 G'day guys, how are you going? Welcome to my channel, Bootlossophy and my name is Tech. I'm working on Wajik Country in Nungabuja in Western Australia and I acknowledge the traditional owners of this land. In this video, I'm taking a look at this Made in Colombia boot from Bordon, Colombia. This is Bordon's Tucano boot Made in Colombia from the second group Made to Order batch in November 2021, which I received in Australia in February 2022. I did an unboxing of this boot back in February. In fact, it was the video that launched this channel. You can check it out up here if you haven't already seen it. Bordon is a Colombian shoemaker and retailer that I think initially started in 2019, founded by Andres Silva and Natalia Herrera and has an early history making Blakestich shoes and dressy Chelsea boots in Europe for the Colombian market. In 2021, with the pandemic closing down international travel and supply chains to and from Europe, they decided to move production home to Colombia and in late 2021, started to make rugged combat-style lace-up boots. Their business model was to make batches of what are basically giant group MTOs, where you had several weeks to order before they started producing that batch. This avoids inventory, which kept costs and therefore prices down, and kept the carbon footprint of the company relatively small. Their other company values involve paying a fair wage to artisan bootmakers in Colombia, recognizing indigenous names by naming their products after indigenous tribes, ensuring they practice an eco-friendly manufacturing process with minimal waste, and putting together high-quality European uppers leathers with local Colombian vegetarian leathers for insoles, mid-soles, and welts. Their first batch of the slightly over 6 inch tucana boot, made in a variety of wax suede leathers from Italy, went live in September 2021. This was a Blake Stitch model. In their second batch, which went live in November 2021, they switched to a Stitch Down construction. I believe they haven't been able to make any Goodyear-weltered footwear, because there are no Goodyear-welting machines in Colombia. But honestly, a well-constructed Stitch Down boot is as good as any Goodyear-weltered boot for durability and water resistance. I mean, look at Knicks, Whites boots, and the early Truman models. As they expanded into their third batch in April 2022, they started to offer a 6-inch plain-toe version called the Onez. They changed their Italian tannery from an unnamed tannery to the famous Marriam tannery using their wax suede, reverse wax calf, and smooth leathers. In their fourth batch, which just went live on August 10th, rugged Chelsea boots are being offered. You should check out their website, bordon.com.co. I'm seriously getting a pair of the Chelsea's. I mentioned that Andres Silva is one of the founders. A deal from Aerosurfer LV has interviewed Andres in a real boot talk, which you can see up here, and it's revealing that Andres is a very thoughtful bootmaker, really obsessed with detail. As well, his customer service approach is personal and direct. When I ordered these boots in the second batch, his website still said to order a half-size up, so that's what I did. Andres must have seen my order and immediately messaged me to check, explaining that moving from Blake stitch to stitch-down construction, they were getting rid of the internal foam footbed used for cushioning the stitching of the Blake stitch inside the boot. He suggested that I go back to my usual boot size, and just to be sure, he got me to measure my feet, and then once it was confirmed, he changed my order internally. I was right impressed. Andres was also very communicative of the process, telling me that it would be a seven to eight-week manufacturing process, and through that period, he sent me photos and videos of the boots being made. Now, taking a look at the aesthetic, this is a chunky, rugged, military-looking, combat-style service boot in an Italian wax suede and on a Vibram 100 Montagna outsole. The look is not like the modern sleek service boot style, but more like the bump toe combat or work boot like a paratrooper boot, a dock martens, a timberland, or like an iron ranger, although this has a design and style of its own. Not as overbuilt, but there are definitely overtones of a white MP boot in this look. The proportion of the boot between foot and shaft are such that I was surprised to measure the height and see that it's actually a six-inch boot, slightly more. I honestly could have sworn from sight that it was taller. I think the profile of a longer cap toe, a well-proportioned slope up the instep, and then the shaft and this pull loop all visually make it look taller than it is. Again, in profile, it sits on the aggressively lugged outsole, so it looks like it leans forward a little bit, ready for some tough action. Looking at it from the top, the rounded toe shape and that solid toe cap surrounded by the white contra stitch down stitching are just look so solid. This is a casual boot and maybe dress wise, not especially versatile when you need to pair it with some dressier casual clothing. While I could have got it in a smooth black leather and on a vibram eaten sole that's like a day-night stud, that may have lent it toward a dressier casual, but I chose this medium brown wax weight which is definitely not smart casual. So pairing is a little limited, but whatever you think you can wear with a work boot, a hiking boot, a distressed combat boot, you can wear it with this. I think denim jeans mainly, but also think of earth-toned five pocket pants and outdoorsy jackets, you know, browns, greens and so on. Think motorcycle gear, maybe leather jackets or vests, khaki shirts and work shirts or flannels. This is not a boot you'd wear to a wedding or to a professional office, but if you work in an office in an industry like construction or engineering where you move on and off work sites, yeah, this could work in your office. You can certainly wear it to a session at the pub with the guys, working around the house as a light work boot, even going to the supermarket or to the garden