It hurt like hell.

You’re probably assuming that I hit my finger. Because that would be a normal type of injury when using a hammer.

Wrong. I’d somehow managed to hit the fleshy area of my palm under the thumb. I’d never hit myself there before, and I assume you also haven’t either. It’s definitely not a normal place to whack yourself with a hammer.

So you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you, it hurt even more than hitting my finger.

But, there’s always a silver lining. The idea of today’s journal entry.

The worst injuries I’ve given myself whilst bootmaking. Some are what you’d expect, some are what you’d never imagine.

And here they are, in no particular order.

My thumb, cut lengthwise.

Let’s start with a bloody one to get the ball rolling.

After attaching a wedge sole to the midsole of a boot, I was using an English paring knife to trim off the excess around the welt. This is normally done prior to putting it on the belt sander.

Cutting off the excess of an outsole is far more efficient than trying to sand it down, especially if the outsole is much larger than the shape of the welt and/or midsole.

The boot was in its last and lying on its side as I sliced through the wedge. I was cutting with my right hand, slowly applying pressure on the knife as I sliced chunks off the outsole at an angle.

My left hand was stabilising the last and peeling the outsole away as I cut, allowing the knife to slice smoothly without drag.

I must have hit an air bubble or an internal defect, because as I was slicing, the knife suddenly gave way and sliced straight through the rest of wedge like butter.

It also sliced through the top of my thumbnail on my left hand, embedding itself 3mm into the flesh underneath.

Now, if you’re not a bootmaker, you’re probably thinking 3mm is nothing.

So let me briefly introduce you to the concept of scale.

A 3mm error when painting a bedroom wall is nothing to worry about. Because 3mm in relation to the size of the wall is immaterial.

Conversely, a 3mm error in patternmaking though means a boot won’t fit the last, no matter how hard you try to last it. Because in relation to the size of a boot, 3mm is quite large.

Regardless. 3mm, 3cm or 30cm; they all feel the same when you have a 6 inch knife sticking out of your thumbnail.

Blood was pissing everywhere, it destroyed the boot, covered the bench and filled the wound. When I took the knife out, I couldn’t find the cut, there was so much blood covering it.

Luckily it hurt very much. At least this meant I hadn’t severed a nerve.

Fast forward months later, the thumbnail healed, the flesh underneath healed; everything was back to normal.

Swiss cheese hands.

I’d finished carving the holdfast, prepping the insole for handwelting. The final step in the process was to prepunch the holes for stitching.

This meant, taking an inseaming awl and pushing it through the 8mm wide holdfast (rib) made of leather.

As a side note, this step isn’t needed when using gemming as a holdfast.

Gemming, being a softer canvas of around 3mm thick, doesn’t need stitching holes to be prepunched. Due to its thinner structure, the welt can be stitched onto the gemming in a single step.

Anyway, back to the upcoming injury.

I’d marked 9mm intervals around the holdfast, indicating where I’d need to punch through with my awl.

Steadying the last in my lap with my left hand, I dip the awl into wax with my right hand, line it up at the base of the holdfast and apply pressure. The awl then pushes through, targeting an exit point at the base of the holdfast on the other side.

A few holes had been punched when, in the middle of the next punch, suddenly the holdfast gave way. It must have hit a section of loose grain in the leather.

The awl ripped through the height of the holdfast, embedding itself 2mm into the fleshy part of my left thumb (again?!!!)

A very neat hole filled itself with blood when I pulled the awl out. The holdfast was fine, aside from the single ripped hole. That wasn’t a problem really, I could just punch another hole a few mm to the side of it.

And nobody would ever see the blood marks on the insole.

Discovering skin is like an onion.

I’d read that human skin is like an onion, apparently it also has many layers. But until seeing it myself, I never really thought about it much.

I was doing a rough shaping on the belt sander, using 24 grit paper. It was my first time shaping a logger heel; something that I’d always admired for its beautiful curves.

