Clarks Desert Boots : Update

The Clarks DBs is my daily beaters. Easy to wear and comfortable for whole day walking and standing. I just love how the beeswax leather is evolving with the different tones of shades. Amazing.

This pair of boots had got several compliments from people when I wore it out. *happy*

As you can see, its quite dirty with the dust and minor scuffs. Those will go off if I apply Obenauf's Leather Oil onto it but I just want to keep it rugged for a little while more. ;)


P.S: From now on, I will try to take pictures of my leather goods in natural daylight. Those previous pictures of my goods taken in my room don't seem to do them any justice. Don't you think so?

DIY Project: Leather Tray

Hello everyone. As I looked through the leather remnants that I got, I decided to make something useful out of it. So I decided to make a Leather Tray this time round.

It's much more simple than my first project and from the experience of it, I learnt that this leather is too soft for such leathercrafting, hence I decided to stick 2 ply together.

Here's the final product:

Some of my EDCs shown here as well. :)

The stitching

Now my table looks SLIGHTLY neater all thanks for this tray. 

And I am thinking of what to embark on next. Some suggestions perhaps? Simple for a beginner like me yet fun to work on. Hope to get some good ideas from you guys/girls.. 

Till then, Adios!

New insoles for my Red Wing GT

Those who had been following my blog will remember that I bought 2 pairs of TACCO insoles earlier. 1 is for the RW and the other is for the DBs.

Sad to say, even the TACCO insole was too small for my RW GT. I bought the largest size they have in store and its still smaller than my boot. (I wear a size 10 for RW)

Besides that, the arch support for the TACCO insoles are protruding sidewards and pushing onto the boot. Although its not much of a concern now, I'm worried that prolong protruding on the leather will cause a permanent mark on the boot which I wouldn't want.

Here, an insole I have to retire it early. It was very comfortable and very good looking (who the F looks and admire insoles!?)

Hence, I bought a replacement sole for my GTs. They are OK in terms of comfy without insoles. But I do walk and stand quite a fair bit and I want some shock absorption and comfort. I bought the authentic Red Wing RedBed insoles.

Really hope they will fit just nice for my GTs. Can't wait to try them out tomorrow!

DIY Project : Wallet

Finally got my hands on the tools required for leather crafting and the first project that I embarked on, a wallet.

It was an ambitious one for a beginner like me as I have absolutely NO IDEA on how to go about doing it. All I can do is to reverse engineer it from my existing wallet and pray it won't come out looking like crap.

Lots of trial and errors during the process

Using the leather remnants. It's a waste to let these precious leather go to rubbish bin.

After 4 hours of work, finally something that vaguely looks like a wallet came about:

Nope. I'm not an Indonesian.. Just using some notes from my Bintan Tour earlier to cover up the bad-looking stitching.

The leather was difficult to work on because it was very thin and soft. There are portions where 5 layers of leather were overlapping and it was yet fairly easy to sew. This shows how soft it was. Not an ideal leather to work on for small leather goods.

All in all, it was an interesting experience and thrilled to be able to get my hands on the tools.

Leather bracelets from H&M Hong Kong

Saw this good looking bracelet when I was shopping in H&M and with the price of HKD$29.90 a piece, I can't help to grab 1 brown and 1 black. They are simple bracelets and Made in China. Can't expect much with that price eh? They are easy to wear but for the first few times I wore it, I can't seem to "wrap" it nicely around my wrist.

And suddenly, I thought of what I learnt back in scouting days.

Clove hitch.

BINGO!

I just wrap them around my wrist like how we used to tie the clove hitch and it will look nicely wrapped around the wrist without much mess.

Love it!

Red Wing GT 9013 to Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai,China

Hi readers! It's been a while since I updated my blog cos I was away on a trip to Hong Kong, the shopping paradise!

Yes, it indeed is a shopping haven and I returned home a poorer man. :(
I shall not discuss about my awesome purchases in HK as not all of them are leather goods, so it is not related to my blog. For more details, you can refer to my post in this forum.

Anyway, here are some pics of my Red Wing Gentleman Traveler 9013 with my trip.

Took this in the Ibis Hotel room. Great harbour view but insanely tiny room with uber-hard mattress.

While in the ferry to Macau

On top of the Macau tower. Awesome view!

Can't really see the details on my boots but I like the selvedge line with the boots.

If you haven't notice, the laces were not the original ones. I changed it to the Obenauf's laces prior to my trip as I thought it will be more suitable ( I was expecting typhoon and hot sun and heavy rain). But they were difficult to take off and I think I will revert back to the original laces for my daily usage.

Clarks Desert Boots + Leather Laces!

As per requested from a reader, Gary, in my previous post;

Here are some pics of the light brown leather lace with Clarks Desert Boots. First I have to apologise for the poor lighting in my room, will definitely post a picture of some fit pics during day time for better viewing.

Here goes:

Bottom Left was without Flash

The rest are with Flash

The light brown simply goes with the Beeswax Desert boots perfectly. It's so perfect that I can't help but wonder why didn't they use this as a default laces in the first place.

Coincidentally, Valetmag also have an article about Desert Boots today. 

The Four Season Shoe

From the article, did you find that now the Clarks DB I have with the leather laces looks like the one from SeaVees? It's purely coincidental!