center or DIY store or even to friends for an outdoorsy casual social event. I've actually spent a week in this going on day-long hikes in our southwest region where there are forest trails and wet muddy hiking trails and they are perfectly suited for that. Long cool days in jeans and some warm gear is perfect for this Takano boot, especially with this deep lug commander sole. I'd say this is now my go-to hiking boot. Okay, let's dive into how these boots are constructed. As I said earlier, they are constructed using the stitch down method. This means that the uppers are shaped around the last and then flared out at the bottom and the uppers leather stitch down directly into the midsole. Now let's unpack that. So this boot has a veg tanned Colombian leather midsole that's about four mils thick. The uppers are first moulded around the last, that's the wooden mould that's in the shape of a foot, but also sculpted to pull the leather into the ultimate design shape of this boot. The front of the uppers are then flared out as you can see here and stitch down to the midsole and the rubber outsole. At the back, that portion of the uppers are turned in and stitched glued and nailed to the midsole. Where the uppers are flared, they're stitched all the way through with a double stitch. The stitch down form of construction is meant to be water resistant because the outside of the uppers forms the water barrier. There is no stitch that pushes a hole into the inside of the boot and so moisture can't wick inside. This is the first time that Bordon have done a stitch down boot and used a Vibram 100 lug sole where the lugs go all the way to the edge. So the execution I found probably wasn't perfect. On my boot, the stitching under the outsole bridged the gaps not particularly carefully between the lugs and some stitching stood out and could cut when you walked over rough rocks. Look, let me hasten to add that this does not mean the soles are going to fall apart. The rubber is not only sewn to the rest of the sole construction, it's also heavily glued and nailed and more often than not, the stitch through the outsole is reinforcement more than structure. However, more experienced stitch down boot makers like nicks and whites will ensure that the stitching moves up and down the lugs rather than bridging the gaps in mid-air. The positive is that when I contacted Andres to offer feedback, there was no pushback or excuses. And in the third batch, this was made redundant because he started using a Vibram Commando lug sole, I don't know the model number, where the lugs are little inboard leaving a gap and gave it the room at the edge to stitch merrily away. On the inside of the Tucano, there is a cork bed with a steel shank and a leather insole that's glued and stitched in as well so that overall the sole construction is sturdy resilient and comfortable. The layers of leather and the steel shank really give this boot a sturdy stability and good arch support. The heel stack on top of the full slip rubber outsole is again made of Colombian veg tanned leather and it's topped by a Vibram lug toplift which is glued and nailed, ain't nothing going to move there. These Vibram Commando soles, pretty dirty, are super grippy in the wild. The rubber is hard and durable. Vibram is an Italian company, been around for ages since 1937, founded by Vitale Bramani, Vibram, when a group of his mountaineering colleagues died in a fall that he thought could have been avoided if they had the right grippy soles on their footwear. Sometimes though, the combination of deep lugs for grip and hard rubber leads to a lot of gravel and stones as you can see getting stuck into the grooves. Still, better to spend some time after a hike or a climb to pick gravel out of the sole of your boots than to slip and break something valuable. Moving on up, my Tucano boots are made of an Italian waxed suede. Tries people might, Andres will not tell which tannery this original suede came from. While he's now switched tannery to the Mariam tannery in Italy, this leather still intrigues me. This leather is not like the waxy commander from famous English suede tannery Charles have stead, which while waxy is still quite soft, suede feeling. There's a bit of a nap on a waxy commander, especially as the wax wears off. These however feel somewhat tougher even though it's not thicker. They're about two mils thick, which is standard for boots. Somehow they feel like a wax rough out rather than a suede. Even when the wax wears off, some of the nap shows, but it's not very nappy even then. Oh just quickly, I'll explain the difference between suede and rough out. When a hide gets to a tannery, it's actually pretty thick and it gets split horizontally into a top half with a smooth side and the bottom half with a flesh side. Suede is made from the bottom half. The flesh side stays underneath in a boot make up, but the top of it, which used to be halfway in the hide, is sanded to create the net that is suede. The top half of the hide is usually made into top grain or full grain smooth leather. But if you flip it the wrong way around and you make your boots with the rough side on the outside, that is rough out. Literally rough side out. Often but not always, you can tell the difference because suede is smoother and softer and rough out is tougher and firmer. The net feels like more fibrous. Stead's waxy commander is suede, which has a coating of wax to tamp down the nap and then when that wears off, reveals all the undertone of crisp nappiness. Wax roughouts like Horween's wax flesh put on a very heavy coat of wax, so much so that when new it looks like smooth leather. But when the wax wears off that, you get a much rougher kind of nap appearing. This wax suede is like a cross between the two. It's not as rough napped as rough out, but it feels firm in the hand. I like it. It feels tough as I said and I know I've slipped on rocks and not had any cuts or grazes put on the leather. The waxy beeswax smell is delicious. The stitching on the uppers mainly double stitched and it looks pretty steady, uniform to me. There's no loose stitching, no wheel