 This is part 4 of my series What Next After Entry Level Boots. In this video I'm going to look at the mid-range level of work boots and in particular those that look like Pacific Northwest work boots. So after trying out your Thursday hero or Thursday logger or your Iron Rangers as a chunky star work boot, you've decided to look further. But for now, you might balk at shelling out $600 USD or more. Here are a few to look at in the next level. G'day, my name is Tech and welcome to my channel boot, Lossophy. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands I work on, the Wajik people. As I said, this is part 4 of my series What Next After Entry Level Boots and in part 4 I'm taking a look at the mid-range of boots that might look like the chunky American Heritage Pacific Northwest work boots. I think I need to say up front that there is no substitution to the quality and durability of the PNW brands like Whites, Knicks, JK and others. They have fulfilled the needs of blue collar workers in America with their very harsh needs woodland fighters and loggers since the turn of the century in some cases. However, those incredibly well-boot boots sell for US $600 USD and above and after you enter into the boot world with a $200 or $300 USD boot, it's a hell of a step for a second pair of boots. So before you make that decision for your third pair of boots, you might want to try out the look, if not the heritage of those chunky work boots. But first, if you're new to heritage-style quality stitched boots, even though you may have heard of the boots centered on the US Pacific Northwest coast, you may not be so sure why they are so esteemed. The PNW story almost certainly starts with Whites boots, founded in 1853, but settled in Spokane and Washington State since the 1910s. The geography and industry of the Pacific Northwest sort of dictates the type of tough boots they made. Loggers for the men who worked in the logging industry as loggers and packers, industries that opened up the American West in the early 20th century from linemen to railroad workers and construction crews. And where there are forests, there are fires, so bush firefighters. Over time, as workers centered in the boot-making industry or were attracted there by those who came before, other brands emerged from Dana to Nix to JK, Druze, Franks, Wesco and so on. Actually, Wesco is an old one. Today, some have fallen by the wayside. Others struggle to find the talent and experience and to refresh their older generation of workers with new workers while competing with better wages in other industries. Yet, at least since the late 2000s and despite the extremely large hiccup of the pandemic, the PNW boot scene is alive and well. What attracts boot collectors and blue collar workers and fancy boot nerds from all over the world to those brands is the history and the enduring quality build. Hand stitching, hand-welting, quality materials, layer-on-layer of thick leathers in the soles and the arches, fire-proof outsoles if you need them and certainly protective leathers. And the look. If you like the hard and tough-looking work-boot aesthetic, nothing beats a Pacific Northwest work-boot or even some of the casual lines like White's MP boots or Nix Falcon and Americana models. I said when I reviewed the Nix collaboration with Parkhurst that when you put it on, it just feels important that it is something of import. It's not just the way they're built. I won't deny that it's also because of the way they look. So what makes a work-boot look like a PNW boot? If you take a look at any of their websites, you'll see a lot of different models, from the downright aggressive logging and firefighting boots to their mock-toe work-boots to their casual models that are made like work-boots. However, despite the different models, they tend to look heavier, which means a rounder toe box, a heavy heel, not necessarily a high logger-style heel all the time, but just a sure-footed heavy heel and the overall character chunkier shape of the lasts. So understanding that you won't be able to put them through the punishment as real PNW boots, but still giving you the value in a lower price, what can you try as a second boot going into that aesthetic? Here are two I'd like to put forward as might fit the bill. The first is a mock-toe boot from a real PNW brand. This is White's Fulton Boot. The second is another mock-toe boot, the Brass Boot from Grant Stone. Let's take a look at the Grant Stone first. For those of you who don't know, Grant Stone only started in 2016, but have gone from strength to strength and grown since then as a direct-to-consumer company selling only through their website. This and the fact that their boots are made in China with lower cost-of-living costs there make their boots in the mid-300 US dollars, but I think worth a good hundred or so more due to the quality of construction. It needs to be said that we do see Made in China as being second-rate, never mind the politics, but the iPhone has proved as wrong as does Grant Stone. I am not the only boot reviewer who rates Grant Stone's production quality as well and above many Australian-American and British brands at that price level or even more. Their Brass Boot was their first mock-toe boot and available in a variety of different leathers and two different