#Horween Chromexcel

[hawkesmillbags]

The beautiful and very capable Fuji X-T5. With some of our favourite goodies: Artisan Obscura's hot shoe cover and soft release button.

All kept nicely together with our Kensington black stitched camera neck strap.

[aldenarmy]

[tasselshongkong]

[ Alden 🇺🇸 ] 379x Naval Service Shoes Friendly customer shares a few nice shots of his black Chromexcel service shoes. • 友好客人分享一對正在操練中的Alden 379x 軍用楦 Horween 黑色油皮官兵鞋。 • #alden #handmadeshoes #madeinusa #militarylast #horween #chromexcel #mto #makeup #madefortassels #customerphoto #aldenasia #aldenpeople #aldenchina #aldenhongkong #official #官方代理 #地區限定 #合作款式 #客人回圖 #二戰時期 #軍用楦 #379x #客人分享 #真Alden #非致敬 #Alden中國 #Alden香港 #靚鞋專科 #dontsettleforless #tasselshongkong (at K11 Musea) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpe8DnhPypY/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[bisonstraps]

Black Horween Leather Strap

Horween Chromexcel Leather: This luxury watch band is crafted from premium calfskin which are soured by Chicago’s renowned tannery, Horween Leather Company. Unique texture and color, handsome looks and durability, meet the high requirements of collectors and watch enthusiasts

High Quality: The front side is made of Horween leather and the back is lined with soft and comfortable suede leather, offers the ultimate in comfort and durability. Good contrasting stitching and meticulously hand-painted edges, we care the details to ensure wearing for a long time

Select Proper Width: Available in 18mm,19mm,20mm, 21mm, 22mm, 23mm, 24mm widths, compatible with most traditional or smart watch, please measure your watch lug width and select the right size

Band Length: 120mm(4.72") for longer band, 70mm(2.75") for shorter band (not counting the buckle), fits wrists 6"-8"(155mm-200mm) in circumference, but watch geometry may also impact fit

Free 4 Piece Spring Bars and Tool Included: No need to buy a separate 4pcs spring bars and tool to your new watch strap. Get this beautiful strap on your wrist as soon as you tear open the package, very convenient

[dandyshoecare]

For sale hand-stitched bespoke belt created by Alexander Nurulaeff

https://www.vinted.it/items/5232297647-bespone-hand-stitched-belt-in-horween-chromexcel-leather

[secondlifep]

So I did a thing ... I've been slowly build up my leather working skills because I got the bug... Slowly working on more and more complicated things and/or trying different techniques to hone some skills ... First big goal is to build a backpack similar to one that an amazing friend has - which has been inspiring me for about 6-7 months now. :-) Along the way, I was finally able to get my new camera (after 222 days on a waiting list) ... and so I decided to try my hand at making my very own leather strap for it ...

I'm quite please with the results ... It definitely has that "home made" vibe to it as you can see with reasonable inspection of my finishing ... but that doesn't matter to me ...

As for materials, Horween Chromexcel Leather in Black, Maine Thread, Seiwa Tokonole for the edge finishing and 7+ hours or work, including 5+ hours of hand stitching...

And the solid brass split rings are a nod back to the early days of Leica and their use of brass is making their camera bodies...

Overall I am quite happy....

[cleverhottubmiracle]

