 G'day, how are you going? If you're new here, welcome to Boot Lossophy and my name is Tech. I live and work on widget country and I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. In this review I'm taking a look at this boot that looks better and better the more you scratch and abuse it. This is Grant Stone's second service boot design called the Edward. At first glance it looks quite similar to the flagship service boot model called the diesel boot. I've done a review of this diesel boot in black chrome excel which you can check out up here. Looking closely though you see that the Edward boot has large quarters that have facings that come close together when laced up and the corners of the quarters are pushed further up the vamp. It also has an internal heel counter and a narrow single piece backstay unlike the diesel with an external heel counter covered by a heel pocket two piece backstay. It also has five smaller eyelets before the three speed hooks while the diesel has only four larger eyelets. The design in itself creates a slightly dressier look and certainly would be dressier in a smooth leather but in this waxed suede from Charles Ovested it just looks badass. It is of course a classic plain toe service boot design six inches high derby or derby open lacing and otherwise plain and unadorned. Obviously the style of this boot is called service boot style because they are modeled after these service boots worn by men and women of the two world wars. Like other service boot designs that came into the market in the mid 2010s they have been sleeked up to be more dressy and versatile than the old style service boots from the military. At the time of recording this video Grant Stone make five makeups of this particular Edward design. They do a colourate Hawing chrome excel that looks almost formal one in Badalassie's Natural Minerva which would be a patina monster. A beautiful black waxed commander from Stead again and another one instead oiled rough out called dark oak on a commando sole and this one of course in a tobacco coloured suede covered with a waxed surface and called the waxed tobacco. For a so called dressy design they sure make them look tough. For those of you who don't know they make a Grant Stone started in 2018 co-founded by Wyatt Gilmore and Josh Lang. Check the link in the description below to see their whole range of boots and shoes. Wyatt's father and grandfather had a decades long family history working with American quality manufacturers like Alden. So it was a no brainer that Wyatt identified the need to make quality Goodyear world boots using premium components and prioritising fit as a primary mission. The prioritization of fit meant the development of their own last. The Edward is made on the Leo combination last. One of the most comfortable I've come across. Getting it up front the Grant Stone boots are made in Xiamen in China. Many people object to made in China for a whole load of reasons and one of them is the perception of quality. Handle any Grant Stone product and you'll realise that perception is not a universal truth. These are well made quality products. Just take a look at that welt joint. Any Goodyear welt will have a start and an end and in most boots you can see the joint are often overlapping. These you can't see them. It's been fitted that well. Look as a management consultant I know that countries don't make poor quality products. It's systems that do. Contract factories make the products you tell them to make. Ask for a $20 watch and that's what you get even from an American factory. Ask for a watch to be made with $1,000 worth of materials. Impose a reliable process control system and strict testing quality controls and you get a plus $1,000 watch made for you in any factory in any country in the world. Wyatt's attitude when developing their boots was to provide top international material from the US, from Europe, from the UK. Ask for a quality process to produce a product and then price that product wherever it fell. Stack on top of that Grant Stone distribution warehouse in the US where the small team go through every boot delivered and inspect them again before they're sent out to customers with a final polish and a look through. So now let's turn to the construction of these boots. As usual I'll start from the bottom up. The outsole is a round stud outsole rubber. For those of you who know Dayknight the UK manufacturer that invented this kind of studded outsole in 1910 this is very similar and is Grant Stone's proprietary version of the Dayknight outsole. I'm guessing that the Dayknight patent or copyright must have expired because quite a number of manufacturers like another UK company called Itzhide even the Italian manufacturer Vibram they all make similar studded soles. If you're a patent lawyer and have any insight why others seem to be able to copy the Dayknight patent drop a comment below. The rubber compound of these are ever so slightly softer than the original Dayknight rubber and I think for that reason it's just slightly grippier. I have slipped on some slick smooth surfaces while I was wearing Dayknight and I feel a bit more secure on the same surfaces with these on. I guess the other side of the coin might be that these are not as durable being softer. They are attached to the uppers using Goodyear welt construction. You can see my video where I went through Goodyear welt construction