marks and no wild meandering now and then. I don't think the toe cap is a real toe cap. I think it's stitched on at the end of a vamp piece, but it is quite rigidly structured by I think a real leather stiffener. The heel counter is also stiffly reinforced to keep your heel firmly in the heel cap. It's an external heel counter with this two-piece backstay, the heel cover and this backstay that goes up the back covering the seam and forming the pull loop. You can see how tough that is. The boot is fully lined with this gorgeous red leather. As Dale from Aero Surfer LV says there's a party going on in there. It certainly wakes me up when I pull the boots toward me to pull them on. The tongue is lined but ungusseted. Not my favorite because my right foot has a weird tendency to allow ungusseted tongues to slide to the right. In this case there's no tongue slit. I think because the wax weight and the lining are so firm. Now I'll talk about comfort later but while I say that the wax weight is tough, don't mistake that for uncomfortable. The tough uppers are durable but quite malleable. They feel like hard thick leather but they mold and shape your feet well. There are five antique brass eyelets and three antique brass speed hooks. I think the total of eight fasteners helped to make this look like a taller boot without looking like you're really just adding brass for hardware sake. As I said the proportion of these things are really well designed. Turning to sizing and how they fit. While feeling firm this leather was comfortable out of the box. There was hardly any break in for me. I had to flex the sole construction a bit to get a comfortable walking gait. That's just breaking in the sole so that it bent where my foot bends. I also had some minor heel slip for the first couple of wears but as the sole broke in they were fine. You know often people complain about heel slip but assuming they get the right size in the first place. That heel slip is usually due to new soles not yet flexing where you and the boot maker want them to flex. Think about it when you put on new footwear with thick leather and rubber soles and they don't flex. When you walk and your foot flexes but the boot doesn't your heel will lift off the heel cap. Simple as that. Break the soles in and your heels will stay in place. As I continue to wear these the stiff leather stayed firm but molded to my feet so that the firmness was an advantage not a disadvantage as they wrap round and protect my feet. The footbed was solid but being that leather cork leather rubber combination they gradually fitted the underside of my feet as my weight compressed into them and they feel made just for me right now. Sizing is European sizing. In this stitch down boot Bordon advise you to take your normal size in boots. I'm a US 8.5D on the Brannock device and I usually wear US 8D in heritage style boots. That translates to a UK or Australian size 7 and a European size 41. In that size this fits really well. The heel isn't especially snug but it does hold my heel in the right place even over rough ground. The waist again not particularly snug but I feel held. The toebox is rounded and very comfortable with it. I can wear these with either thick or medium socks and the front feels roomy yet supportive. If you're in any doubt at all about sizing contact Andres on the Bordon Instagram account or through their website or check out grail.co. Now that's a website that collects loads of reviews and sizing data and uses an algorithm to then suggest the right size for you in a particular model of a particular brand. Go check it out grail.co. After some regular but not very frequent wear, I took them for a week long vacation in our southwest wine region to use them for some hikes that my wife and I took through the forests and hiking trails that are all around that area. I thought that the first days hike would give me some potential problems because I didn't think I'd really warn them in enough to call them broken in. However I had no issues at all and by the end of that week after four very long hikes through the forests they had super molded to my feet and are now incredibly comfortable. Now these cost me US $268 in November 2021. That price compares with the price you can sometimes get for say Iron Rangers. Thursday boot companies made in America Vanguard boots are listed at US $265. You can still get thorough good 6 inch mock toe wage sole boot from some places at least at that sort of price. So they are in the ballpark for the type of boot you want to compare them with. Don't try to compare them with Knicks or Truman boots. That really would be silly. You tend to get what you pay for and those are US top 400s and into the 500s. In boot forums I sometimes see people commenting that a particular medium price boot just isn't as good as Whites or Knicks. I mean come on that's like buying a Toyota and complaining that it's not as nice a car as your neighbour's Mercedes. I tell you what mate you did not pay for your Toyota what he paid for his Mercedes. End of story. What you get for your US $268 is a sturdy boot, handmade, well-constructed, pretty good materials, top line out sole and a sturdy forgiving leather. You also get if it's important to you a company that stands by being fair to its workers and being eco-conscious. What you don't get is Pacific Northwest bootmakers experience and overbuilt nature but remember a Toyota is not a merc but it is a very good car. I think its value matches the price. You should check out their current batch on their website. Go have a look. And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed my review of the second batch Bordon Tucano Boots. Hey listen do me a favour if you enjoyed it click on the like button below and why don't you subscribe. YouTube tells me that my viewers are regular visitors to my videos but most don't even subscribe. If you subscribe you don't have to rely on YouTube's algorithm to serve you a video. It'll instead just notify you when I upload a new video. So click on the like, click on the subscribe and don't miss my next video. Until then take care and I'll see you soon.