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. Any products or services put forward appear in no particular order. if you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. The Iron Snail So why do some mechanics prefer to use 111-year-old leather on vital oil rig seals to keep everything closed instead of modern plastics and rubber? Have you ever had a wine or tea that makes your mouth feel dry? The reason your mouth feels dry is because there are tannins in those wines and teas, and similar tannins go into this leather we’re talking about today. This leather is some of the most magical leather on the entire planet. I’m assuming when it came out 111 years ago, the world lost its mind, and I’m correct because even to this day, 111 years later, this is one of the most popular leathers on the planet. So What’s Up With This Ancient Leather? During World War II, 18 million square feet of this leather was being produced per month. That’s more than what this factory has produced in many, many years. This leather changed everything – from being worn in boots to being in tanks, to being in airplanes, to being in trucks. Oh, and speaking of absolutely insane stories: 3 years before the Second World War, in Krakow, Poland, a man said, “Hey, I think it’s a great idea for me to start a footwear company,” and everybody said, “Yeah, doesn’t seem like anything’s going to go wrong soon.” And then World War II happened, especially in Poland, and somehow this company still exists. That company’s name is Goral Footwear. The Iron Snail My Journey to Sheffield and These Sweet Boots They moved to Sheffield, England in 2005. I flew to Scotland in 2024. Goral reached out to me and said, “Michael, why don’t you swing by England? We’ll make you a pair of boots, and then you can leave.” I said, “Okay, Goral, that sounds great. I’ll be right there.” I got on a Scottish plane where the seats were made of Harris Tweed. I flew to Sheffield, England, then went into a factory in Sheffield, England, where people only speak Polish, and got boots made for me. What a crazy journey Goral had so far – they survived World War II, and now they’re surviving the internet! Let’s Break Down Today’s Boot Review The Iron Snail The boots I got are called the Sharman boots, and I wore the black ones in Scotland for the entire time – every day, on the plane, when I got home, everything through rain, sleet, snow, ocean water. Obviously, they held up fantastically, and the brown ones on my feet are going through their maiden voyage right now in Vermont (by right now, I mean about half an hour ago when I was brainstorming this article). Let’s get into thisGoral Sharman boot review. So anyways, this is today’s agenda: Number one – what happened 111 years ago that made the US military want 18 million square feet of this leather per month? Number two – sorry, Goral, but your boots are made weird, but that’s not a bad thing. Tricked you, tricked you! You should have seen your face! They are made weird. I’m not lying, but there is a benefit that I like to them. I do it on every boot article. I’ll talk about it later, and this is a little better than most boots. Number three is called catastrophic failure – that is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article. We’ll elaborate on that more. And number four, there are two things that I would change on these boots to make them the perfect boots for me in this style: the combat Doc Marten alternative, whatever you want to call it. Let’s Talk Horween Leather The Iron Snail If you’re a big fat leather nerd, you already know what I’m talking about, but this is Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel, CXL, whatever you want to call it. Horween was founded in Chicago in 1905, and they sold mostly shell cordovan because people used it as a razor strop, but then Gillette came along and said, “Hey, screw the straight razor, what about disposable razors?” and everybody was like, “Ah, that sounds better.” And in 1913, what got really popular after it was invented, of course, was Chromexcel leather. The Science Behind Leather Tanning (With Spaghetti!) The Iron Snail This wouldn’t be a completeGoral Sharman boot review if we didn’t talk about leather so here we go. When Horween was making this leather, they could have processed it in two different ways: they could have chrome tanned it, or they could have vegetable tanned it, or technically, they could also have brain tanned it or oil tanned it. They did none of those things, but at the same time, they also did vegetable tanning and chrome tanning and sandwiched them together. But to truly understand how vegetable tanning and chrome tanning come together to make Chromexcel, you need to have a basic understanding of how leather tanning works. We are tightening spaghetti. The Iron Snail By the way, a lot of this information comes from Nick Horween, Horween themselves – there’s a really awesome podcast called the Full Grain podcast where they talk extensively about Chromexcel leather, which I highly recommend. But anyways, on one of those podcast episodes, they were talking about what tanning leather actually does, and the example that they gave is: picture a big bowl full of spaghetti that you can wiggle. It’s loose, it’s all over around and everything like that. When you tan leather, lock all of that spaghetti together. You can’t, you know, sift your little fingers through it or anything like that. It is now locked, and it’s a strong piece of leather. The Army Analogy – How Tanning Really Works The Iron Snail I’m going to use soldiers as an analogy instead (the spaghetti one just kind of grosses me out). The phrase “tanning leather” stems from one of the original ways of tanning leather – vegetable tanning. In things like tree bark and tea and wine, like I was talking about before, there is something, or are something, called tannins – big fat molecules that make your mouth feel dry. Those tannins in the vegetable matter bond to collagen molecules and essentially lock everything down. The Iron Snail To go to my analogy, picture a bunch of people in a wide-open field just running around crazy. They’re running amuck and picture me, a bad guy in this scenario, walking on the field. I can get past everybody pretty easily because people run by, I wait, and then I go in, and I can get into the center of the field. And that’s what happens when a dead animal’s skin is not processed – it rots, bacteria come in, and anything can get into it and destroy it. But if we introduce tannins to those people who are running around like crazy in the field, all of a sudden, they are an army, all locked together hand in hand, not letting anything in. So the now-leather doesn’t go bad, doesn’t get gross, and things can’t be introduced into it. Two Different Armies: Vegetable vs Chrome Tanning Now, vegetable tanning and chrome tanning make two different kinds of armies. Vegetable tanning – remember I said it was important that the tannins are big and fat – they’re so big it takes a long time to actually get into the hide and start this cross-linking process, start making all of the soldiers. So you have to leave the hides in this solution for a much longer time, but there are a lot of benefits to vegetable tanning. There are also some to chrome tanning, but they’re different. The Iron Snail Vegetable tanning, if we’re sticking to this army analogy – a huge, huge army, an extensive massive army, and all the soldiers are holding hands, and they cover the entire battlefield. That makes a very stiff and very rigid leather, and also, since they’re holding hands, there are pockets that make the leather more breathable than chrome tan, which we will talk about in a second. But it’s a very stiff and moldable leather. If you get it wet, you can mold leather to a different shape. The vegetable tanning process is also much more natural, which results in a much more natural leather. It patinas over time, darkens, and can get water spots because it’s porous – water can enter more easily. The Iron Snail Chrome tanning is essentially the complete opposite of vegetable tanning. It’s incredibly fast, and it’s not natural. It doesn’t use tannins – it uses chromium salt, which gets into the leather – well, gets into the hide and boom, then it becomes leather in like a day, when the vegetable tanning process is way, way, way longer. And that means the cross-linking that happens, the army that is forming, is different from vegetable tan. The chromium army would not be as extensive, it wouldn’t be as huge and widespread, but it’d be very highly trained soldiers very, very close together, almost bonded together. So they’re a specialized impenetrable force, which means the leather is softer and more pliable because it’s not this extensive network of rigid people all across the battlefield. Also, since everything is so close together, the leather is less breathable and more water resistant. The Iron Snail So, both have cons and pros. Oh, drat, those both sound so cool – I wish I could have both at the same time! Well, guess what? You can have both at the same time! But when I called Horween, I said, “You can have both at the same time,” they said, “Yeah, but that’s not good enough – we can do even more!” So they did even more. That’s not the end of how Chromexcel leather is made – there’s one more thing that makes it cool. Let’s Get Technical About These Boots The Iron Snail To put it simply, these boots are constructed in a very peculiar way, and these are not cheap boots. These are very luxurious boots. They are expensive boots, do not get me wrong, but they feel expensive. They are beefy tanks constructed interestingly. Obviously, we know the outer leather is Horween Chromexcel, but these are also leather-lined, and the leather lining is half as thick as the outer Chromexcel lining. However, that’s very thick – these are thick boots. This is actually a combination of two different things. So this is a Blake stitched boot through and through, all in all, but it’s also sidewall stitched, which you see if you look at your sneakers, there’s usually a sidewall, the rubber that comes up onto the upper, and you see stitching around that. That’s exactly what’s happening here. The Iron Snail So when you are repairing these or resoling them or whatever, the actual shape of the boot never needs to get modified, and it’s cool – it gives you a little bit more water resistance, which I will test in a second. You’re not undoing the Blake stitch, and you’re getting the sidewall stitch out, pulling it off, popping another one on, and restitching it. So, really, these aren’t the most water-resistant boots – they’re not rubber boots or anything like that, but they are very water-resistant even past the sidewall. They’re really water-resistant up until the Puritan stitch is on the side. You could stick your foot in the water right up to the Puritan stitch for a pretty long time, and you’re okay. I, of course, tested it, and my hypothesis was held up! The Secret Sauce – What Makes This Leather Special The Iron Snail So you have chrome tanning, you have vegetable tanning, and then you probably know where this is going based on what I said before – you have the best of both worlds, which is combination tanning. You start by chrome tanning this leather, and then you re-tan it through the vegetable tanning process, and that gives you the Hannah Montana special – the Best of Both Worlds! Leather that is still water resistant but now a little bit breathable, it’s also a little bit moldable, it also patinas, it also stays soft but is strong – it is the best of both worlds. That is why it’s the Hannah Montana special. That’s a song that she released, I think, in 2005. The Final Secret – Hot Stuffing and Oil Rigs The Iron Snail But Horween didn’t stop there – they have their combination tan leather, but they also hot stuff it. They fill this leather with oils and waxes, so much so that the leather looks wet when you have it, and so much stuff is packed inside of this leather that when you move it around, it’s a pull-up leather because you’re displacing all of the oils and everything, so you see the actual color change. It has the properties that make really high-pressure jobs want to use this over plastic or rubbers for gaskets and seals and motor seals, especially in World War II, but even now today, according to Nick Horween, the reason Chromexcel leather – and it’s not pure Chromexcel leather, it’s not this beautiful leather that’s on boots, it’s a slightly different kind of leather – the reason it’s used on gaskets and seals on oil rigs and stuff like that is because there isn’t catastrophic failure. The Iron Snail Vegetable tan leather, chrome tan leather, some plastic, some rubbers, whatever it may be – I’m baffled that there’s not a modern technology that beats it – they fail or could fail abruptly. So if you’re on a machine, a very important gasket in the engine could just fail, which sucks. But Chromexcel, what they’re using, fails slowly, so you can hear it fail over time, and you can anticipate when you need to replace a gasket, thus saving the life of whatever machine you are working on. Which is very important when you have big giant tanks and planes and trucks and stuff in World War II and the oil rigs of today. What I’d Change About These Boots The Iron Snail The first thing that I want to change – luckily for us, or you, if you like this change too, you can just do this change. Goral is a small enough company where you could request different things on your boot, but the first thing I would change is I think adding a different color sidewall stitch adds just enough pop. They look a little bit more like Doc Martens – I don’t know if you noticed that, but I do think it is a good look, and Doc Martens does it for a reason. So I would change the sidewall stitch – on the black boot, I want mine to be a really dark green, like just enough where you could see it. The Iron Snail The only thing I would like to add to these boots are speed hooks on the top three, so I can just lace these up quickly and take them off quickly. I love speed hooks – I know it’s an aesthetic thing not to put speed hooks on, but your boy likes speed hooks. Watch This Review Final Thoughts To end this Goral Sharman boot review – I would recommend these boots. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to tell you some code. I’m not trying to sell you bad boots. You can see them cut in half, and you can see them built. These are awesome boots made in Sheffield, England. Anyhoozle, thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you very soon! This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here. The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered. Source link

[norajworld]

