 G'day, how you going? My name is Tech and welcome to Boot Lossophy. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land I live and work on who are the Wajik people of Nungar Bhuja. Now today, I'm breaking up this older version of Truman Boots flagship boot, the Java Waxed Flesh Boots. So this is Truman Boots, one's most popular model of their boots, but I think now is probably overtaken by the Arambler models. This is the boot in Java Waxed Flesh from Horwein Tannery on the 79 last. Waxed Flesh is a rough-out leather that's so heavily waxed on the rough side that when new, it looks like smooth grain leather. I'll talk more about that when I get to construction, as I will about the last also. The boots are in a heritage work boot come service boot design. Now in modern times It's sometimes really quite difficult to distinguish an American heritage style service boot from an American heritage Heritage style work boot. I think because at the turn of the last century, men's boots were men's boots and people worked in them And when military service during World Wars was required, the US Army ordered boots that looked like what everyone was used to. So I think something like the Iron Ranger, for example, which originated as a work boot and think how similar that is to a World War One trench boot. Truman boots are defined by that inability to define them as one or the other. Unless it's one of the upland models that are higher, there's six inch lace-up Derby or Derby boots with open lacing panels, a regular Flattish block heel, and they can come with or without a toe cap. So when it comes to the question of what to wear them with, the answer is casual and rugged or outdoorsy or work casual outfits. If you wear these for manual work, which, by the way, no self-respecting Aussie construction work would dream of doing since Aussie work boots tend to be technical work boots or Chelsea models. If you wear these for work, no problem in pairing them with your regular work clothes. If you wear these to go hiking, wear them with jeans, t-shirts or warm fleecy shirts and puffer vests or wax jackets. Casually, you can wear them with blue jeans or neutral and earth-colored five-pocket pants and chinos, collet button-down shirts or polo shirts and t-shirts or Henleys and casual rugged jackets or jumpers. They are good for outdoor events with friends or going to the pub for a Sunday session or barbecues at the park or in the backyard. Now Truman Boots is not as old a company as you might think looking at these boots. These distinctly look born and bred in the American Pacific Northwest amongst loggers and Lewis and Clark. But Truman Boots only started in 2014 in the midst of the revival of the Americana heritage boot and fashion styles and not in the Pacific Northwest either. They started in rural Pennsylvania, which for non-Americans is way over in the East between New York State and the Great Lakes. The owner, Vince Romano, I think actually came from Oregon in the Pacific Northwest and when he started Truman, named after his dog, by the way, he designed his boots based on American work wear, heritage craftsmanship and American Western culture. To cut a long story short, Truman grew quickly and outgrew the ability to find factory space and skilled workers in Pennsylvania. So they moved out halfway to Colorado. Australians were no Colorado because many go skiing there and we all know that almost Australian John Denver, right? To keep cutting the long story short, Truman then found that Colorado wasn't able to, in their words, support the long-term economic needs of the employees and the further growth of the brand. So they finally moved to Eugene in Oregon. All production remains in the United States and in other videos, I've discussed why Americans who buy heritage boots like these value the Maiden America cachet. I mean, after all these are American heritage boots. So getting a pair of these Maiden say India would be not only odd, but maybe even a little insulting no matter how good they are. Now, don't get me wrong. Many of my American friends that I've made in this journey appreciate quality no matter where it's made, but I'm just saying that if it is your heritage, you can understandably be passionate about it. It's kind of like being an Australian and you suddenly find out that wallabies are now recognized as native feral animals in the peak districts in the UK, having descended from escaped zoo animals in the 30s and 40s. True story. And on that note, let's turn to construction. This particular pair is an older pair made when Truman were still in Colorado. In those days, they made their boots using the stitched down method of construction, changing to Goodyear welting in 2018. In Goodyear welting, the uppers are joined to the sole construction by a strip of leather called the welt. The uppers are turned in and sewn to the welt on the inside of the boot and the sole is sewn to the outside edge of the welt. In the stitched down method, the uppers are in fact flanged outwards and directly stitched to the