Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BOOT AND SHOE MAKING. 55 goods are kept in stock, or which might render the upper less pliable in wear. Where “ fitting ” is reduced to a minimum a higher skill is required on the part of the machinist. One of our illustrations shows the Reece buttonhole machine, which is capable of cutting, stitching, and finishing 6,000 holes per day. Eyeletting is performed on another high-speed machine, a well-known type of which will punch and eyelet at the rate of 180 holes per minute. There are also in this department rapid machines for beating level the seams of closed uppers, for turning over skived edges, rounding them into a bead, and a machine which auto- matically cuts and shapes the beading which underlies “ button bits.” It is here also that machines attach buttons, and 10,000 per clay is not too many for an operator to attach. The necessity for having work done rapidly upon expensive machines, which can only be purchased by men with capital, has led to the “ boot upper ornamenter ” to the trade. In every large shoe town there are men who have a fixed charge for doing everything necessary in the closing room, whether in the way of ornamenting uppers by stitches or perforations, or attaching uppers to the bottoms by means cf heavier sewing and stitching machinery. 7 hey send vans round to pick up and return work, and it is also sent to them from the out- lying districts and returned by an early post or parcels despatch. Leaving the closing room, we come to the “ bottoming department.” There are several means of attaching uppers to bottom leather. There is the rivet of brass or iron, the wood peg, and thread stitch. The “ Blake ” sole sewer sews right through, the stitch lying in a channel ploughed in the outer sole, and showing inside the boot on the inner sole, needing a sock to prevent contact with the wearer’s foot. The “ Blake ” was introduced in the early ’sixties, and has never been displaced. In the “turn-shoe” the upper whilst inside-out is attached to a single sole, by machine or by hand, with a curved needle. Finally there is the “ hand- method principle ” welted boot, which has a welt, as in hand-sewn, attached to both upper and inner sole. The welt is attached to the outer sole by a “ fair stitching ” machine, which also sews in a channel, leaving on the welt those regular pearl-like stitches which, when “ pricked up,” enhance the appearance of the machine-made boot. This form of attachment is, moreover, nearly equal to that of the hand-stitched article. It is necessary that every part which enters into the bottom should be cut to the right size and shape, and should also be moulded under great pressure. So far as outer soles are concerned, the leather is first cut in strips wide enough for the full length of the sole, and for the purpose of “ dicing out ” a deep knife is used, so that the operator may lift it from cut to cut until he has a number of soles, before removing it from the press block of wood to empty it. Boys chop on a press the “ lifts ” which go to make up a heel, and they also assist adult operators at n 11 m e r ous mach in es. They build heels, the several por- t i o n s of which are held t o- 1 HAND-METHOD LASTING MACHINE.