 G'day. How are you going? Welcome to Bootlossophy and if you're new here, my name is Tech. I live and work in widget country in Western Australia and I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. Today, something different. I'm going to look at the four main types of construction methods in bootmaking. So the first style of boot construction is called Goodyear Welter. In a Goodyear Welter boot, there is a leather, a strip of leather that goes around the edge of the boot. It's a thin strip of leather that goes right around the edges. The uppers of the boot are flanged inwards and then the inside of the uppers is stitched to the inside edge of the welt and the outside edge of the welt, as you can see here, is stitched through into the midsole and the outsole. Sometimes it's not stitched to the outsole, just to the midsole and then you glue a piece of rubber on top. It doesn't necessarily make it weaker. The idea behind the Goodyear Welting is that it's a more water-resistant type of construction because one stitch is inside the boot into the welt, which doesn't affect the outside at all. So water can't get in and this outside stitch doesn't go anywhere near inside. So again, water doesn't go in. There are different types of Goodyear Welting. This is called a flat welt because, as you can see, it's just a normal welt. It's just perfectly flat. It goes all the way around 360 degrees around the boot. Another different type of Goodyear Welt is a split-reverse Goodyear Welt. And in these Parker's boots, you can see the difference. There's a little lip that comes up into the boot there, into the uppers of the boot. And what happens with these? Similar construction. You see the outsole, the midsole, and the welt. But this time, the welt's inside edge has been split. So it's split and flanged up and then pushed against the uppers. The stitching still goes on the inside between the uppers and the welt and on the outside through the welt, through the midsole and into the outsole. What does this do? This creates water resistance because it adds an extra layer of protection to stop water going in between the welt and the uppers. A third way, and it's often confused with this, a third way of Goodyear Welting is using what's called a storm welt. And this is the Taylor Stitch Ranch Boot. You can see in the storm welt, it's a similar flanged thing up here. But you can see this is actually finished, the edge of this flange. If you look at the parkhurst, it's a bit stained, of course, but it's actually raw, it's the edge of the leather. And in the case of the storm welt, instead of the welt being split and then pushed up, it actually has a ridge that's carved into the welt. Right in the middle of the welt, there's a ridge carved, so it's sort of, if you pretend my fingers, it's ridge carved and then the uppers can be pushed against it. And the way you can tell is that the edge is finished. There's no raw fibers coming out of it. That's Goodyear Welting. The second form of construction is called a stitch down construction. Now, it's exactly what it sounds like, even though it looks the same. This is a Bordon Tucano Boot. Stitch down construction is where the uppers are flanged out instead of in. And they are sewn onto a midsole, as you can see. That strip there is actually the upper's leather, toe cap leather, and then the actual vamp leather has been splayed out and stitched to the midsole and then the outsole through which it's all stitched. So that stitch down construction, in this case, 270 degree stitch down. It can be 360, but from what I can see, most of it appears to be only at the 270 degree, three quarters of the way around, and the inside is tucked in and stitched on the inside. Now, stitch down construction is often confused with welt scorn or few shoe constructions from the Dutch. This is an Indonesian boot and it's a welt scorn construction. And most people would say that welt scorn is the same as stitch down. But in fact, what I've found, if you dig deep enough, is that welt scorn is stitched into a welt. So there's an outsole, a midsole, a very thin welt section, and then the uppers are flanged out and stitched onto the welt, again, 270 degrees. And you can see in this case, there is definitely a welt in there, very thin. So the idea being that this increases water resistance, because not only like in the bourdon, the water just drips off. In this case, it drips off and it's protected. So the stitch down welt scorn are cousins of each other, where the uppers are flared and then stitched down. The third method of construction is called the Blake Stitch, or Blake Rapid Stitch method of construction. Now, Blake stitching is usually found in dress shoes and dress boots, because it makes for a very flexible, light footwear, because there's no welt in between. Now, a Blake Stitch is basically where the uppers are turned in and then the inside of the uppers is stitched directly into the midsole or to the outsole. If you look at your dress shoes, they're almost certainly Blake stitched. And the problem with that is water resistance, because in theory, what happens is, particularly the stitching showing on the outsole, that stitching goes directly into the inside of the shoe or the boot. And so water could seep in there. Now, Blake Rapid Stitching, on the other hand, is similar. But what happens is, the inside of the boot is stitched to a welt and then the welt is stitched to a midsole or outsole. In this case, this little bit of stitching here is just extra stitching into the welt. Normally, Blake stitching, you don't get that. And the reason for Blake stitching is that you get a very sleek, slim profile without any ridging here, which makes for a great dress boot. This is the Helm Johnson, which kind of plays around with welting and Blake Rapid stitching with a little bit of a welt. And I'm not entirely sure that this isn't anyway a faux stitch and a faux welt. So that is Blake stitching. The fourth type of construction is simply Simac construction. These are Echo Chukka boots. They are not technically cement construction, but I'll pretend they are. Ignore these stitches. They pretend they don't actually do anything. They're cosmetic. And cement construction is exactly what it sounds like. The uppers of the boot are turned in. The insole is put in. And then the outsole is simply glued to the boot. So what happens is, in terms of water resistance, it's not as water resistant and certainly in longevity. If you happen to pull off by accident, the outsole, all you can do is glue it back. You can't change the outsole, restitch it or whatever, unless you get a really good cobbler and potentially you lose a bit of sizing because you'd have to use some of the uppers to to restitch it through. So highly popular in cheap, flexible shoes and much lighter in construction because there's no thick leather, welting, midsole, it's just glued on. Now I said this was technically not cement construction because these are thermally attached. They're actually lasted, put into a mold and then it's injected molten into onto the boot. But it's still connected by technically melted stuff or glue. Probably the most famous example of this, I think, is the Blundstone, which is a thermally injected sole. The uppers are put into a mold. The sole TPU is thermally injected. And once again, waterproof in this case because of the thermally injected outsole. But once you wear this, that's it. That's the end of that. So that's it. I hope you enjoyed learning about the four main construction methods in making boots. If you did, don't forget to click on the like button below. I'll probably refer to this video in future when I'm reviewing boots so that I don't have to keep repeating myself when I'm talking about construction. And I have some other great boot and other reviews coming right up. One thing I'm planning is a video on my five best business casual boots. And I've got a review of the Thursday made in USA Vanguard boot coming up. If you don't want to miss those videos, click on subscribe. Until then, guys, take care and see you soon.