sole. There's a difference of opinion about which is better, but both are re-solable, except that maybe it's more difficult to re-sol a stitched down boot because you have to be very careful not to make more stitch holes in the uppers when you re-stitch the new sole. The Dutch, who kind of invented the stitched down or weltskorn method, would argue that it's more water resistant because the flanging out of the uppers means that the moisture is turned away, while fans of the newer Goodyear stitching models will say that the welt forms a barrier between stitches that go through the sole and stitches that go through the uppers. I have no preference. You can see on this boot the front half of the uppers are flanged out and stitched down to the midsole. There are two stitches. The first is the stitch that goes through the flanged out uppers into the midsole. Then the second stitch that goes 270 degrees around the edge goes through the flanged out uppers, the leather midsole and the rubber commando outsole. That's the stitch you see underneath. The sole is a commando lug sole, pretty common for outdoor boots, but this one was not made by Vibram, which you might expect. This one is made by the Goodyear rubber company and made in England. The composition feels to me to be a little softer than Vibram commando lug soles, so it's a little bit more shock absorbing, but maybe correspondingly not as durable. The heel stack is all leather and it's topped by a pretty thick commando lug heel top lift. As I've already said, the midsole is leather, about four and a bit millimeters of pretty hard veg tanned leather. There is a steel shank buried in there for arch support and stability through here. The stitch down stitching looks hand sewn to me. It's not perfectly even and it does vary a little bit side by side. I'm sure switching to Goodyear welting using a machine sawer would have helped speed up the process as well as made it easier to control. If you look closely at the edge where the uppers are flanged out, you can see the edge of the upper leather and then the lump where the seam of the toe cap is also flanged out before it gets back to a single thickness of leather. So I surmise from that that this is not a true toe cap being a leather toe cap on top of the toe box of the vamp piece. It's an unstructured toe and it's beginning to flatten out a little bit. The uppers are in Horween's Java wax flesh. Horween is a multi-generational over 100 year old tannery based in Chicago and is probably the most ubiquitous tannery to have American heritage boots kitted out in. If I say chrome excel you go oh I know them. They make wax flesh leather by tanning it exactly the same way they make chrome excel. First chrome tanning, then veg tanning, then hot stuffing with oils and waxes. But what they then do is turn the leather the rough side up and finish it on a rough side whacking on thick layers of wax and dye. The leather patinas as the wax wear off as mine is beginning to but it is extremely tough and resilient until it does. The Java wax flesh color is as far as I'm aware exclusive to Truman because I've seen other Horween wax flesh colors used by other boot makers but not Java. It's thick and heavy it's about three millimeters thick in the main parts but it's pretty supple. The stitching that puts the panels together is really neat very narrowly double stitched in the heel counter cover toe cap and quarters and single stitch everywhere else. The heel backstay is a two-piece backstay. The heel counter cover and a strip up the shaft which then loops at the top to form a very beefy pull tab. The heel counter inside is leather and it is external under this counter cover. The edges at the collar and the lace edgings are raw and unrolled which befits this work boot style. The tongue is a thinner softer leather I think it might actually be swayed and not rough out it is semi-gusseted up to the fourth eyelet and so helps with water and dirt resistance. Inside of the boot there is a leather full length comfort sock liner acting as the insole glued on top of the midsole and under that there is no cork filler because the stitch down method does not create a cavity to fill it doesn't feel like they took the opportunity like some other stitch down boot makers do to put in a foam or rubber midsole layer for comfort. I can feel however another patch of leather under the heel that goes from the heel to the arch and I think a shank is in there there's probably more for comfort and and clearly more for arch support. The boot is leather lined in the vamp but not in the shaft in fact there's a rough out leather where the smooth grain of the leather is on the inside it's smooth and feels like there is lining. There are durable leathers of leather at the collar and at the eyelet anchors so it's fully reinforced where it matters. There are seven brass eyelets no speed hooks which with these leather laces I do sometimes feel like it takes a while to tie them up. The overall build feels sturdy and tough. If I have one complaint it's that the skiving is