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. Any products or services put forward appear in no particular order. if you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. The Iron Snail So why do some mechanics prefer to use 111-year-old leather on vital oil rig seals to keep everything closed instead of modern plastics and rubber? Have you ever had a wine or tea that makes your mouth feel dry? The reason your mouth feels dry is because there are tannins in those wines and teas, and similar tannins go into this leather we’re talking about today. This leather is some of the most magical leather on the entire planet. I’m assuming when it came out 111 years ago, the world lost its mind, and I’m correct because even to this day, 111 years later, this is one of the most popular leathers on the planet. So What’s Up With This Ancient Leather? During World War II, 18 million square feet of this leather was being produced per month. That’s more than what this factory has produced in many, many years. This leather changed everything – from being worn in boots to being in tanks, to being in airplanes, to being in trucks. Oh, and speaking of absolutely insane stories: 3 years before the Second World War, in Krakow, Poland, a man said, “Hey, I think it’s a great idea for me to start a footwear company,” and everybody said, “Yeah, doesn’t seem like anything’s going to go wrong soon.” And then World War II happened, especially in Poland, and somehow this company still exists. That company’s name is Goral Footwear. The Iron Snail My Journey to Sheffield and These Sweet Boots They moved to Sheffield, England in 2005. I flew to Scotland in 2024. Goral reached out to me and said, “Michael, why don’t you swing by England? We’ll make you a pair of boots, and then you can leave.” I said, “Okay, Goral, that sounds great. I’ll be right there.” I got on a Scottish plane where the seats were made of Harris Tweed. I flew to Sheffield, England, then went into a factory in Sheffield, England, where people only speak Polish, and got boots made for me. What a crazy journey Goral had so far – they survived World War II, and now they’re surviving the internet! Let’s Break Down Today’s Boot Review The Iron Snail The boots I got are called the Sharman boots, and I wore the black ones in Scotland for the entire time – every day, on the plane, when I got home, everything through rain, sleet, snow, ocean water. Obviously, they held up fantastically, and the brown ones on my feet are going through their maiden voyage right now in Vermont (by right now, I mean about half an hour ago when I was brainstorming this article). Let’s get into thisGoral Sharman boot review. So anyways, this is today’s agenda: Number one – what happened 111 years ago that made the US military want 18 million square feet of this leather per month? Number two – sorry, Goral, but your boots are made weird, but that’s not a bad thing. Tricked you, tricked you! You should have seen your face! They are made weird. I’m not lying, but there is a benefit that I like to them. I do it on every boot article. I’ll talk about it later, and this is a little better than most boots. Number three is called catastrophic failure – that is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article. We’ll elaborate on that more. And number four, there are two things that I would change on these boots to make them the perfect boots for me in this style: the combat Doc Marten alternative, whatever you want to call it. Let’s Talk Horween Leather The Iron Snail If you’re a big fat leather nerd, you already know what I’m talking about, but this is Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel, CXL, whatever you want to call it. Horween was founded in Chicago in 1905, and they sold mostly shell cordovan because people used it as a razor strop, but then Gillette came along and said, “Hey, screw the straight razor, what about disposable razors?” and everybody was like, “Ah, that sounds better.” And in 1913, what got really popular after it was invented, of course, was Chromexcel leather. The Science Behind Leather Tanning (With Spaghetti!) The Iron Snail This wouldn’t be a completeGoral Sharman boot review if we didn’t talk about leather so here we go. When Horween was making this leather, they could have processed it in two different ways: they could have chrome tanned it, or they could have vegetable tanned it, or technically, they could also have brain tanned it or oil tanned it. They did none of those things, but at the same time, they also did vegetable tanning and chrome tanning and sandwiched them together. But to truly understand how vegetable tanning and chrome tanning come together to make Chromexcel, you need to have a basic understanding of how leather tanning works. We are tightening spaghetti. The Iron Snail By the way, a lot of this information comes from Nick Horween, Horween themselves – there’s a really awesome podcast called the Full Grain podcast where they talk extensively about Chromexcel leather, which I highly recommend. But anyways, on one of those podcast episodes, they were talking about what tanning leather actually does, and the example that they gave is: picture a big bowl full of spaghetti that you can wiggle. It’s loose, it’s all over around and everything like that. When you tan leather, lock all of that spaghetti together. You can’t, you know, sift your little fingers through it or anything like that. It is now locked, and it’s a strong piece of leather. The Army Analogy – How Tanning Really Works The Iron Snail I’m going to use soldiers as an analogy instead (the spaghetti one just kind of grosses me out). The phrase “tanning leather” stems from one of the original ways of tanning leather – vegetable tanning. In things like tree bark and tea and wine, like I was talking about before, there is something, or are something, called tannins – big fat molecules that make your mouth feel dry. Those tannins in the vegetable matter bond to collagen molecules and essentially lock everything down. The Iron Snail To go to my analogy, picture a bunch of people in a wide-open field just running around crazy. They’re running amuck and picture me, a bad guy in this scenario, walking on the field. I can get past everybody pretty easily because people run by, I wait, and then I go in, and I can get into the center of the field. And that’s what happens when a dead animal’s skin is not processed – it rots, bacteria come in, and anything can get into it and destroy it. But if we introduce tannins to those people who are running around like crazy in the field, all of a sudden, they are an army, all locked together hand in hand, not letting anything in. So the now-leather doesn’t go bad, doesn’t get gross, and things can’t be introduced into it. Two Different Armies: Vegetable vs Chrome Tanning Now, vegetable tanning and chrome tanning make two different kinds of armies. Vegetable tanning – remember I said it was important that the tannins are big and fat – they’re so big it takes a long time to actually get into the hide and start this cross-linking process, start making all of the soldiers. So you have to leave the hides in this solution for a much longer time, but there are a lot of benefits to vegetable tanning. There are also some to chrome tanning, but they’re different. The Iron Snail Vegetable tanning, if we’re sticking to this army analogy – a huge, huge army, an extensive massive army, and all the soldiers are holding hands, and they cover the entire battlefield. That makes a very stiff and very rigid leather, and also, since they’re holding hands, there are pockets that make the leather more breathable than chrome tan, which we will talk about in a second. But it’s a very stiff and moldable leather. If you get it wet, you can mold leather to a different shape. The vegetable tanning process is also much more natural, which results in a much more natural leather. It patinas over time, darkens, and can get water spots because it’s porous – water can enter more easily. The Iron Snail Chrome tanning is essentially the complete opposite of vegetable tanning. It’s incredibly fast, and it’s not natural. It doesn’t use tannins – it uses chromium salt, which gets into the leather – well, gets into the hide and boom, then it becomes leather in like a day, when the vegetable tanning process is way, way, way longer. And that means the cross-linking that happens, the army that is forming, is different from vegetable tan. The chromium army would not be as extensive, it wouldn’t be as huge and widespread, but it’d be very highly trained soldiers very, very close together, almost bonded together. So they’re a specialized impenetrable force, which means the leather is softer and more pliable because it’s not this extensive network of rigid people all across the battlefield. Also, since everything is so close together, the leather is less breathable and more water resistant. The Iron Snail So, both have cons and pros. Oh, drat, those both sound so cool – I wish I could have both at the same time! Well, guess what? You can have both at the same time! But when I called Horween, I said, “You can have both at the same time,” they said, “Yeah, but that’s not good enough – we can do even more!” So they did even more. That’s not the end of how Chromexcel leather is made – there’s one more thing that makes it cool. Let’s Get Technical About These Boots The Iron Snail To put it simply, these boots are constructed in a very peculiar way, and these are not cheap boots. These are very luxurious boots. They are expensive boots, do not get me wrong, but they feel expensive. They are beefy tanks constructed interestingly. Obviously, we know the outer leather is Horween Chromexcel, but these are also leather-lined, and the leather lining is half as thick as the outer Chromexcel lining. However, that’s very thick – these are thick boots. This is actually a combination of two different things. So this is a Blake stitched boot through and through, all in all, but it’s also sidewall stitched, which you see if you look at your sneakers, there’s usually a sidewall, the rubber that comes up onto the upper, and you see stitching around that. That’s exactly what’s happening here. The Iron Snail So when you are repairing these or resoling them or whatever, the actual shape of the boot never needs to get modified, and it’s cool – it gives you a little bit more water resistance, which I will test in a second. You’re not undoing the Blake stitch, and you’re getting the sidewall stitch out, pulling it off, popping another one on, and restitching it. So, really, these aren’t the most water-resistant boots – they’re not rubber boots or anything like that, but they are very water-resistant even past the sidewall. They’re really water-resistant up until the Puritan stitch is on the side. You could stick your foot in the water right up to the Puritan stitch for a pretty long time, and you’re okay. I, of course, tested it, and my hypothesis was held up! The Secret Sauce – What Makes This Leather Special The Iron Snail So you have chrome tanning, you have vegetable tanning, and then you probably know where this is going based on what I said before – you have the best of both worlds, which is combination tanning. You start by chrome tanning this leather, and then you re-tan it through the vegetable tanning process, and that gives you the Hannah Montana special – the Best of Both Worlds! Leather that is still water resistant but now a little bit breathable, it’s also a little bit moldable, it also patinas, it also stays soft but is strong – it is the best of both worlds. That is why it’s the Hannah Montana special. That’s a song that she released, I think, in 2005. The Final Secret – Hot Stuffing and Oil Rigs The Iron Snail But Horween didn’t stop there – they have their combination tan leather, but they also hot stuff it. They fill this leather with oils and waxes, so much so that the leather looks wet when you have it, and so much stuff is packed inside of this leather that when you move it around, it’s a pull-up leather because you’re displacing all of the oils and everything, so you see the actual color change. It has the properties that make really high-pressure jobs want to use this over plastic or rubbers for gaskets and seals and motor seals, especially in World War II, but even now today, according to Nick Horween, the reason Chromexcel leather – and it’s not pure Chromexcel leather, it’s not this beautiful leather that’s on boots, it’s a slightly different kind of leather – the reason it’s used on gaskets and seals on oil rigs and stuff like that is because there isn’t catastrophic failure. The Iron Snail Vegetable tan leather, chrome tan leather, some plastic, some rubbers, whatever it may be – I’m baffled that there’s not a modern technology that beats it – they fail or could fail abruptly. So if you’re on a machine, a very important gasket in the engine could just fail, which sucks. But Chromexcel, what they’re using, fails slowly, so you can hear it fail over time, and you can anticipate when you need to replace a gasket, thus saving the life of whatever machine you are working on. Which is very important when you have big giant tanks and planes and trucks and stuff in World War II and the oil rigs of today. What I’d Change About These Boots The Iron Snail The first thing that I want to change – luckily for us, or you, if you like this change too, you can just do this change. Goral is a small enough company where you could request different things on your boot, but the first thing I would change is I think adding a different color sidewall stitch adds just enough pop. They look a little bit more like Doc Martens – I don’t know if you noticed that, but I do think it is a good look, and Doc Martens does it for a reason. So I would change the sidewall stitch – on the black boot, I want mine to be a really dark green, like just enough where you could see it. The Iron Snail The only thing I would like to add to these boots are speed hooks on the top three, so I can just lace these up quickly and take them off quickly. I love speed hooks – I know it’s an aesthetic thing not to put speed hooks on, but your boy likes speed hooks. Watch This Review Final Thoughts To end this Goral Sharman boot review – I would recommend these boots. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to tell you some code. I’m not trying to sell you bad boots. You can see them cut in half, and you can see them built. These are awesome boots made in Sheffield, England. Anyhoozle, thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you very soon! This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here. The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered. Source link

