Leather Quality and Properties

[deez shoes]

Think you misread, wood does absorb moisture (hence my lines about different woods used have more or less the same absorption, differences very small), but it's not the main purpose of it when we talk about shoe trees. Shoes would dry quicker in free air, but they need the trees to keep the shape. We don't insert shoe trees for the shoes to dry quicker, to absorb moisture, we do it so they dry up in the correct way.

I misinterpreted what you meant. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[DWFII]

I personally don't care for metal or plastic trees but I am not certain that they are all that less suited to the purpose than wood. You can't have it both ways--if the shoe is going to dry from the outside, then it doesn't matter what the tree is made of or if it is finished. It's not there to soak up the moisture in any regard.

If the shoe also dries from the inside then using any tree to begin with is going to hamper that process.

Part of the problem is that moisture can cause water stains on leather if it dries too fast or unevenly. That's one end of the spectrum. Drying slowly allows that moisture to even out and lets oils that are being floated' by the water to remain in place. Treeing may have an additional benefit by 'stretching' the leather slightly--opening the pores and allowing moisture to evaporate and eliminating the creases that might 'locally' inhibit that evaporation.

I suspect that the best course of action is to let the shoes dry in open air for a period of time...an hour? two?...depending on exactly how wet the shoe is, and then put the trees in.

I suspect this is somewhat of a tempest in a teapot, when you come right down to it. Of far greater concern...from the POV of a maker concerned with longevity and structural integrity...are the various occlusive materials used, esp. in commercially manufactured shoes, that prevent the leather from breathing at all. What good is a tree or treeing when the shoe is 80% sealed with neoprene or rubber?

Would you tree your Crocs?

 

[DWFII]

Another point is that wooden lasts (which are never finished) are notorious for swelling (sometime significantly) when a boot or shoe is wet lasted over them. I don't use many wooden lasts so I can.t say definitively, but that's what I was always taught...from an era when all lasts were wood.

Whether that recommends dry lasting or plastic lasts is another question.

 

[patrickBOOTH]

You kind of want the leather to dry out as slowly as possible anyway, so it’s a benefit if a shoetree’s design inhibits this. Accelerated drying increases the potential for damage to the material, like when your favourite woolen jumper accidentally goes in the tumble dryer

My Corthay's had varnished trees. After some time I noticed mold growing on the trees. I reckon you don't want the moisture to evaporate that slowly!

 

[DWFII]

My Corthay's had varnished trees. After some time I noticed mold growing on the trees. I reckon you don't want the moisture to evaporate that slowly!

I swear, you come up with the oddest, most extreme scenarios (seldom seen anyone go through shoes like you do). Not criticizing, I believe you, but it does illustrate why some techniques and some materials are worse than others.

And why manufactuers choose the techniques (think GYW) they choose (people like you are just a statistic) and why bespoke makers choose the techniques they choose.

FWIW, I put my, all mostly, finished trees in the shoes that I tree right after wearing and leave them in there until I wear the shoes again (of course my feet don't sweat hardly at all). No problems with mold or anything else. And I never tree, nor recommend treeing, cowboy boots.

Shrug2

• DWFII
• Jul 29, 2017

?

 

[patrickBOOTH]

I'm really sorry! I don't want to be that guy! The Corthay situation was odd. I would pull out the trees after days of not wearing them and they would have droplets of sweat still on them. I actually posted about it here 10 years ago: https://www.styleforum.net/threads/wet-shoe-trees.198348/

 

[j ingevaldsson]

I personally don't care for metal or plastic trees but I am not certain that they are all that less suited to the purpose than wood. You can't have it both ways--if the shoe is going to dry from the outside, then it doesn't matter what the tree is made of or if it is finished. It's not there to soak up the moisture in any regard.

If the shoe also dries from the inside then using any tree to begin with is going to hamper that process.

Part of the problem is that moisture can cause water stains on leather if it dries too fast or unevenly. That's one end of the spectrum. Drying slowly allows that moisture to even out and lets oils that are being floated' by the water to remain in place. Treeing may have an additional benefit by 'stretching' the leather slightly--opening the pores and allowing moisture to evaporate and eliminating the creases that might 'locally' inhibit that evaporation.

I suspect that the best course of action is to let the shoes dry in open air for a period of time...an hour? two?...depending on exactly how wet the shoe is, and then put the trees in.

I suspect this is somewhat of a tempest in a teapot, when you come right down to it. Of far greater concern...from the POV of a maker concerned with longevity and structural integrity...are the various occlusive materials used, esp. in commercially manufactured shoes, that prevent the leather from breathing at all. What good is a tree or treeing when the shoe is 80% sealed with neoprene or rubber?