in detail up here but briefly a welt is a strip of leather that goes all the way around the boot. The uppers are tucked in and sewn to the inside edge of the welt and the midsole and outsole are glued on and then sewn to the outside edge of the welt. In this way the stitches never go through directly from outside the outsole to inside the boot. The welt forms a sort of barrier between the two so in this way they are considered to be more water resistant and they're definitely recraftable. When the sole wears out a cobbler can remove the outsole, peel it off and replace it with without even touching or damaging the uppers. This welt is a flat welt. No ridge or split flat pushed against the uppers just flat and decorated by having a wheel mark run over it causing a little decorative ridging on the top surface. In putting on the welt around the boot though obviously you create a cavity surrounded by that welt. In this case the cavity is filled with a cork filling. A triple rib steel shank is inserted into the cork between the heel and the ball of the foot and then it's topped with a U.S. sauce veg tan leather midsole. On the inside is another veg tan piece of leather insole for comfort. Veg tan insole and midsole are prized by the way because thick veg tan leather is durable and tough. The shank obviously adds arch support to the gap between the heel and the pad of the ball of the foot as well as longitudinal support on uneven ground. The leather core leather combination should add to long-term comfort as they compress and mold to the shape of your feet more so the more you wear them. Overall it's quite a firm but also flexible sole so it's pretty comfortable being worn all day. The inside of the boot is fully lined in the vamp and up the shaft with soft kit leather also from Milwaukee. The uppers are made from Charles F. Stead's waxed commander tannage. Charles F. Stead is a famous English tannery that started in the 1890s so bags of experience there and they specialize in suede's and other exotic napped leather like antelope, kudu and so on. Suede is a split leather when the hide is tanned it's split into the top grain that's used to make smooth leathers and the lower split with the flesh side on one side and the middle of the fibrous layer on the other. The split fibers are lightly sanded to make a soft nap of suede and then in this case heavily waxed to create a waxy rough feeling. When heavily waxed it can look almost like smooth leather with cracks in it and as the wax wears off the scratches and napped start to show in patches. In this case they use a mid tan tobacco colored suede lightly waxed over with a darker colored wax so that when new it appears a wet slick down nappy brown and as the wax wears off you get patches of tan tobacco showing with increased texture from the nap showing. I have rewaxed this recently and brought it partly back to its darker looking original form which is why it looks so different from some of the vision that I'm showing from before I cleaned and waxed it. Honestly the more you wear it and scratch it and scuff it the more the wax will wear off and the more attractive the surface looks. The edwick pattern uses large quarters emphasized by the lack of a heel counter cover on the outside the heel counter is on the inside the heel backstay is just a single thin strip of leather going up the seam at the back. The discrete stitching is single and double stitched very even and perfect stitch density. There are five smaller antique brass eyelets and three speed hooks fairly firm they're all backed with washers so you don't get any scratching or tearing at the top of the tongue. The tongue itself is not gusseted unusual for grandstone it's simply a fixed at the top of the instep and it's not a particularly wide tongue I suppose because the lace facing close quite a lot when I put them on interestingly when I wear boots with an ungusseted tongue the tongue on my right foot tends to slip to one side this doesn't happen here nope it's the left tongue that does that in this pair it just slips over to the to the side here go figure I thought I knew my feet it's not slipping too badly and I haven't felt like I had to do anything like put a short stitch or punch slits through to lace the laces through the wax suede and the lining combined is around four plus mils thick more than ample for a boot like this especially as the wax suede is a water resistant suede and tough because it's of a fibrous nature the edge of the facings and the top of the collar are unfinished just the edge of the leather showing that's pretty typical of grandstone boots the wax suede is so easy to care for you almost don't have to do anything because after all the more it wears the more attractive it actually becomes you only have to keep it clean and except for the worst mud and dirt a damp cloth and a horse hair brush can do that for you if you really do have to wash it I'd probably avoid some of the stronger saddle soaps just in case they strip the suede's of oils and wax I'd use instead a more gentle cleaner like leather honey I'll leave a link below it is an affiliate link I'll get a small kickback if you use it but it won't cost you any more than the normal price if the leather starts to feel dry and that could take a while because this is a waxy oily leather you can use venetian shoe cream to just lightly cover it and then brush it off when I rewaxed it this