There’s not really anything in uppers to nail to, there’s no thick leather inner sole.
The midsole unit is usually hollow cored for weight in my experience, so even when new, you probably couldn’t nail into it.
But the real issue is that when it hydrolyses the urethane material loses its strength, eventually just crumbling away. What is especially galling is that it can look in perfect condition, then disintegrate after 1-2 days walking. I have sewn right through the midsole and the upper to try and stop the detached sole flapping, but no thread survives the rocks for very long. PET drink bottle is surprisingly durable when you cut it into a long strip
Urethane is also responsible for your (non-goretex) breathable parka leaking after a couple of years, the rubbery coating on cameras and binos going gooey and lots of other problems. It is a temporary material.
In other brilliant news, researchers are making urethane with built in bacterial spores to dissolve it when it comes in contact with soil. As a card carrying Luddite of good standing, I am rather relishing a Revenge of the Fungus future where plastic rusts and rots like a 1979 Honda Civic the minute the rain starts. (I’m also looking forward to Elon making the Kessler syndrome reality, but that’s another story)
Yes I have but never found anything to my liking at the time of looking. I do have a question, where did you get that funky hoody you are wearing on your QRZ photo?
I’m waiting to hear back from a ordinary cobbler/shoe repair shop but they said they’d replaced Vibram soles on Altberg boots.
In the meatime, boots ordered Sunday evening arrived Tuesday. Email arrived 11am Monday saying about to be shipped, email from courier saying they were on the way on Monday and they arrived next day after 1st working day.
New boots are so lovely…shame to wear them. But they need a bit of breaking in so I think we’ll have a bash at Scald Law this weekend.
I have a pair of Meindl boots which were fine after the excrutiating break in period. The mid-soles disintegrated one day after about six years. I was up in The Lakes on holiday, so we went in to Patterdale and I bought a visually identical pair of HanWag boots. Same story- disintegrated on a fell top after about six years. In my rucksack, I had and pumped in some CA (inappropriate I know, but this was at the Thornthwaite beacon, and you’ll beat in a tent peg with a Sigg flask in a howling rain storm if necessary.) Next up, I bought a pair of new old stock Meindl military surplus boots from eBay. They had lace loops instead of hooks but they were 1/3rd of the Meindl new price. They were indeed brand new, but they started to crack on the first dog walk around my local park to break them in. Rapid refund ensued.
I then bought some Vibram soles and the correct adhesive to fix my Hanwags, but took them to my local boot repairer instead. He refused my Vibram soles and insisted on scrolling the catalogue for the correct ones. £65 later, I collected them and he berated me for having put CA adhesive inside. By then I had become aware of the issues and thought "what do you know?) The very first time I wore them back up in The Lakes, they started to delaminate in other areas around the sole. I’ve bought my last dual density soled boots.
I won’t go on about the coating on my Hawke spotting scope, binocular and etc etc. If a camera or whatever has that nice tactile surface covering, I won’t buy it any more.
the hoodie came from Rampant Yak (Rampant yak). They hold fair trade sales events at various locations during the summer - including in Scotland ! So you might find them on your doorstep.
I wanted a more vibrant one (honest! - see picture) but they didn’t have my size. It’s damn warm, and with a windproof layer, ideal for /P work.
One thing to look out for is that there are different types of soles - at the very least, consider whether you want more or less bendy ones. I’ve had a pair of hiking shoes resoled and ended up with very stiff soles. While this makes them good for short stretches of rough ground, they become uncomfortable over longer distances because they don’t “roll” very well.