[ellajme0]

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. Any products or services put forward appear in no particular order. if you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. The Iron Snail So why do some mechanics prefer to use 111-year-old leather on vital oil rig seals to keep everything closed instead of modern plastics and rubber? Have you ever had a wine or tea that makes your mouth feel dry? The reason your mouth feels dry is because there are tannins in those wines and teas, and similar tannins go into this leather we’re talking about today. This leather is some of the most magical leather on the entire planet. I’m assuming when it came out 111 years ago, the world lost its mind, and I’m correct because even to this day, 111 years later, this is one of the most popular leathers on the planet. So What’s Up With This Ancient Leather? During World War II, 18 million square feet of this leather was being produced per month. That’s more than what this factory has produced in many, many years. This leather changed everything – from being worn in boots to being in tanks, to being in airplanes, to being in trucks. Oh, and speaking of absolutely insane stories: 3 years before the Second World War, in Krakow, Poland, a man said, “Hey, I think it’s a great idea for me to start a footwear company,” and everybody said, “Yeah, doesn’t seem like anything’s going to go wrong soon.” And then World War II happened, especially in Poland, and somehow this company still exists. That company’s name is Goral Footwear. The Iron Snail My Journey to Sheffield and These Sweet Boots They moved to Sheffield, England in 2005. I flew to Scotland in 2024. Goral reached out to me and said, “Michael, why don’t you swing by England? We’ll make you a pair of boots, and then you can leave.” I said, “Okay, Goral, that sounds great. I’ll be right there.” I got on a Scottish plane where the seats were made of Harris Tweed. I flew to Sheffield, England, then went into a factory in Sheffield, England, where people only speak Polish, and got boots made for me. What a crazy journey Goral had so far – they survived World War II, and now they’re surviving the internet! Let’s Break Down Today’s Boot Review The Iron Snail The boots I got are called the Sharman boots, and I wore the black ones in Scotland for the entire time – every day, on the plane, when I got home, everything through rain, sleet, snow, ocean water. Obviously, they held up fantastically, and the brown ones on my feet are going through their maiden voyage right now in Vermont (by right now, I mean about half an hour ago when I was brainstorming this article). Let’s get into thisGoral Sharman boot review. So anyways, this is today’s agenda: Number one – what happened 111 years ago that made the US military want 18 million square feet of this leather per month? Number two – sorry, Goral, but your boots are made weird, but that’s not a bad thing. Tricked you, tricked you! You should have seen your face! They are made weird. I’m not lying, but there is a benefit that I like to them. I do it on every boot article. I’ll talk about it later, and this is a little better than most boots. Number three is called catastrophic failure – that is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article. We’ll elaborate on that more. And number four, there are two things that I would change on these boots to make them the perfect boots for me in this style: the combat Doc Marten alternative, whatever you want to call it. Let’s Talk Horween Leather The Iron Snail If you’re a big fat leather nerd, you already know what I’m talking about, but this is Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel, CXL, whatever you want to call it. Horween was founded in Chicago in 1905, and they sold mostly shell cordovan because people used it as a razor strop, but then Gillette came along and said, “Hey, screw the straight razor, what about disposable razors?” and everybody was like, “Ah, that sounds better.” And in 1913, what got really popular after it was invented, of course, was Chromexcel leather. The Science Behind Leather Tanning (With Spaghetti!) The Iron Snail This wouldn’t be a completeGoral Sharman boot review if we didn’t talk about leather so here we go. When Horween was making this leather, they could have processed it in two different ways: they could have chrome tanned it, or they could have vegetable tanned it, or technically, they could also have brain tanned it or oil tanned it. They did none of those things, but at the same time, they also did vegetable tanning and chrome tanning and sandwiched them together. But to truly understand how vegetable tanning and chrome tanning come together to make Chromexcel, you need to have a basic understanding of how leather tanning works. We are tightening spaghetti. The Iron Snail By the way, a lot of this information comes from Nick Horween, Horween themselves – there’s a really awesome podcast called the Full Grain podcast where they talk extensively about Chromexcel leather, which I highly recommend. But anyways, on one of those podcast episodes, they were talking about what tanning leather actually does, and the example that they gave is: picture a big bowl full of spaghetti that you can wiggle. It’s loose, it’s all over around and everything like that. When you tan leather, lock all of that spaghetti together. You can’t, you know, sift your little fingers through it or anything like that. It is now locked, and it’s a strong piece of leather. The Army Analogy – How Tanning Really Works The Iron Snail I’m going to use soldiers as an analogy instead (the spaghetti one just kind of grosses me out). The phrase “tanning leather” stems from one of the original ways of tanning leather – vegetable tanning. In things like tree bark and tea and wine, like I was talking about before, there is something, or are something, called tannins – big fat molecules that make your mouth feel dry. Those tannins in the vegetable matter bond to collagen molecules and essentially lock everything down. The Iron Snail To go to my analogy, picture a bunch of people in a wide-open field just running around crazy. They’re running amuck and picture me, a bad guy in this scenario, walking on the field. I can get past everybody pretty easily because people run by, I wait, and then I go in, and I can get into the center of the field. And that’s what happens when a dead animal’s skin is not processed – it rots, bacteria come in, and anything can get into it and destroy it. But if we introduce tannins to those people who are running around like crazy in the field, all of a sudden, they are an army, all locked together hand in hand, not letting anything in. So the now-leather doesn’t go bad, doesn’t get gross, and things can’t be introduced into it. Two Different Armies: Vegetable vs Chrome Tanning Now, vegetable tanning and chrome tanning make two different kinds of armies. Vegetable tanning – remember I said it was important that the tannins are big and fat – they’re so big it takes a long time to actually get into the hide and start this cross-linking process, start making all of the soldiers. So you have to leave the hides in this solution for a much longer time, but there are a lot of benefits to vegetable tanning. There are also some to chrome tanning, but they’re different. The Iron Snail Vegetable tanning, if we’re sticking to this army analogy – a huge, huge army, an extensive massive army, and all the soldiers are holding hands, and they cover the entire battlefield. That makes a very stiff and very rigid leather, and also, since they’re holding hands, there are pockets that make the leather more breathable than chrome tan, which we will talk about in a second. But it’s a very stiff and moldable leather. If you get it wet, you can mold leather to a different shape. The vegetable tanning process is also much more natural, which results in a much more natural leather. It patinas over time, darkens, and can get water spots because it’s porous – water can enter more easily. The Iron Snail Chrome tanning is essentially the complete opposite of vegetable tanning. It’s incredibly fast, and it’s not natural. It doesn’t use tannins – it uses chromium salt, which gets into the leather – well, gets into the hide and boom, then it becomes leather in like a day, when the vegetable tanning process is way, way, way longer. And that means the cross-linking that happens, the army that is forming, is different from vegetable tan. The chromium army would not be as extensive, it wouldn’t be as huge and widespread, but it’d be very highly trained soldiers very, very close together, almost bonded together. So they’re a specialized impenetrable force, which means the leather is softer and more pliable because it’s not this extensive network of rigid people all across the battlefield. Also, since everything is so close together, the leather is less breathable and more water resistant. The Iron Snail So, both have cons and pros. Oh, drat, those both sound so cool – I wish I could have both at the same time! Well, guess what? You can have both at the same time! But when I called Horween, I said, “You can have both at the same time,” they said, “Yeah, but that’s not good enough – we can do even more!” So they did even more. That’s not the end of how Chromexcel leather is made – there’s one more thing that makes it cool. Let’s Get Technical About These Boots The Iron Snail To put it simply, these boots are constructed in a very peculiar way, and these are not cheap boots. These are very luxurious boots. They are expensive boots, do not get me wrong, but they feel expensive. They are beefy tanks constructed interestingly. Obviously, we know the outer leather is Horween Chromexcel, but these are also leather-lined, and the leather lining is half as thick as the outer Chromexcel lining. However, that’s very thick – these are thick boots. This is actually a combination of two different things. So this is a Blake stitched boot through and through, all in all, but it’s also sidewall stitched, which you see if you look at your sneakers, there’s usually a sidewall, the rubber that comes up onto the upper, and you see stitching around that. That’s exactly what’s happening here. The Iron Snail So when you are repairing these or resoling them or whatever, the actual shape of the boot never needs to get modified, and it’s cool – it gives you a little bit more water resistance, which I will test in a second. You’re not undoing the Blake stitch, and you’re getting the sidewall stitch out, pulling it off, popping another one on, and restitching it. So, really, these aren’t the most water-resistant boots – they’re not rubber boots or anything like that, but they are very water-resistant even past the sidewall. They’re really water-resistant up until the Puritan stitch is on the side. You could stick your foot in the water right up to the Puritan stitch for a pretty long time, and you’re okay. I, of course, tested it, and my hypothesis was held up! The Secret Sauce – What Makes This Leather Special The Iron Snail So you have chrome tanning, you have vegetable tanning, and then you probably know where this is going based on what I said before – you have the best of both worlds, which is combination tanning. You start by chrome tanning this leather, and then you re-tan it through the vegetable tanning process, and that gives you the Hannah Montana special – the Best of Both Worlds! Leather that is still water resistant but now a little bit breathable, it’s also a little bit moldable, it also patinas, it also stays soft but is strong – it is the best of both worlds. That is why it’s the Hannah Montana special. That’s a song that she released, I think, in 2005. The Final Secret – Hot Stuffing and Oil Rigs The Iron Snail But Horween didn’t stop there – they have their combination tan leather, but they also hot stuff it. They fill this leather with oils and waxes, so much so that the leather looks wet when you have it, and so much stuff is packed inside of this leather that when you move it around, it’s a pull-up leather because you’re displacing all of the oils and everything, so you see the actual color change. It has the properties that make really high-pressure jobs want to use this over plastic or rubbers for gaskets and seals and motor seals, especially in World War II, but even now today, according to Nick Horween, the reason Chromexcel leather – and it’s not pure Chromexcel leather, it’s not this beautiful leather that’s on boots, it’s a slightly different kind of leather – the reason it’s used on gaskets and seals on oil rigs and stuff like that is because there isn’t catastrophic failure. The Iron Snail Vegetable tan leather, chrome tan leather, some plastic, some rubbers, whatever it may be – I’m baffled that there’s not a modern technology that beats it – they fail or could fail abruptly. So if you’re on a machine, a very important gasket in the engine could just fail, which sucks. But Chromexcel, what they’re using, fails slowly, so you can hear it fail over time, and you can anticipate when you need to replace a gasket, thus saving the life of whatever machine you are working on. Which is very important when you have big giant tanks and planes and trucks and stuff in World War II and the oil rigs of today. What I’d Change About These Boots The Iron Snail The first thing that I want to change – luckily for us, or you, if you like this change too, you can just do this change. Goral is a small enough company where you could request different things on your boot, but the first thing I would change is I think adding a different color sidewall stitch adds just enough pop. They look a little bit more like Doc Martens – I don’t know if you noticed that, but I do think it is a good look, and Doc Martens does it for a reason. So I would change the sidewall stitch – on the black boot, I want mine to be a really dark green, like just enough where you could see it. The Iron Snail The only thing I would like to add to these boots are speed hooks on the top three, so I can just lace these up quickly and take them off quickly. I love speed hooks – I know it’s an aesthetic thing not to put speed hooks on, but your boy likes speed hooks. Watch This Review Final Thoughts To end this Goral Sharman boot review – I would recommend these boots. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to tell you some code. I’m not trying to sell you bad boots. You can see them cut in half, and you can see them built. These are awesome boots made in Sheffield, England. Anyhoozle, thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you very soon! This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here. The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered. Source link

[chilimili212]