So as I was turning the boot on the belt sander, trying to get the right angle for the concave heel shape, I managed to sand the middle knuckle on the middle finger of my left hand. I was very focused on shaping the heel, so didn’t really notice I’d sanded myself.

As in, I knew I’d sanded my finger, but it happens quite often. Painful yes, but it’s short and sharp. You just get on with it so as to not lose focus.

After all, it’s better to sand your finger than sand the wrong part of the boot.

Only later after the sanding was done, I’d realised that my finger wasn’t just bleeding, but also oozing a clear liquid from the wound. After doing some cleaning up, I held my finger up to inspect the damage. From the side, I could see that it wasn’t just a normal graze.

There was now a visibly clear divot of around 2mm in my knuckle.

And from the top view, I saw that the belt sander had sanded through layers of skin. I could even count them. Amazing.

Chemical burns.

I store my brushes for applying contact cement in two glass jars. Each are filled with thinner and are airtight.

After finishing a contact cement session, I’ll swirl the brush in one jar for an initial clean, and then store it in the second jar, where it’ll sit until I need to use it again.

Over time, the sediment and leftover contact cement accumulates in the thinner, which, at the end of every month, I empty out, refilling the jars with clean thinner and replacing any brushes that need replacing.

If anyone’s interested, my thinner is an equal mix of Methyl Ethyl Ketone and Toluene.

One day as I was transferring Toluene from its 1L tin into the brush jar, my aim was quite shitty.

I managed to mis-aim and instead poured the Toluene over my left hand.

Immediately my hand had a burning, itching sensation. It was a bit slick and sticky to the touch, with a strange rubbery feel. I washed it as best as I could, but there was still a strange sensation for a few hours afterwards.

When I tried to rub the stickiness away, I managed to rub off the hair on my hand and lower arm. Who needs waxing when you’ve got Toluene.

And after doing some research later that day, I discovered that the burning sensation was my skin dissolving.

I managed to do the same thing a few times again, once even knocking over the entire glass of Toluene into my lap.

You can imagine the hilarity that ensued.

Unexpected muscle pulling.

When a boot is finished, the last needs to be taken out.

To give a bit of context, a last can be cut in many ways in order to make the de-lasting easier. It really depends on what type of boot or shoe is being made, as well as what de-lasting machinery is in the workshop.

In my case, my de-lasting equipment consists of a lasting jack, a leather strap with a hook and my two arms.

Most of my lasts are cut through the instep. This allows the instep to be removed separately, with the remainder of the last able to be removed immediately afterwards.

To de-last a boot, I sit holding the boot upside down in my lap, with the toe pointing towards me. I step on the leather strap, with the attached hook at the other end being hooked into a hole on the instep of the last.

Then I lean back and pull the boot towards me. With a bit of luck, the hook pulls out the instep section of the last. Repeat one more time to pull out the rest of the last.

Over time, I’ve noticed that I’ve pulled a muscle on the inside of my left elbow. Paying closer attention to my de-lasting movement, I’ve realised that my left arm is at a very awkward angle as I go through the pulling motion.

My right arm grips the boot at the heel and pulls back and upwards, whilst my left arm is holding the hook into the hole at the top of the instep.

This moderates the pulling pressure so that the hook doesn’t slip out during the motion, and, when the instep piece comes out, I don’t suddenly fly backwards.

For one reason or another, this has resulted in an ever-present pulled muscle on the inside of my left arm.

And according to Dr. Google, the symptoms seem to be similar to golfer’s elbow.

Lessons learnt.

1. I need a better de-lasting technique.

2. I don’t need to waste time with golf if I want golfer’s elbow.

Fin.

So there you have it. Some of the less glamorous moments of bootmaking life.

Editor’s note (me).

I forgot to finish the story at the start of the journal. Hammering my hand.

There was a big blue hammerhead-shaped mark on my palm, with a sharp red dot in the middle of it. It swelled up like a balloon. I’d somehow pinched the skin between the hammer and the outsole I was hammering.

I have no idea how this was even possible.

I’m sure it’ll happen again though.