I have just noticed that there is a hole in my boots.
To test the hypothesis that modern materials science and manufacturing techniques had rendered obsolete Sam Vimes’ famous saying about boots, last autumn I bought the cheapest winter boots available at Walmart.
They are not fashionable, well-fitting, or particularly warm, but they looked indestructible and waterproof — made of seemingly tough material with good think soles. The soles probably are indeed indestructible, but just at the heel where they meet the other part of the boot, some kind of design flaw has resulted in a hole in exactly the same spot on each boot after only one winter of light use.
I will patch them and see if the repair holds next year.
Of course there is!
How else would you get your foot in?I have a pair of army boots from 1982. They were brand new when i started wearing them in 2019. I retired them this year only because i would like to keep them in good condition for nostalgic reasons. I’m fairly certain they could last another year. I replaced them with some Thursday boots. While i believe they will hold up as many years as the old military boots they are very stinky. Whatever Thursday does to their leather it reeks for months. Do not recommend them because of the toxic smell. They are comfortable though.
Picture is from July 2022.
After this i started taking them to a cobbler to polish as the military shin was cracking the leather.Buy once cry once, never skimp on anything that keeps you off the ground, which is to say, shoes, mattress, tires, etc.
At least the two of those three are most certainly not buy once items and the shoes of Theseus might also not qualify.
Where is the hole?
The shoes
Well that’s rather a personal question, isn’t it??
The holes are right at the bottom of the outer shell of the boot. It’s a spot that never makes any contact with the ground or anything else, so it’s just due to repeated flexing wearing out the material. Wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t need them to be waterproof.
It remains to be seen if it’s just some kind of pressure point affecting only that spot, or whether the whole thing is going to disintegrate.
@kbal @How_do_I_computah I bought a pair of boots that exhibited this fault. Not even a year has passed, and the soles still have all the tread. Was considering goo this week, or back to the shop.
Interesting. How do you plan on patching them?
Hurricane tape, “shoe goo”, and paint. It’s a pretty solid combination.
You can get better contact cement than shoe goo, pretty much any hardware store should have some, better quality for a better price usually. That as seen on tv shit is made to be sold to people who don’t know better to use once or twice, you wanna get the stuff made to be used and abused in a work environment.
The thing about the boots quote is these days even if you buy the “nice” pair they still fall apart after a year.
Very untrue, O faceless internet complainer. My Danners, my Redwings, and even my Keens have all held up wonderfully after years of use.
Cool anecdote, bro. Your personal experience trumps empirical evidence of modern companies reducing costs by using cheaper materials for established brands to generate profits.
Man, do you even hear yourself? Log off.
There’s even a term for it: skimpflation. Maybe instead of getting into internet slap fights you instead get yourself educated.
