Making Shoes

Making Shoes. . Martin Brinegar made shoes for his family and neighbors. His nephew, Sherman, remembered many times seeing his uncle Martin "working by the light coming in through the window." Martin charged a dollar, more or less, for a pair of shoes. He could finish a pair of shoes in about two weeks., Martin made shoes out of leather he bought in Wilkesboro. First he traced the person's foot on paper to make a pattern. He cut out pieces of leather with a shoe knife., Martin sewed the shoe together on a wooden shoe last with flax thread coated with beeswax from his bee gums and a hog bristle needle. He used nippers to pull the upper of the shoe over the last to shape it before attaching the sole., Then Martin made holes in the leather with an awl and used maple pegs to fasten the sole to the shoe. He shaved off the points of the maple pegs that poked through into the boot with a peg rasp. To finish the shoe he made shoelaces from groundhog hide., Tolls of a Shoemaker , Some of the tools Martin Brinegar used to make a pair of shoes were: , Top row, left to right, glue pot, shoe last, shoe hammer , s Bottom row, left to right, hoe knife, leather, nippers, awl, bevel knife