Would you tree your Crocs?

Don’t agree that plastic or varnishwd (metal I don’t know, and not really any shoe trees in that anyway) would be as fine as wood, once again, wood does absorb moisture to some degree but especially don’t “clog” the pores, it has a “natural” touch against the leather letting it “breath”. Agree that extensive use of some types of cement in shoes another issue though.

What I’ve learned when visiting a tannery is that the problem with letting the shoes stand to dry without trees for a couple of hours first is that the leather detracts the most while as most moist, so they didn’t not recommend that. Big risk of forgetting to insert the trees as well, and then they stand without.

I came to think of one thing that absorbs better than air drying, it’s of course newspaper pages. If I soak shoes when cleaning them I often put that in first, then shoe trees. Not sure if it’s ideal given the above, but feels better to get worst moist out first with the later, and don’t think those rare cases affect too much.

Cause as with all things, it’s if repeated and used as standard it can be problematic. Shoes won’t be up-nosed with cracked leather after one day every now and then without shoe trees.

My Corthay's had varnished trees. After some time I noticed mold growing on the trees. I reckon you don't want the moisture to evaporate that slowly!

Likely due to the pores being clogged due to the varnish (as I describe above and in first post with the plastic bag against skin analogy), in combo with your apparent hard wear on shoes.

Noted that I had writtened that varnished was fine while lacquered not, was meant to be stained not varnished, my lack of proper English there. Changed above now

 

[patrickBOOTH]

I swear, you come up with the oddest, most extreme scenarios (seldom seen anyone go through shoes like you do). Not criticizing, I believe you, but it does illustrate why some techniques and some materials are worse than others.

And why manufactuers choose the techniques (think GYW) they choose (people like you are just a statistic) and why bespoke makers choose the techniques they choose.

FWIW, I put my, all mostly, finished trees in the shoes that I tree right after wearing and leave them in there until I wear the shoes again (of course my feet don't sweat hardly at all). No problems with mold or anything else. And I never tree, nor recommend treeing, cowboy boots.

Shrug2

• DWFII
• Jul 29, 2017

?

I don't know if I have ever had gemming come loose, but I am sure if anybody out there has, it has most likely been me.

 

[DWFII]

Don’t agree that plastic or varnishwd (metal I don’t know, and not really any shoe trees in that anyway) would be as fine as wood, once again, wood does absorb moisture to some degree but especially don’t “clog” the pores, it has a “natural” touch against the leather letting it “breath”. Agree that extensive use of some types of cement in shoes another issue though.

A plastic last or tree will not 'clog' the pores. Many many makers, as well as probably all manufacturers use plastic lasts. Now, not all of them wet last nor put the uppers in steam cabinets, but if I last a pair of boots (wet), it will dry overnight sufficient for me to work with it the next morning.

For something to 'clog' the pores, it has to fill the pores and seal them off. (Is this a language thing?) Shoe cream and shoe polish will clog pores. As will neoprene cement, big time. Plastic film or plastic shoe trees may obstruct the wicking of moisture to some degree but not the way clogging would.

As for short intervals of air drying, shoemakers (or perhaps more often bootmakers) and other leather workers regularly leave wet leather out for a time to air dry somewhat before lasting or tooling, etc.. It's called 'tempering'. As long as the leather retains a modest percentage of moisture it will be 'workable.' Some even say that a 'tempered' vamp will stretch more and more easily than either a dry vamp or a wet vamp. Which is, I suspect the rationale behind steam cabinets.

As another example, I often 'hammer jack' sections of soling leather to harden them...I soak the leather until it is thoroughly wet and then let it dry until it comes back to 'dry' colour. At which point, I hammer them (and can see the residual moisture coming to the surface) and when they are dry they are at least 30% thinner, 20% larger(width and length) and 60% harder than they were--the leather was malleable., you see, despite sometime as much as 6-8 hours drying. And they will stay that way. At least until wet again. It's an old technique and forms the basis for why 'lap irons' were invented.

 

[DWFII]

I don't know if I have ever had gemming come loose, but I am sure if anybody out there has, it has most likely been me.

Too bad you didn't deconstruct those shells...would have been interesting. Oh! but those were hand welted, weren't they?

 

[BColl_Has_Too_Many_Shoes]

Don’t agree that plastic or varnishwd (metal I don’t know, and not really any shoe trees in that anyway) would be as fine as wood, once again, wood does absorb moisture to some degree but especially don’t “clog” the pores, it has a “natural” touch against the leather letting it “breath”. Agree that extensive use of some types of cement in shoes another issue though.