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. Any products or services put forward appear in no particular order. if you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. The Iron Snail So why do some mechanics prefer to use 111-year-old leather on vital oil rig seals to keep everything closed instead of modern plastics and rubber? Have you ever had a wine or tea that makes your mouth feel dry? The reason your mouth feels dry is because there are tannins in those wines and teas, and similar tannins go into this leather we’re talking about today. This leather is some of the most magical leather on the entire planet. I’m assuming when it came out 111 years ago, the world lost its mind, and I’m correct because even to this day, 111 years later, this is one of the most popular leathers on the planet. So What’s Up With This Ancient Leather? During World War II, 18 million square feet of this leather was being produced per month. That’s more than what this factory has produced in many, many years. This leather changed everything – from being worn in boots to being in tanks, to being in airplanes, to being in trucks. Oh, and speaking of absolutely insane stories: 3 years before the Second World War, in Krakow, Poland, a man said, “Hey, I think it’s a great idea for me to start a footwear company,” and everybody said, “Yeah, doesn’t seem like anything’s going to go wrong soon.” And then World War II happened, especially in Poland, and somehow this company still exists. That company’s name is Goral Footwear. The Iron Snail My Journey to Sheffield and These Sweet Boots They moved to Sheffield, England in 2005. I flew to Scotland in 2024. Goral reached out to me and said, “Michael, why don’t you swing by England? We’ll make you a pair of boots, and then you can leave.” I said, “Okay, Goral, that sounds great. I’ll be right there.” I got on a Scottish plane where the seats were made of Harris Tweed. I flew to Sheffield, England, then went into a factory in Sheffield, England, where people only speak Polish, and got boots made for me. What a crazy journey Goral had so far – they survived World War II, and now they’re surviving the internet! Let’s Break Down Today’s Boot Review The Iron Snail The boots I got are called the Sharman boots, and I wore the black ones in Scotland for the entire time – every day, on the plane, when I got home, everything through rain, sleet, snow, ocean water. Obviously, they held up fantastically, and the brown ones on my feet are going through their maiden voyage right now in Vermont (by right now, I mean about half an hour ago when I was brainstorming this article). Let’s get into thisGoral Sharman boot review. So anyways, this is today’s agenda: Number one – what happened 111 years ago that made the US military want 18 million square feet of this leather per month? Number two – sorry, Goral, but your boots are made weird, but that’s not a bad thing. Tricked you, tricked you! You should have seen your face! They are made weird. I’m not lying, but there is a benefit that I like to them. I do it on every boot article. I’ll talk about it later, and this is a little better than most boots. Number three is called catastrophic failure – that is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article. We’ll elaborate on that more. And number four, there are two things that I would change on these boots to make them the perfect boots for me in this style: the combat Doc Marten alternative, whatever you want to call it. Let’s Talk Horween Leather The Iron Snail If you’re a big fat leather nerd, you already know what I’m talking about, but this is Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel, CXL, whatever you want to call it. Horween was founded in Chicago in 1905, and they sold mostly shell cordovan because people used it as a razor strop, but then Gillette came along and said, “Hey, screw the straight razor, what about disposable razors?” and everybody was like, “Ah, that sounds better.” And in 1913, what got really popular after it was invented, of course, was Chromexcel leather. The Science Behind Leather Tanning (With Spaghetti!) The Iron Snail This wouldn’t be a completeGoral Sharman boot review if we didn’t talk about leather so here we go. When Horween was making this leather, they could have processed it in two different ways: they could have chrome tanned it, or they could have vegetable tanned it, or technically, they could also have brain tanned it or oil tanned it. They did none of those things, but at the same time, they also did vegetable tanning and chrome tanning and sandwiched them together. But to truly understand how vegetable tanning and chrome tanning come together to make Chromexcel, you need to have a basic understanding of how leather tanning works. We are tightening spaghetti. The Iron Snail By the way, a lot of this information comes from Nick Horween, Horween themselves – there’s a really awesome podcast called the Full Grain podcast where they talk extensively about Chromexcel leather, which I highly recommend. But anyways, on one of those podcast episodes, they were talking about what tanning leather actually does, and the example that they gave is: picture a big bowl full of spaghetti that you can wiggle. It’s loose, it’s all over around and everything like that. When you tan leather, lock all of that spaghetti together. You can’t, you know, sift your little fingers through it or anything like that. It is now locked, and it’s a strong piece of leather. The Army Analogy – How Tanning Really Works The Iron Snail I’m going to use soldiers as an analogy instead (the spaghetti one just kind of grosses me out). The phrase “tanning leather” stems from one of the original ways of tanning leather – vegetable tanning. In things like tree bark and tea and wine, like I was talking about before, there is something, or are something, called tannins – big fat molecules that make your mouth feel dry. Those tannins in the vegetable matter bond to collagen molecules and essentially lock everything down. The Iron Snail To go to my analogy, picture a bunch of people in a wide-open field just running around crazy. They’re running amuck and picture me, a bad guy in this scenario, walking on the field. I can get past everybody pretty easily because people run by, I wait, and then I go in, and I can get into the center of the field. And that’s what happens when a dead animal’s skin is not processed – it rots, bacteria come in, and anything can get into it and destroy it. But if we introduce tannins to those people who are running around like crazy in the field, all of a sudden, they are an army, all locked together hand in hand, not letting anything in. So the now-leather doesn’t go bad, doesn’t get gross, and things can’t be introduced into it. Two Different Armies: Vegetable vs Chrome Tanning Now, vegetable tanning and chrome tanning make two different kinds of armies. Vegetable tanning – remember I said it was important that the tannins are big and fat – they’re so big it takes a long time to actually get into the hide and start this cross-linking process, start making all of the soldiers. So you have to leave the hides in this solution for a much longer time, but there are a lot of benefits to vegetable tanning. There are also some to chrome tanning, but they’re different. The Iron Snail Vegetable tanning, if we’re sticking to this army analogy – a huge, huge army, an extensive massive army, and all the soldiers are holding hands, and they cover the entire battlefield. That makes a very stiff and very rigid leather, and also, since they’re holding hands, there are pockets that make the leather more breathable than chrome tan, which we will talk about in a second. But it’s a very stiff and moldable leather. If you get it wet, you can mold leather to a different shape. The vegetable tanning process is also much more natural, which results in a much more natural leather. It patinas over time, darkens, and can get water spots because it’s porous – water can enter more easily. The Iron Snail Chrome tanning is essentially the complete opposite of vegetable tanning. It’s incredibly fast, and it’s not natural. It doesn’t use tannins – it uses chromium salt, which gets into the leather – well, gets into the hide and boom, then it becomes leather in like a day, when the vegetable tanning process is way, way, way longer. And that means the cross-linking that happens, the army that is forming, is different from vegetable tan. The chromium army would not be as extensive, it wouldn’t be as huge and widespread, but it’d be very highly trained soldiers very, very close together, almost bonded together. So they’re a specialized impenetrable force, which means the leather is softer and more pliable because it’s not this extensive network of rigid people all across the battlefield. Also, since everything is so close together, the leather is less breathable and more water resistant. The Iron Snail So, both have cons and pros. Oh, drat, those both sound so cool – I wish I could have both at the same time! Well, guess what? You can have both at the same time! But when I called Horween, I said, “You can have both at the same time,” they said, “Yeah, but that’s not good enough – we can do even more!” So they did even more. That’s not the end of how Chromexcel leather is made – there’s one more thing that makes it cool. Let’s Get Technical About These Boots The Iron Snail To put it simply, these boots are constructed in a very peculiar way, and these are not cheap boots. These are very luxurious boots. They are expensive boots, do not get me wrong, but they feel expensive. They are beefy tanks constructed interestingly. Obviously, we know the outer leather is Horween Chromexcel, but these are also leather-lined, and the leather lining is half as thick as the outer Chromexcel lining. However, that’s very thick – these are thick boots. This is actually a combination of two different things. So this is a Blake stitched boot through and through, all in all, but it’s also sidewall stitched, which you see if you look at your sneakers, there’s usually a sidewall, the rubber that comes up onto the upper, and you see stitching around that. That’s exactly what’s happening here. The Iron Snail So when you are repairing these or resoling them or whatever, the actual shape of the boot never needs to get modified, and it’s cool – it gives you a little bit more water resistance, which I will test in a second. You’re not undoing the Blake stitch, and you’re getting the sidewall stitch out, pulling it off, popping another one on, and restitching it. So, really, these aren’t the most water-resistant boots – they’re not rubber boots or anything like that, but they are very water-resistant even past the sidewall. They’re really water-resistant up until the Puritan stitch is on the side. You could stick your foot in the water right up to the Puritan stitch for a pretty long time, and you’re okay. I, of course, tested it, and my hypothesis was held up! The Secret Sauce – What Makes This Leather Special The Iron Snail So you have chrome tanning, you have vegetable tanning, and then you probably know where this is going based on what I said before – you have the best of both worlds, which is combination tanning. You start by chrome tanning this leather, and then you re-tan it through the vegetable tanning process, and that gives you the Hannah Montana special – the Best of Both Worlds! Leather that is still water resistant but now a little bit breathable, it’s also a little bit moldable, it also patinas, it also stays soft but is strong – it is the best of both worlds. That is why it’s the Hannah Montana special. That’s a song that she released, I think, in 2005. The Final Secret – Hot Stuffing and Oil Rigs The Iron Snail But Horween didn’t stop there – they have their combination tan leather, but they also hot stuff it. They fill this leather with oils and waxes, so much so that the leather looks wet when you have it, and so much stuff is packed inside of this leather that when you move it around, it’s a pull-up leather because you’re displacing all of the oils and everything, so you see the actual color change. It has the properties that make really high-pressure jobs want to use this over plastic or rubbers for gaskets and seals and motor seals, especially in World War II, but even now today, according to Nick Horween, the reason Chromexcel leather – and it’s not pure Chromexcel leather, it’s not this beautiful leather that’s on boots, it’s a slightly different kind of leather – the reason it’s used on gaskets and seals on oil rigs and stuff like that is because there isn’t catastrophic failure. The Iron Snail Vegetable tan leather, chrome tan leather, some plastic, some rubbers, whatever it may be – I’m baffled that there’s not a modern technology that beats it – they fail or could fail abruptly. So if you’re on a machine, a very important gasket in the engine could just fail, which sucks. But Chromexcel, what they’re using, fails slowly, so you can hear it fail over time, and you can anticipate when you need to replace a gasket, thus saving the life of whatever machine you are working on. Which is very important when you have big giant tanks and planes and trucks and stuff in World War II and the oil rigs of today. What I’d Change About These Boots The Iron Snail The first thing that I want to change – luckily for us, or you, if you like this change too, you can just do this change. Goral is a small enough company where you could request different things on your boot, but the first thing I would change is I think adding a different color sidewall stitch adds just enough pop. They look a little bit more like Doc Martens – I don’t know if you noticed that, but I do think it is a good look, and Doc Martens does it for a reason. So I would change the sidewall stitch – on the black boot, I want mine to be a really dark green, like just enough where you could see it. The Iron Snail The only thing I would like to add to these boots are speed hooks on the top three, so I can just lace these up quickly and take them off quickly. I love speed hooks – I know it’s an aesthetic thing not to put speed hooks on, but your boy likes speed hooks. Watch This Review Final Thoughts To end this Goral Sharman boot review – I would recommend these boots. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to tell you some code. I’m not trying to sell you bad boots. You can see them cut in half, and you can see them built. These are awesome boots made in Sheffield, England. Anyhoozle, thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you very soon! This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here. The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered. Source link

