Protecting my soles

[J.S. Groot]

I have a tendency to shuffle my feet slightly when walking which means that I often wear out the front part of my soles faster than the heel. This can be significantly delayed by replacing the tip of the fore-sole with a steel shod. There's probably a term for this, but I'm afraid I don't know it.

However I was wondering if it is a bad idea to dabble with the sole in this way. The perk of Goodyear welted soles is that it is easy to exchange the sole, which enhances the overall longevity of the shoe, no? Will a shod complicate later sole-exchanging or in other ways compromise the durability of the shoe?

Cheers.

[couch]

You may want to review this recent thread:

http://www.thelondonlounge.net/forum/vi ... r+encastre

Whether installing a metal toe-tip (fer encastre) impedes resoling depends on the skill of your cobbler. For a shoemaker or a skilled and experienced repair cobbler it should not pose a problem. Having the toe-tips properly honed and inset so that they are flush with the outsole and do not weaken the sole stitching where leather remains, and doing a neat job of it, also requires a fairly skilled craftsman. If you are confident that you know someone who can do a professional job of installing the toe tips, chances are that they can also do satisfactory resoling with new toe-tips.

I should add that in the U.S. these mild steel or brass toe tips are not easy to come by. I bought some from Dean Girling to have installed on some C&J shoes by Perry Ercolino here, after having been won over by the ones that came installed on my MTO shoes from G&G.

[J.S. Groot]

Thanks a lot; also for directing my attention towards mentioned thread; I would have used the search engine, but I didn't know what to use as keywords.

Cheers.