 G'day, welcome back. This is my Bhut Lossofi Channel and my name is Tech. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that I live and work on, the Wajik people of Nungabuja. Today, I'm taking a look at this RM Williams boot. Only, it's not a Chelsea boot. This is the RM Williams Riccabee boot. I'm not quite sure why it's called the Riccabee and I think it may be named after Port Riccabee on the western coast of York Peninsula in South Australia. Of course, if you know your RM Williams, you know that they are based in and made in South Australia. If you know your RM Williams, you'll also know that they're famous for their Chelsea boots and you can see my review up here. But yes, they also make lace-up boots. This Riccabee model as well as the new Rizden model and while I can't find them on the website at the moment, they also make or made other lace-up styles like the Randwick and a chucker called the Sturt Desert Boot. The Riccabee was available in a number of leathers but whether due to supply or if they're rationalizing their range, this black newbuck or Kip Leather Boot is no longer shown on the website. I have noticed this before with RM Williams. They are a company that spends money on keeping their website totally up to date and styles and leather selections will change from time to time, get taken off, put back on, it can be quite dizzying. I'll go into the construction later but I'll just mention here that this leather has been variously described by RM Williams or their partner retailer as an overseas stockist as Newbuck or Kip Leather or Oily Furn Leather. RM Williams described these three leathers differently but reading between the lines I suspect that they are basically the same leather but treat it slightly differently in the finish. I think it starts basically with a newbuck leather. Newbuck is corrected, mostly chrome tanned top grain leather and it's not a suede split. Top grain leather is sanded on the grain side not only to remove imperfections and pores and so on but also to slightly raise the nap in the fibres. This treatment makes it more resilient than lightly sanded smooth top grain. The most famous example is I guess Timberlands yellow boot that's Newbuck quite clearly. Then the basic Newbuck hide is retanned I think in this case with oils to infuse the leather with oils and make it more water resistant. From what I can gather this is the same treatment for Oily Furn Leather and to me if this is Oily Furn Leather then it's exactly the same as Kip Leather. It feels exactly the same. It has a smooth down nap and feels slightly waxy or oily to the touch. It's used to make a dressy shaped six inch open odabi style lace-up plain toe boot. The natural colored welt especially around the black leather frames it quite nicely. The toe box is almond shaped but reasonably high wall to create more of a toe puff than a very dressy service boot like a Viberg or some of Parkhurst models are like the Ellenboot which sharpens down and sleeps down. In this oiled Newbuck leather and honestly with with this toe puff reminiscent of the Wolverine thousand mile boot while it does lean to the dressy it also looks firmy like a work boot or at least as much of a work boot style as the Wolverine thousand mile boots. So in this particular makeup I class it as casual no suits but possibly a business casual. In the winter I have worn it with gray jeans and a business cut blazer over a turtleneck and in greys and blacks it works quite well. I've also worn it with dark jeans a button down and a vest for a more relaxed look in the office. The matte black look will also go with pretty much any earth tones or neutral colors like greens or blacks again in a relaxed style or alternately for a very relaxed out bush kind of style in jeans and a fleece shirt. The maker RM Williams is known for their more casual styles but nowadays their Chelsea's can be seen in the boardroom under suits and ties. Started in the 1930s by Reginald Murray or RM Williams he first started making saddles but then found that his most popular product was his Chelsea riding and work boots for station hands and riders. Over the 60s and 70s the company grew on its quality in the outback and in the 80s started to take over in the city full of stockbrokers and lawyers and it became the iconic sought-after Australian boot. It made RM a rich man and he sold the company in the late 1980s and ownership then moved between various private equity firms and at one time the Louis Vuitton Group treating the boots as a luxury item. In my work I meet a lot of station owners and station hands, Raster Bouts and Jackaroos and Gillaroos all of who still lust after their craftsman Chelsea boot but find it beyond their price range. Amongst the Aboriginal people who own cattle stations that I work with they rigorously protect and care for their craftsman boots bought decades ago and bemoan the fact that when they eventually wear out they can't afford the new prices. Throughout their history RM Williams were always made in Australia. It's true some of their accessories like belts and bags and clothing were made overseas but they've always maintained that they needed the experience of their craftspeople in the Adelaide factory to hold standards up in their boots. In the last few years people have noticed standards drop under private equity ownership. I guess you expect cuts when you're chasing the holy dollar but recently they were brought back into Australian private ownership when the RM Williams company was