outsoles. Some are on their proprietary white wedge sole, while these are on their own proprietary Commando lugged sole. I chose this Brass Boot in Earth for this contender. Earth is a waxy commander, a wax suede from famous English tannery, Charles F. Stead. The darker, rough-out-looking leather and heavy lugged sole rivals the aesthetic of a P&W boot. The fact that the mock-toe stitch on the vamp is more in-board makes the toe-box profile rounder and chunkier than a regular mock-toe. This makes the profile of the Brass Boot similar to the look of some of the P&W work boots and accentuated by the heavy lugged sole. You can see my full review up there. The Brass Boot, like all of Grant Stone's boots, is put together using the Goodyear Welts Construction method. This is that expected step-up into quality footwear from cement construction, the cheaper boots that you may have been used to. Goodyear Welting is where a thin strip of leather called the Welt is sewn to the insole and the turned-in uppers on the inside, and then on the outside the Welt is stitched to the midsole and the outsole. This is said to be very water-resistant because no stitch holes go directly through the outside of the boot into the inside. This construction model also means that when the outsole is worn down, you can get a cobbler to re-sole it for you because they can cut the outside stitches, peel off the worn outsole and then glue and stitch a new outsole on and then stitch it on without even touching the Welt or the uppers. The sole construction of the Brass Boot uses American Bovine Benz Leather, Vagitan for Sturdiness as insole, midsole and Welt, as well as the insertion of a natural cork filler in between, and it has a steel shank for arch support and stability. While probably not really a work boot, it is built sturdily enough to be used for light manual work and is certainly sturdy and protective enough for working around the house or going on trails and walks and hikes. This model, using Charles F. Stead's Waxy Commander, offers a protective, outdoorsy leather that withstands scuffs and scratches and patinas really well. The next boot you might want to look at is one of the lower price range models from the P&W brand, Whites. Whites boots make the famous MP service boot my grail, and those, as well as their premium work boots, use a hand lasted rolled Welt construction method where a form of stitch down is crossed with a Welt to make an extremely water resistant and durable boot. However, the hand lasting and hand stitching is costly, and so their hand lasted boots sell for $600 to $700 or more. In filling in the lower price range, Whites have started making good year welded boots that can be made faster. Their first entry was a mock-toe boot called the Perry, and today they have several models in that price range. This one is a taller boot called the Fulton. You can see my review here. Before I go into the Fulton, I might just tell you that in this particular boot, the mock-toe stitch popped open just in the corner of my left boot, only days after I got them. It is important to tell you that, but also for you to realise that with most handmade products, no factory computerised lines here, these things do happen. If I had complained, I suspect Whites may have provided a refund or a small enough credit to make the price of these equal to seconds, but my attitude is, unless there's a massive problem, these things happen. You have to live with it. OK, so let's look at the Fulton. It is good year welded, as I've said, so made the same way as the brass boot, so all the advantages of water resistance and the ability to be recrafted. One difference in the construction is the actual mock-toe stitch. In the brass boot, it's a pretend or mock-toe. The stitch gathers and puckers up the leather on the vamp to create the U-shaped stitch. Here on the Fulton, there actually are two pieces making up the vamp. You have the sidewalls and the top piece, and the mock-toe apron stitch, stitches those two pieces together. This does make it more flexible, but there is the potential of water getting through and as mine has proved, it could be a weak point if the stitching isn't good enough. The uppers are a distressed leather which, looking at it, is I think an oiled newbuck. Newbuck starts off as full grain leather, that is the top piece of a hide with the toughest grain or skin side on top, but is then lightly sanded to remove the shininess of smooth grain leather. This makes it more capable of taking scratches because of the fibre structure once the top has been sanded or otherwise called corrected. The most famous example of newbuck you might recognise is the Timberland yellow boot, and if you know that, you know how velvety but protective that can actually be. In this case, the leather is also pumped full of oils and waxes in the tanning, very similar to Crazy Horse, which further waterproofs and protects the leather. Under your feet, Whites have put on this, on a Vibram, that's a very famous Italian outsole manufacturer, on a Vibram honey lug sole which combines the best of the worlds of grip and comfort, being deep lugs but with a softer compound. What you do give up is a little durability because the soft rubber will probably wear a little faster than hard rubber commander soles. Whites will usually