Shoe Making: Men's Practise Derby V2

for V2 I made adjustments to the Darby curve, to the width of the facing gap, to the lining pattern, and several of the construction methods.

A much better outcome.

I went with NO hemmed edges to speed things up, still using the cow belly outer and pig skin lining.

I moved the heel lap further around the side and to the inside of each shoe.

Now I understand the reinforcement stitching that is common on a Derby, this is obviously a place for detailed expression.

I used the Jesse Moore recommendation to stitch the facing gap instead of lacing it. It has the effect of maintaining the relationship between the two faces more accurately (and believe me the lasting process can pull these two in very different directions making a real mess out of the finish product.) It is still very important to center-check the gap because it too can be pulled of center very easily. It is however not that easy to stitch so maybe there is a trick to it?
Note toe puff & counter experiment:
I used my personally developed technique for making the counter and toe puff. I have been experimenting with Gorilla glue. with the common shoulder leather typically used for reinforcement I soak it for 15 min and then coat both sides with Gorilla glue using a credit-card squeegee, forcing the glue in and leaving just a little sheen on top. You MUST wear gloves and work on a slick plastic surface that can be thrown away or cleaned. Gorilla glue is a strange form of moisture reactive adhesive that expands while it hardens, it is beautiful for leather except that it can be a terrible mess, I don't recommend playing around with any thing but practice pieces until you see all of the concerns for yourself. However it does make a perfect reinforcement; it is stiff when hard and allows the use of very thin reinforcement leather. It is kind of like a moldable plastic.

Fully lasted and stitched with the out-sole assembly ready to be bonded together.

The goal here is to learn as much as possible by going thru the entire process making incremental changes and to see and feel the "cause and effect" of the process.