bought by mining magnet Andrew Forrest. Not that he is a romantic he has had a checkered career and reputation in his mining career and he is a businessman after all. At any rate he seems to have for whatever reason patriotic or economic he has returned to sourcing levers from Australia where earlier they had come from France and New Zealand but life is never uncomplicated. The return to Aussie source leather is likely to be more about supply chains than quality or patriotism and it is reported that he is using leather from Harvey beef that's a meat company that he owns. Now that's a very neat circle of economics and vertical integration. Now let's take a look at how these boots are put together. I've already spoken about the leather. The thing about newbuck or oiled kip leather is it takes knocks and scratches. The clicking or leather selection is good but in this leather you don't see massive problems with creases anyway. It should wear well and patina is likely to consist of oily patches being worn here and there and moved around rather than any change in shade or color. It should wear evenly. It's a simple boot pattern of basically three main pieces the vamp and the two quarters. There is no backstay just a neatly stitched seam up the back. Stitching on the hole is pretty neat. There are a few loose ends that could be burned off from here and there but I don't see any particularly wayward stitching or any wheel marks on this pretty soft leather. It is mainly single stitching everywhere including this cosmetic stitch along the quarters which you will find impossible to see being black on black. The quarters are double stitched for strength down here. Now I can't measure the the uppers leather on its own because it's lined but combined with the lining leather it's about four millimeters thick which is average for this kind of boot. The boot is fully lined with a tanned not particularly soft but durable looking leather. It's quite wrinkly. Even the tongue is lined again quite wrinkly. Now the tongue is not gusseted at all but it is quite firm and with a lacing loop sewn into the tongue to lace through it stays in place and it doesn't slip. The heel is slightly stiffened. I think the heel counter is slastic and not leather and so is the toe box which feels just a little bit firmer than the heel. I think the heel counter is sandwiched between the uppers leather and the lining leather but they also I don't know if you can see it they also add a patch of suede inside so that the heel pocket grips to your heel or sock. There are seven antique eyelets no speed hooks but honestly the lacing opens up wide enough that I don't think you need any special hooks to get your feet through. The lace facings and running up to the top of the shaft is just cut leather unfinished. At the top of the shaft is a cloth pull loop at the back same as those you get on the Chelsea boots with the RM Williams name and made in Australia embroidery. These pull loops don't have the address of the headquarters and prospects sewn into them like they do on the Craftsman boots. Inside the boot is a veg tanned leather insole and a leather heel protector for comfort. Going further down into the boot this is constructed using a 270 degree Goodyear welter form of construction. If you want the 101 and Goodyear welts check out my video on the subject. Basically the uppers are turned inwards and on the inside of the boot they're sewn to the inside edge of a leather strip is called the welt. On the outside the outside edge of the welt is sewn through the welt into the midsole and in this case also into the rubber outsole. This means that the boot is recraftable. You can replace the outsole or in fact the entire sole construction by saying it to RM Williams themselves or by using a good cobbler. It also means that the boot is reasonably water resistant because there are no stitches that go from the outside directly into the inside of the boot. There is no midsole as far as I can see except in the back one quarter of the boot. It looks to me like the welt is sewn directly to the eight or nine millimeter thick rubber outsole except the back where I can see a three millimeter leather heel rand acting as the midsole. However, despite the lack of midsole the welt still creates a cavity as it is a three or four mil thick welt around the outside edge though in inside it is a cavity. This cavity is filled with a cork filler. This should and to me it does give you a lot of comfort as a cork filling moles of the shape of your foot with enough wear and pressure. It's worth noting that this three quarter leather welt is a storm welt. There is a lip that rises above the welt and that's pressed against the side of the uppers to enhance water resistance. Right at the bottom is a rubber outsole. It looks like the Vibram V700 V bar outsole, but I don't think it is. I don't know who makes it for I'm Williams. Maybe Vibram, but it is stamped long horn brand. So I assume that it is proprietary. The heel is a rubber top lift on top of a stack of leather. The rubber top lift also has the long horn logo stamped in it, which I assume again means it's proprietary. By the way, researching for this video was a bit of a pain. RM Williams is fantastic for media appeal and marketing websites and social media posts, but it is very short on facts and information like who supplies what. I don't think that's trying to hide something. I think that just shows where their focus is as a deemed luxury item. It's all about the item as