construct their insoles with layers of thick leather in the arches building up the arch support. In the Fulton, they do have a steel shank but not so much those layers of leather building up the arch and so you do swap some of the price for some of that famous arch support. Overall, this is a solid boot from Whites and comfortable but be aware that you're buying it for the mid 300s and not the full build hand stitched, hand rolled, hand sold $700 tank. I'd like to show you a couple more alternatives. Now I've put them into a second category, not because of the price but they're still in that mid 300 US dollar range but I put them into a second category because they are made to order meaning you'll have to wait while they make your boots. So this is the Bordon Tucano boot and this is the Fortis Dacar service boot. Let's take the Tucano. This is made by Bordon Colombia. All the links will be in the description box below by the way, just go look for them there. Bordon is a Colombian brand in South America, new to the quality boot world but they have made a splash with their stitched down construction boots. This Tucano is in an Italian wax suede similar to the brass boots Waxy Commander. It is a stitched down boot meaning that the uppers instead of being turned in and then sewn to the insole and welt are actually turned out and sewn directly to the midsole and the outsole. This is said to be even more water resistant than Goodyear welting because the flared out uppers kind of turn or wick the water away but it is marginally more difficult to re-sole because your cobbler is going to have to be very careful about how they remove the stitches and how they have to re-stitch into the original holes otherwise it will end up being a colander. Here the Colombian vegetarian midsole is a Vibram hard compound commando sole and above it is a cork filler for comfort and then above that is a leather sock liner that is also lightly padded for comfort. This is a chunky looking boot that can easily be used as a P&W style work boot and I've taken it everywhere. Bordon do two or three group MTO sessions in a year and so you may have to wait for your boots not only for those MTO sessions to open for them to be made but go take a look at the website from the link below so that you can have a look. This next one is the Dakar service boot from Indonesian boot maker Fortis Boots. Bandung in Indonesia just south of the capital Jakarta is another world centre for quality boot making. The Indonesian craftsmen learned their trade from generations of exposure to quality boot making from their Dutch colonialists up to the turn of the 20th century and then since independence has continued to regenerate their expertise. You can order some remarkably excellent quality boots from Bandung boot makers in which you can specify lasts, uppers, outsoles even the construction. Using locally tanned leather you can get an amazing boot for US 350 and for Italian or US uppers leathers maybe an extra hundred or so. This really is the centre of an almost bespoke made to order handmade hand stitched boot industry. The disadvantage is that they are small boot makers working out of small workshops. This means that communication is difficult, their English isn't great and almost certainly communication is through social media like Instagram and WhatsApp rather than through email or websites. And being small workshops you may have to wait weeks for your order to be completed. But if you look at this boot it's worth it. This is Fortis' service boot design on the Adakar last. As you can see the aesthetic while called a service boot is very similar to a chunky P&W work boot more so than a service boot I think. It has a chunky round toe box in the aggressive commando lug sole. The construction method is called Felscheun or Dutch for few shoe which is a former stitch down. It is sturdily made by hand. Again I've taken this boot everywhere and hiked through the bush in winter rain and sun dried limestone cliffs where I live. If you can't do some light construction in these I'd be very surprised. Manual labour aside though these look terrific with the chunky toe box and the lug sole combination with the DNA of something looking like a P&W boot. The uppers in this case are made from a local leather that's called Crazy Horse and it's made and tanned in a similar way to the distress newbuck of the White's Fulton except that it's chrome tanned. To me it has withstood all kinds of scratches and scuffs and carrying is easy with any kind of boot oil or cream or leather balm. Being distressed there's no need to baby this thing. So there I end with 4 different choices in the mid US $300 range to look at as your next step in P&W style boots. No you're not getting a cheap P&W boot except maybe for the Fulton but you are getting a mid price boot that looks like a P&W work boot and all of these can actually be used I think as a rugged light work boot. None of them are pretend cement construction fashion centric boots pretending to look rugged. Let me know if you like this series click on the like button below and if you're not subscribed and like these videos go click on subscribe as well and get notified by YouTube when I upload more boot videos, boot reviews and specials. So go go click now until the next time you take care and see you soon.