time I used beeswax that was included with my bordon to kind of boots particular and I understand that bordon will start to market their beeswax soon I look forward to that because it's a great wax to be honest I think you can use kiwi or any other kind of dubbing wax which will rewax the surface of surface and add a little extra waterproofing too although this is designed pattern wise to be a dressier boot than the grandstone diesel boot the use of the waxy commander from steds makes it a very informal boot there is no way you can wear this with a suit stating the obvious and if it is in that patchy state where the wax has been wearing off and the lighter gingery tobacco tan nap starts to show through I really don't think you can wear it with nice chinos too you can't wear it a smart or business casual once rewaxed that may be a different story because it looks like an interesting dark colored shoe so normally I wear it with dark wash denim whether faded or just dark indigo browns and earth colors are a perfect match with this so things like brown or tan five pocket pants or more canvas or rougher weave material they're great with t-shirts with or without casual work wear jackets or chore coats and they're good with polo shirts or hen these two with or without work wear style jackets and trucker jackets or leather jackets all in all strictly strictly in the relaxed or rugged casual category as for sizing I am a us eight and a half d on the brand new device that equates to uk or australian seven and a half g or h depending on which width scale you're using confusing but I almost always wear a us 8d boot and all my other grandstones including the floyd lasted brass boot are in 8d I also take the same size in red wings fursday's parkhurst truman ellen edmonds olden's however I saw on my mate dale's channel at aerosurfer lv that at least in grandstone you could go down a half size from your usual length and go up one width so I when I saw these come up on ebay at seven and a half e I bought them to try that theory yep I proved it because with my eyes closed I cannot tell the difference between the fit of these and the fit of my 8d diesel boots in the same leo last as for comfort I think I said at the beginning that I find the grandstone leo last one of the most comfortable lasts for my feet oh a last by the way is the foot shape mold that boot makers stretch the uppers around to form the shape of the boot the more that lasts is close to the shape of a human foot the more it can sometimes look unattractive because you lose the sleep design of the shapely toes and the curved instep and so on I mean take a look at your bare feet they are not sleek the leo last however really conforms to the shape of your foot while retaining a sleek and shapely look to the forefront and the toes it's a combination last which means that the rear the heel and the waist are narrower than the ball of the foot and the toes so giving you a secure hold on the back of your feet combined with room in the forefoot you just don't feel squished anywhere in this leo lasted boot the sole with all of that leather and the rubber of the outsole and the support of the shanks gives you a secure comfortable feeling straight out of the box I have never had to break in any grandstone boots other than perhaps the brass boot that had such a thick leather midsole and rubber commander sole that I had to break in the sole where the foot bends just there to feel comfortable in the roll of the walk these are just great so comfortable to put on to walk in to stand in okay this is where I usually talk about the value know this though I bought this pair on ebay for 237 australian dollars way back in november 2021 it's sold then on grandstone's website for around us 320 from memory and they've gone up now to buy about 20 to about 340 us dollars they are slightly cheaper than grandstones other edward and diesel models in smooth leathers by 40 or so us so are they worth it these are really really well made boots the feel is sturdy but comfortable and despite these being used boots I can't see any fraying threads or cracking of outside outsole rubbers or any stress in the stitching in fact the stitching is still impeccable and the way the welt join is sewn so that it meets seamlessly it's just attention to detail in every regard at this time they compare well against other boots in that mid us 300 dollar range if you're looking for a gutsy kind of service boot you can't go past this especially if you like to develop the patina that begs to be shown off it's really one of those boots that just look better the more you abuse it would I buy it again at full price yeah I would so yeah I think they're good value for that price so in summary it's a great plain dressy shape boot but coupled with this very interesting wax suede upper it just looks rugged and feels sturdy enough to be rugged no I wouldn't go build a house with it but for any other casual occasions including even a hike through the woods I think yeah it works anyway I hope you like the review don't forget to click on like and subscribe because your little show of support there will help me to grow my channel and bring more boot information and reviews to people who like us kind of nerd out on those things I've got plenty more boot reviews coming up including some on Indonesian handmade boots so stay tuned until then stay safe take care and I'll see you soon