hit and miss. Skiving is where the edges of the patches of leather are thinned out so that when two pieces get sewn together they don't form two thicknesses of leather at the joint. They should be thinned out so that it almost gets to the one thickness where the pieces are sewn together. Most of it is fine but the inside quarter on both boots have a really thick unscived edge on the inside so that I feel the leather edge digging into my arch just here. You get used to it but it is annoying when you first put them on. Just to be clear I have newer Truman boots and they don't have that problem so learn and ever onwards I suppose. Now let's look at how to care for this Java wax flesh. It is made tough so you probably don't need to do anything for a very long time except maybe to keep it clean. Wash off mud and serious dirt just brush off the dust and grit if it's not that serious. Unlike Waxy Commander from Charles Ovestead which is a waxed suede this wax flesh has such a hard coating of wax when it first comes that it doesn't feel sticky when you brush it. The wax will wear off though. Some of us look forward to that. Before it does if you want to condition it you can apply some Venetian shoe cream to the inside of the boot. I mean after all it's basically chrome excel inside the boot. You can also condition the outside by also applying Venetian shoe cream as well. Once the hard wax wears off though and if you want to bring it back to that waxed flesh look you can apply beeswax but it won't really get back to that almost smooth hard waxy surface again and to do that you'll have to get it done professionally unless you want to try applying say otter wax from a bar uh and wave a heat gun at it. I have tried I advise you not to because it's really hard. As I move on to discuss sizing fit and comfort a caveat. This pair is in the older construction method and you may not experience the same in current models. If you want to know what I think of current models you can check out this review up here. That being said I do find these sizes the same as current models. Truman used several lasts the shoe shaped 3d foot molds that they build or last their boots over. This is the most popular they're 79 lasts which is generous in the heel and the ball of the foot but narrow at the waist and with a sharp almond shaped toe. In this last I go a half size down from true to size. I measure my true size on a branded device as an eight and a half in d width in the american scale. I wear this in an 8d. For comparison I wear size 8s in Thursday captains and 8d in red wing iron ranges. Also 8d in grandstone and parkhouse boots but an 8 and a half d in oak streets trench boots. At 8d I feel snugly held but maybe a little loose around the heel. The almond shaped toe is okay but in this unstructured toe box there's not a lot of volume and I can feel the toe box being a little restricted as the toe box collapses over time. Underfoot it feels supportive but a little lacking in cushioning at the ball perhaps the absence of a cork filler or some substitute. Get the right size and I give fit a score of 8 out of 10. Comfort a little lower maybe 7 out of 10. As for value when this older model was available it sold for over 500 us dollars but when they switched to Goodyear welts the price on the same model dropped to 440 dollars that was in 2018. At the time of recording this video the java wax flash boots Goodyear welts are on their website at 488 dollars. Now considering covid supply chain issues labor problems and inflation not bad at all. Are they worth it? To me they are better quality than red wing iron ranges in the 300s. The older pacific north west brands are in the us 500s most of those are still hand stitched these not so much. Materials used are similar but the older P&W brands probably use more leather on the inside I'm thinking shanks and arch support and inside the sole but they are at least a hundred dollars more at least and one more comparison they're in the same price category as oak street boot makers. Now trench boots are very nice but they don't have nearly as interesting materials or methods so if you like these pretty butch looking rough work boot and tough service boot looks they're pretty well made so yeah I think they're worth the 400 plus price and there it is I like Truman boots for their rugged aesthetic I have five pairs to date there is a bias so when I look at these I put in the plus ledger looks toughness attractiveness and durable leather well built on the minus side I have that annoyingly thick seam at the side and I have a roomy heel and a squeezy toe if you don't have a pair of Truman boots and you like the style I would recommend you try a pair I have no links or association to them so my recommendation is personal and objective and while you're still here listening to my advice how about clicking on the like button and if you haven't how about you subscribe it will help me grow my channel and it will help you keep in touch with more boot reviews coming up until then take care and I'll see you soon