[oliviajoyice21]

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. Any products or services put forward appear in no particular order. if you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. The Iron Snail So why do some mechanics prefer to use 111-year-old leather on vital oil rig seals to keep everything closed instead of modern plastics and rubber? Have you ever had a wine or tea that makes your mouth feel dry? The reason your mouth feels dry is because there are tannins in those wines and teas, and similar tannins go into this leather we’re talking about today. This leather is some of the most magical leather on the entire planet. I’m assuming when it came out 111 years ago, the world lost its mind, and I’m correct because even to this day, 111 years later, this is one of the most popular leathers on the planet. So What’s Up With This Ancient Leather? During World War II, 18 million square feet of this leather was being produced per month. That’s more than what this factory has produced in many, many years. This leather changed everything – from being worn in boots to being in tanks, to being in airplanes, to being in trucks. Oh, and speaking of absolutely insane stories: 3 years before the Second World War, in Krakow, Poland, a man said, “Hey, I think it’s a great idea for me to start a footwear company,” and everybody said, “Yeah, doesn’t seem like anything’s going to go wrong soon.” And then World War II happened, especially in Poland, and somehow this company still exists. That company’s name is Goral Footwear. The Iron Snail My Journey to Sheffield and These Sweet Boots They moved to Sheffield, England in 2005. I flew to Scotland in 2024. Goral reached out to me and said, “Michael, why don’t you swing by England? We’ll make you a pair of boots, and then you can leave.” I said, “Okay, Goral, that sounds great. I’ll be right there.” I got on a Scottish plane where the seats were made of Harris Tweed. I flew to Sheffield, England, then went into a factory in Sheffield, England, where people only speak Polish, and got boots made for me. What a crazy journey Goral had so far – they survived World War II, and now they’re surviving the internet! Let’s Break Down Today’s Boot Review The Iron Snail The boots I got are called the Sharman boots, and I wore the black ones in Scotland for the entire time – every day, on the plane, when I got home, everything through rain, sleet, snow, ocean water. Obviously, they held up fantastically, and the brown ones on my feet are going through their maiden voyage right now in Vermont (by right now, I mean about half an hour ago when I was brainstorming this article). Let’s get into thisGoral Sharman boot review. So anyways, this is today’s agenda: Number one – what happened 111 years ago that made the US military want 18 million square feet of this leather per month? Number two – sorry, Goral, but your boots are made weird, but that’s not a bad thing. Tricked you, tricked you! You should have seen your face! They are made weird. I’m not lying, but there is a benefit that I like to them. I do it on every boot article. I’ll talk about it later, and this is a little better than most boots. Number three is called catastrophic failure – that is the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article. We’ll elaborate on that more. And number four, there are two things that I would change on these boots to make them the perfect boots for me in this style: the combat Doc Marten alternative, whatever you want to call it. Let’s Talk Horween Leather The Iron Snail If you’re a big fat leather nerd, you already know what I’m talking about, but this is Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel, CXL, whatever you want to call it. Horween was founded in Chicago in 1905, and they sold mostly shell cordovan because people used it as a razor strop, but then Gillette came along and said, “Hey, screw the straight razor, what about disposable razors?” and everybody was like, “Ah, that sounds better.” And in 1913, what got really popular after it was invented, of course, was Chromexcel leather. The Science Behind Leather Tanning (With Spaghetti!) The Iron Snail This wouldn’t be a completeGoral Sharman boot review if we didn’t talk about leather so here we go. When Horween was making this leather, they could have processed it in two different ways: they could have chrome tanned it, or they could have vegetable tanned it, or technically, they could also have brain tanned it or oil tanned it. They did none of those things, but at the same time, they also did vegetable tanning and chrome tanning and sandwiched them together. But to truly understand how vegetable tanning and chrome tanning come together to make Chromexcel, you need to have a basic understanding of how leather tanning works. We are tightening spaghetti. The Iron Snail By the way, a lot of this information comes from Nick Horween, Horween themselves – there’s a really awesome podcast called the Full Grain podcast where they talk extensively about Chromexcel leather, which I highly recommend. But anyways, on one of those podcast episodes, they were talking about what tanning leather actually does, and the example that they gave is: picture a big bowl full of spaghetti that you can wiggle. It’s loose, it’s all over around and everything like that. When you tan leather, lock all of that spaghetti together. You can’t, you know, sift your little fingers through it or anything like that. It is now locked, and it’s a strong piece of leather. The Army Analogy – How Tanning Really Works The Iron Snail I’m going to use soldiers as an analogy instead (the spaghetti one just kind of grosses me out). The phrase “tanning leather” stems from one of the original ways of tanning leather – vegetable tanning. In things like tree bark and tea and wine, like I was talking about before, there is something, or are something, called tannins – big fat molecules that make your mouth feel dry. Those tannins in the vegetable matter bond to collagen molecules and essentially lock everything down. The Iron Snail To go to my analogy, picture a bunch of people in a wide-open field just running around crazy. They’re running amuck and picture me, a bad guy in this scenario, walking on the field. I can get past everybody pretty easily because people run by, I wait, and then I go in, and I can get into the center of the field. And that’s what happens when a dead animal’s skin is not processed – it rots, bacteria come in, and anything can get into it and destroy it. But if we introduce tannins to those people who are running around like crazy in the field, all of a sudden, they are an army, all locked together hand in hand, not letting anything in. So the now-leather doesn’t go bad, doesn’t get gross, and things can’t be introduced into it. Two Different Armies: Vegetable vs Chrome Tanning Now, vegetable tanning and chrome tanning make two different kinds of armies. Vegetable tanning – remember I said it was important that the tannins are big and fat – they’re so big it takes a long time to actually get into the hide and start this cross-linking process, start making all of the soldiers. So you have to leave the hides in this solution for a much longer time, but there are a lot of benefits to vegetable tanning. There are also some to chrome tanning, but they’re different. The Iron Snail Vegetable tanning, if we’re sticking to this army analogy – a huge, huge army, an extensive massive army, and all the soldiers are holding hands, and they cover the entire battlefield. That makes a very stiff and very rigid leather, and also, since they’re holding hands, there are pockets that make the leather more breathable than chrome tan, which we will talk about in a second. But it’s a very stiff and moldable leather. If you get it wet, you can mold leather to a different shape. The vegetable tanning process is also much more natural, which results in a much more natural leather. It patinas over time, darkens, and can get water spots because it’s porous – water can enter more easily. The Iron Snail Chrome tanning is essentially the complete opposite of vegetable tanning. It’s incredibly fast, and it’s not natural. It doesn’t use tannins – it uses chromium salt, which gets into the leather – well, gets into the hide and boom, then it becomes leather in like a day, when the vegetable tanning process is way, way, way longer. And that means the cross-linking that happens, the army that is forming, is different from vegetable tan. The chromium army would not be as extensive, it wouldn’t be as huge and widespread, but it’d be very highly trained soldiers very, very close together, almost bonded together. So they’re a specialized impenetrable force, which means the leather is softer and more pliable because it’s not this extensive network of rigid people all across the battlefield. Also, since everything is so close together, the leather is less breathable and more water resistant. The Iron Snail So, both have cons and pros. Oh, drat, those both sound so cool – I wish I could have both at the same time! Well, guess what? You can have both at the same time! But when I called Horween, I said, “You can have both at the same time,” they said, “Yeah, but that’s not good enough – we can do even more!” So they did even more. That’s not the end of how Chromexcel leather is made – there’s one more thing that makes it cool. Let’s Get Technical About These Boots The Iron Snail To put it simply, these boots are constructed in a very peculiar way, and these are not cheap boots. These are very luxurious boots. They are expensive boots, do not get me wrong, but they feel expensive. They are beefy tanks constructed interestingly. Obviously, we know the outer leather is Horween Chromexcel, but these are also leather-lined, and the leather lining is half as thick as the outer Chromexcel lining. However, that’s very thick – these are thick boots. This is actually a combination of two different things. So this is a Blake stitched boot through and through, all in all, but it’s also sidewall stitched, which you see if you look at your sneakers, there’s usually a sidewall, the rubber that comes up onto the upper, and you see stitching around that. That’s exactly what’s happening here. The Iron Snail So when you are repairing these or resoling them or whatever, the actual shape of the boot never needs to get modified, and it’s cool – it gives you a little bit more water resistance, which I will test in a second. You’re not undoing the Blake stitch, and you’re getting the sidewall stitch out, pulling it off, popping another one on, and restitching it. So, really, these aren’t the most water-resistant boots – they’re not rubber boots or anything like that, but they are very water-resistant even past the sidewall. They’re really water-resistant up until the Puritan stitch is on the side. You could stick your foot in the water right up to the Puritan stitch for a pretty long time, and you’re okay. I, of course, tested it, and my hypothesis was held up! The Secret Sauce – What Makes This Leather Special The Iron Snail So you have chrome tanning, you have vegetable tanning, and then you probably know where this is going based on what I said before – you have the best of both worlds, which is combination tanning. You start by chrome tanning this leather, and then you re-tan it through the vegetable tanning process, and that gives you the Hannah Montana special – the Best of Both Worlds! Leather that is still water resistant but now a little bit breathable, it’s also a little bit moldable, it also patinas, it also stays soft but is strong – it is the best of both worlds. That is why it’s the Hannah Montana special. That’s a song that she released, I think, in 2005. The Final Secret – Hot Stuffing and Oil Rigs The Iron Snail But Horween didn’t stop there – they have their combination tan leather, but they also hot stuff it. They fill this leather with oils and waxes, so much so that the leather looks wet when you have it, and so much stuff is packed inside of this leather that when you move it around, it’s a pull-up leather because you’re displacing all of the oils and everything, so you see the actual color change. It has the properties that make really high-pressure jobs want to use this over plastic or rubbers for gaskets and seals and motor seals, especially in World War II, but even now today, according to Nick Horween, the reason Chromexcel leather – and it’s not pure Chromexcel leather, it’s not this beautiful leather that’s on boots, it’s a slightly different kind of leather – the reason it’s used on gaskets and seals on oil rigs and stuff like that is because there isn’t catastrophic failure. The Iron Snail Vegetable tan leather, chrome tan leather, some plastic, some rubbers, whatever it may be – I’m baffled that there’s not a modern technology that beats it – they fail or could fail abruptly. So if you’re on a machine, a very important gasket in the engine could just fail, which sucks. But Chromexcel, what they’re using, fails slowly, so you can hear it fail over time, and you can anticipate when you need to replace a gasket, thus saving the life of whatever machine you are working on. Which is very important when you have big giant tanks and planes and trucks and stuff in World War II and the oil rigs of today. What I’d Change About These Boots The Iron Snail The first thing that I want to change – luckily for us, or you, if you like this change too, you can just do this change. Goral is a small enough company where you could request different things on your boot, but the first thing I would change is I think adding a different color sidewall stitch adds just enough pop. They look a little bit more like Doc Martens – I don’t know if you noticed that, but I do think it is a good look, and Doc Martens does it for a reason. So I would change the sidewall stitch – on the black boot, I want mine to be a really dark green, like just enough where you could see it. The Iron Snail The only thing I would like to add to these boots are speed hooks on the top three, so I can just lace these up quickly and take them off quickly. I love speed hooks – I know it’s an aesthetic thing not to put speed hooks on, but your boy likes speed hooks. Watch This Review Final Thoughts To end this Goral Sharman boot review – I would recommend these boots. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to tell you some code. I’m not trying to sell you bad boots. You can see them cut in half, and you can see them built. These are awesome boots made in Sheffield, England. Anyhoozle, thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you very soon! This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here. The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered. Source link