What I’ve learned when visiting a tannery is that the problem with letting the shoes stand to dry without trees for a couple of hours first is that the leather detracts the most while as most moist, so they didn’t not recommend that. Big risk of forgetting to insert the trees as well, and then they stand without.

I came to think of one thing that absorbs better than air drying, it’s of course newspaper pages. If I soak shoes when cleaning them I often put that in first, then shoe trees. Not sure if it’s ideal given the above, but feels better to get worst moist out first with the later, and don’t think those rare cases affect too much.

Cause as with all things, it’s if repeated and used as standard it can be problematic. Shoes won’t be up-nosed with cracked leather after one day every now and then without shoe trees.



Likely due to the pores being clogged due to the varnish (as I describe above and in first post with the plastic bag against skin analogy), in combo with your apparent hard wear on shoes.

Noted that I had writtened that varnished was fine while lacquered not, was meant to be stained not varnished, my lack of proper English there. Changed above now

Unless I misinterpreted @DWFII, he was referring to the premise of essentially placing an arbitrary object (regardless of composition) that would inevitably obstruct the natural processes from occurring (in this case drying from the interior).

Exterior drying would, as he said, be irrelevant as to what particular object was inserted into the shoe.

Wood, like Nicholas said about leather, is hygroscopic so it would make sense to use it in an unfinished state to absorb moisture. But it does call into question the actual quantity of moisture it draws in, as opposed to allowing the shoe itself to breathe. This particular aspect is what DWF, unless I'm mistaken, was referring to.

 

[DWFII]

My Corthay's had varnished trees. After some time I noticed mold growing on the trees. I reckon you don't want the moisture to evaporate that slowly!

One has to wonder what the mold was growing on? All living things need nourishment to survive...can't imagine varnish providing much if any.

 

[DWFII]

Unless I misinterpreted @DWFII, he was referring to the premise of essentially placing an arbitrary object (regardless of composition) that would inevitably obstruct the natural processes from occurring (in this case drying from the interior).

Exterior drying would, as he said, be irrelevant as to what particular object was inserted into the shoe.

Wood, like Nicholas said about leather, is hygroscopic so it would make sense to use it in an unfinished state to absorb moisture. But it does call into question the actual quantity of moisture it draws in, as opposed to allowing the shoe itself to breathe. This particular aspect is what DWF, unless I'm mistaken, was referring to.

I prefer wood trees myownself. Probably wouldn't ever use plastic trees even in a pinch. I personally...as implied by the fact that I don't tree boots...don't think the world will end if a pair of shoes aren't treed for a relatively short time.

And, on edit, I do believe that wood will absorb moisture. Hence my remarks about wood lasts swelling when a boot is wet last on it. I was taught that such swelling could be as much (or more) than 1/8" in circumference. A foot can 1/16" in circumference. And 1/8" is +/- one size in width.

 

[BColl_Has_Too_Many_Shoes]

I prefer wood trees myownself. Probably wouldn't ever use plastic trees even in a pinch. I personally...as implied by the fact that I don't tree boots...don't think the world will end if a pair of shoes aren't treed for a relatively short time.

Not that I would own Cowboy boots (or ever owned), as it is not my style, but why wouldn't you use trees for Cowboys boots?

Would the development of upward toes be beneficial for easier walking? It may be crazy thinking, but just visually looking at a boot structurally it looks stiff! Much more so than dress shoes or work boot. Almost as if it would make more sense to have them shaped like a Khussa to allow for a more natural gait.

 

[DWFII]

Not that I would own Cowboy boots (or ever owned), as it is not my style, but why wouldn't you use trees for Cowboys boots?

Would the development of upward toes be beneficial for easier walking? It may be crazy thinking, but just visually looking at a boot structurally it looks stiff! Much more so than dress shoes or work boot. Almost as if it would make more sense to have them shaped like a Khussa to allow for a more natural gait.

Well, the theory is that since boot lasts (for pull-on boots) do not have a curved or cupped heel to the degree that a shoe last does (or should), the tops need to be pulled forward to prevent the heel of the foot from slipping. So it's a functional and mechanical thing.

And yes, it does facilitate the rocker motion (of gait) that so many bootwearers desire.

But beyond all that, my own thoughts are that since a boot such as I make is wet lasted, it is 'tighter to the wood', as who should say and stretched such that it is more stable in terms of size than a dry lasted shoe or boot. Fundamentally, it doesn't need to be 'resized' every time it is worn.

And just incidentally, boot people like the boot to look like what it is--ultimately a 'tool' regardless of cost or leather. Like that slightly upturned toe. It's a cultural thing, I guess.