s much the fullest in width, owing to the greater degree of roundness of the foot, and wider in proportion, on account of rapid growth. In preparing patterns for children, due allowance must be made for the increasing fulness of the ankle. The same caution is applicable to misses, but not to so great a degree.

No. 6 is the side view of a gaiter boot upper, with last and block, giving the “pitch” line, concerning which there is quite a diversity of opinion, also the heel line, instep, waist and toes.

Fig. 8.—See page [95].

Fig. 6.—See page [95].

By measuring the instep of a foot with callippers, one half of the distance gives the centre. Then take the thickness of the large toe in the same manner and half the thickness gives the centre; then draw a line from that to the instep centre—carry the line a short distance beyond, to where the callippers strike the bottom of the foot just in front of the heel, and the end of the last, (as seen by a dotted line in the centre) whatever “pitch” you may give the toes. The “pitch” is governed by the height of the heel as seen in No. 3. Boot cutters make it a convenient practice to draw from that centre, a perpendicular line in order to give the centre of the boot leg at the top, and all is governed by the height of the heel.

By a little attention to the front line (No. 7,) will be seen, the true shape of a boot form or crimp, and the back line, the boot properly treed; the centre line, the seam. By passing the eye up the instep measure line, at the top is seen the curve that the fulness represents. That curve, or line, from the toes to the ankle line is carried in, or out, as the heel measure may determine. By having a pattern of that curved line, from the toes to the ankle line, all the variety of fulness is obtained, as is readily seen.