[bisonstraps]

Copper Green Horween Leather Strap

Horween Chromexcel Leather: This luxury watch band is crafted from premium calfskin which are soured by Chicago’s renowned tannery, Horween Leather Company. Unique texture and color, handsome looks and durability, meet the high requirements of collectors and watch enthusiasts

High Quality: The front side is made of Horween leather and the back is lined with soft and comfortable suede leather, offers the ultimate in comfort and durability. Good contrasting stitching and meticulously hand-painted edges, we care the details to ensure wearing for a long time

Select Proper Width: Available in 18mm,19mm,20mm, 21mm, 22mm, 23mm, 24mm widths, compatible with most traditional or smart watch, please measure your watch lug width and select the right size

Band Length: 120mm(4.72") for longer band, 70mm(2.75") for shorter band (not counting the buckle), fits wrists 6"-8"(155mm-200mm) in circumference, but watch geometry may also impact fit

Free 4 Piece Spring Bars and Tool Included: No need to buy a separate 4pcs spring bars and tool to your new watch strap. Get this beautiful strap on your wrist as soon as you tear open the package, very convenient

[handwashonlyco]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Thursday Boot Company | Women's Captain Lace up Boots Natural Brown Size 7.5.

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Black & Tan

Schott 519 Made in USA, One Star

Rolling Dub Trip - Casper in Horween Natural Chromexcel

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[ Alden 🇺🇲 ] 379x Naval Service Shoes Horween Chromexcel. Double waterloc. Military Last. Pre-order your size now. • Alden 香港地區合作版本二戰軍用楦皮鞋十月抵港。現正接受預售。Horween 油性CXL皮。雙層耐水真皮底。原廠防滑膠踭。 • #alden #madeinusa #militarylast #379xlast #serviceshoes #horween #chromexcel #aldenhongkong #aldenarmy #aldenpeople #aldenasia #alden香港 #專賣店 #官方代理 #Horween皮 #地區限定 #合作款 #軍用設定 #379x軍用楦 #真alden #非致敬 ＃非山寨 #美國人手製作 #tasselshongkong (at K11 Musea) https://www.instagram.com/p/CiINIUJLeWt/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[leffot]

Put your best foot forward in a classic American 🇺🇸 shoe. ⁣ ⁣ Each pair of Rancourt Ranger Mocs is handsewn are handsewn in Lewiston, Maine. Made of Horween brown Chromexcel for comfort and durability. ⁣ ⁣ #rancourt #leffot #rangermoc #americanshoes #inthedetails #handsewn #madeinmaine #horween #chromexcel (at Leffot) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTdAiqyFl7y/?utm_medium=tumblr