The JR Fiddleback Sole and Heel are known to be stylish and hard-wearing. The gable is a very elegant shoe and employs a design technique called a Fiddleback construction. Wherein there is a ridge of leather ‘bump’ in the sole that extends along the waist and under the heel block. Consequently, this provides more support.
Our process
- We take off all the old sole and heel block and rebuild them from the ground up.
- We remove the old cork and re-cork using spreadable cork rather than sheet cork. This way, it doesn’t change the shape of the footbed.
- and fit the new JR leather sole.
- We unpick the welt thread earlier and welt stitched the new leather on, using waxed right twist linen. We don’t use braided nylon thread as it doesn’t look as nice and tends to break down quicker.
- After that, we rebuilt the heel block layer by layer.
- As a final ode to the shoemaking heritage, we hand-dyed the leather sole and heel and hand polished the black waist of the shoe to a high shine.
- Using brass nails from a foundry in France we applied a decorative element to the heel.
The technical stuff
The Baxter & Black difference…
There is a huge difference in quality and wear when it comes to leathers. Baxter & Black uses Jon Rendenbach from Germany instead of local leathers like other shoe repairers. JR leathers are oak bark, pit tanned for six months. Local leather is vegetable tanned which doesn’t impart durability during the tanning process. This means the amount of tannage in JR leather is a lot more than regular leather. Therefore, the leather lasts around three times longer.