finished rather than where things come off from. So let's talk about leather care. Whether it's new buck or kip or oily fern, the instructions from RM Williams are roughly the same. Keep the boots clean by wiping over with a damp cloth. If necessary, use a leather cleaner. They sell their own spray on leather cleaner and being this new bucky dry matte kind of look, I'd stay away from saddle silk. Maybe, maybe you can use a suede shampoo. As for conditioning, they do mention saddle dressing or leather conditioner. There's of course, but because both can be quite waxy, if you want to preserve this matte look, I think I'd look at a new buck or suede conditioner. Maybe the spray on type that you can get from Sophia Terago or a Timbaland new buck product. I have some listed in the description below. Scroll down to the bottom of the description if you want to have a look at some of these. As for sizing, if you've watched my reviews of the craftsman and the comfort craftsman, you know that I struggled with sizing those Chelsea's right. These, however, are a half size down from true to size with one caviar. But first to set the parameters, I size in UK or Aussie sizing true to size at seven and a half in a medium width. Now that's true to size on a brand new device, not on a sneaker. That equates to a US 8D and then European 41.5 medium. But I'll talk UK sizing from here on. Just add one number up for US sizes. So true to size at seven and a half, but usually in Americana type boots, I'm a half size down. In English, Australian and European boots, I could be true to size or a half size down depending on which last they are. In these, unlike the craftsman Chelsea boots where I had to go a half size up, I am a half size down and it is a pretty good fit except for some tightness in the toes. While they may look like the same last, I'm convinced that this last is different from the craftsman, which runs narrow and long. In these, at a half size down, the length is right, the heels are locked in and the knuckles at the balls of the feet are okay. They're quite comfortable. But as you can see, this is an almond shaped toe, quite sharply cutting in from the widest part of the ball of the feet. When I first put them on, breaking them in was a nightmare on the toes. Everything else was all right. No heel slip, there was no blisters anywhere, but that toe box really squeezed both my big toe and my little toe side of my feet. After a reasonable breaking period, like I'm talking a month, these were not my favorite pair of boots because the toes kept hurting. Anyway, after a few months on the shelf with a shoe tree shoved in them, I took them out one day to wear them and wonder of wonders, they felt a little stretched. Then after a couple of days wear, they stretched even more and not the roomiest of toe boxes, but they fit me and no more pain. So the caveat about them fitting me a half down from true to size is this. In the RM Williams sizing convention, these are a seven in G width that's equal to a US eight in D width. If you have wider feet, go true to size in their G width or get a half size down but go up in width to an H. As for comfort, apart from my early battles with that toe box they are actually quite comfy. It does feel like my feet are well locked in, the leather and lining is supple so there's no cutting in anywhere and the shock absorption from the rubber heels and the sole and all that cork and leather inside are better even than my craftsman Chelsea boots. As for value, I admit to struggling a bit with the price of RM Williams boots today, they seem to go up with every change of ownership. On the website, these list at Aussie $649. Okay, if you compare them with well made American boots like say whites or with well made English boots like say trickers, they compare well to those. But I honestly don't think they are as well made as trickers or whites. Nothing I can put my finger on just the feel of the heft and the solidity on my feet in comparison to my whites MP boots or my Truman boots even. I have to unenthusiastically say that they are of that value when you compare those prices. Then I look at brands like Grant Stone and Parkhurst from the States. They are considered mid-range but by the time they land in Auss they're about the same price, they're in the mid 600s. When I look at my collection to choose what to wear my mind runs through outfits, comfort, uniqueness and Grant Stone and Parkhurst win out over these in that quick millisecond of subjective consideration. If they weren't Australian they wouldn't be in my collection at that price. So there you go. On the one hand quite an attractive boot from a historic Aussie brand. The manufacturing quality it's pretty good. They are made well and they're comfortable. I can honestly say that I think they are durable and they are going to last me for a lifetime. The only thing against it in my opinion is the current price when new. If you want them maybe it's better to check eBay. And now don't forget to click on the like button and if you're not already a subscriber don't forget to click on the subscribe button as well because I still have a ton of boot reviews to bring to you and as requested I'm also going to do some boot comparisons like I'm going to do a series on Aussie Chelsea work boots. I'm going to do something on my Red Wing Heritage boots and also something for my best boots for date night those sort of things. So stay tuned by subscribing until then everyone take care and I'll see you again soon.