The Final Week - Week 5 of 5 Weeks in R M Williams

This is week five of my five weeks in RM Williams challenge. How did I go this week? >> [music] >> Good day. Welcome to my channel Bootlosophy. My name is Tech and my channel is about heritage boots, stitched boots, welted boots, and historically uh created boots. So, I'm in Wadjat country and it's Sunday morning. I missed Saturday evening again. >> [laughter] >> It was a a a really rough week. There were a lot of uh things happening and on Friday a subscriber of mine uh very generously came over and spent an afternoon with me with his three pairs of wooden boots that we unboxed together. So, keep an eye out for that uh video. So, at the end of the week I was pretty tired and on Saturday um basically uh did a bit of work around the house and then didn't do too much else. And so, I decided to skip the uh Saturday afternoon filming. So, anyway, here we are on Sunday morning. This is week five of my five weeks in RM Williams challenge. So, if you come into this in week five, then you really need to go back and watch weeks one to four in turn. And the easiest way for you to do that is to go to my channel, look for playlists, and look for the playlist five weeks in RM Williams where you can binge all five uh videos. And for convenience, I'll put a link to that playlist down below. Now, I have a bit of an announcement to make in that last week in week four, I said, "You know, I'm considering uh adding a week six because the first week was a bit of a cheat because uh I just came back from holidays and I spent the first two or three days not really wearing any boots, let alone the RM Williams." But, [snorts] I think I'm not going to do that despite a lot of very kind subscribers putting in comments that they really want a week six. And the reason I'm not doing that, I think, is because let's be frank, five weeks, six weeks in any pair of boots is not going to fundamentally change them a lot, no matter how hard you wear them. And particularly as two pairs of them I've worn quite often in the last two years, you're not really going to see any substantial changes to patina and and so on. Although, do keep watching because I will talk about the patina that I've noticed in these last five weeks. So, I'm just going to talk about the lessons learned in this five-week experiment. First though, let me introduce you to the boots, and I'll tell you how I wore them in this fifth week. So, the first boot I'll introduce introduce you to, particularly if you haven't seen the first four videos, is [snorts] this one. This is called the R.M. Williams Comfort Turnout. Now, this last was actually used by R.M. Williams to make not only the turnout boot, but also the urban turnout, which had commander soles, and also the Gardener boot, the original Gardener boot. It's a round toe last, little bit shorter than the Comfort Craftsman, as you can see if I can line that up. It's a little bit shorter because it's more round toed without that sort of sharper chisel toe. As a result of of the proportioning, it's a little bit shorter. It is a 270° Goodyear welt, where the top of the boot, the uppers, is connected to the sole of the boot by virtue of this separate piece of leather, separate thin strip of leather called the welt. The inside of the boot and the uppers are sewn to the inside edge of the welt. The outside edge of the welt is sewn through to the sole. The sole itself is a rubber full slip sole, goes all the way through, and then a stack leather heel and a a rubber top lift. And like all RM Williams, this does not have a mid-sole. So, this piece of leather is in fact the welt, it comes straight onto the uh rubber outsole. And on the inside there is a a cork filler, although these days they're now using a foam filler. And there is a fiberglass shank. Uh inside the boot, um the insole is a board called Texon. It's a sort of artificial uh uh chipboardy type thing. Uh if you go and watch, I think it was in week three that I discussed it, I discussed what Texon does and its pros and cons. And on top of the Texon, they glued on the comfort insole, and that is the Poron insole. And again, this is not foam. This is actually Poron uh patented by the Rogers Corporation. So, again, I think in week three, I give you a full rundown of what Poron is. Well, how I wore this, I wore this for two days during the week, um fairly uh uh not tough days. I went to the office in these, but it was a full eight days. Um went to the office and and uh mainly stayed in the office, although I did go out to go to the post office in these. I think I've already told you how comfortable they are from day one. So, uh sitting around, uh very comfortable. And after eight hours of wear, my feet are not tired. Somebody asked me in the previous week, "Having worn these all day, even in the office, can you tell us where the hot spots are?" And I there there really are none. They're comfortable. They stayed um comfortable throughout the entire day. The next one I'll introduce you to is probably more familiar if you don't really know R.M. Williams. This is the Comfort Craftsman. Now, R.M. Williams do two types of of Craftsman. They do the classic Craftsman, which is the leather sole build, and then they do the Comfort Craftsman, which is a rubber sole build, and they use Poron on the inside as well. The the build is very similar to the turnout. It is a 270° Goodyear welt. It has the rubber outsole with no mid-sole. It has the Texon board. It has the Poron foam lining inside. And all of them, all of R.M. Williams, are what's called whole cut boots. Means the entire boot is one piece of leather with one seam up the back, which is a pretty difficult thing to sew, no matter what you say about, you know, handmade versus not really handmade. The um the leather in this, and I'll talk about this a little bit later, it is yearling. It's not calfskin, which a lot of these are made in. Um and they now have a yearling Craftsman, which is made of high-quality yearling leather uh with a uh I think it's a I think it might be a dynamic sole, which is a a leather sole with some uh rubber parts in it to give you a better flex. That's much more expensive than a standard Comfort Craftsman. Uh how have I worn this? I wore this 3 days during the week, uh also going to work, but with a little bit more walking around. And in two of those days, I went out to see clients. And in one of those days, I went out to see clients for an entire day. I went down into the middle of the city, into the CBD, and walked along um the main CBD street, which is called St. George's Terrace, full of banks and lawyers and accountants. And because I had a lot of them to see, uh I went there at I think about half past 10:00 in the morning, saw several clients, had lunch there, and saw other clients, and didn't leave until I think it was about half past 3:00. And that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's about 4 km, and I had clients all the way along. So, it was walking along the pavements all day. And on the other two days, and in fact on the third day as well, I had these on my feet for about 8 hours. And again, to answer that person who asked about the comfort at the end of the day, it was as comfortable at the end of the day as it was at the beginning. This one is showing a little bit more wear in the corner of the heel. Not not a great deal. Here we go. Let me just pull that apart for you. Okay. A little bit more at the at the back of the heel. Not a great deal, but it surprises me that it's showing a little bit more than on this heel. Anyway. So, the third boot I want to introduce you to, if you haven't met this, this is this came out as a boot called the Goodwood. It's now called the Gardener. They've retired the original Gardener, and this is now the Gardener boot. It comes in this comfort construction as well as another construction with Commander soles, Vibram Commander soles. This one is in a leather called bark, which is actually a newbuck. And it's constructed in almost exactly the same way, except it's a 360° Goodyear welt. It goes all the way around. And the reason for that is as a work boot, it doesn't matter if you have this ledge at the back, whereas for the dressier boots, I mean, you can see a welt there, but the idea is that there's a line there that you don't need that welt, although they put a a rand. Um, I'm not sure if it's a leather rand around the heel. So, with this boot, it has a wider, um, last and it has a V bar sole as opposed to these city boots with a flatter rubber soles. Now, I had another subscriber say, "Oh, I do like RM Williams, but I've never pulled the trigger because I work in the in the countryside and I'm never sure if these, uh, flat soles are good." These are very grippy. And unless you're you're working on ice, uh, even mud, I think these will grip really well. These These are used by Australians everywhere on paddocks, in cattle stations, in sheep stations, riding horses. So, it's not that slippery. This, however, gives really good grip. Uh, I've been using this in the garden. We have a several fruit trees. For the last several weeks, I've been pruning fruit trees as they before they start flowering. Um, and you can see it's I've tried to clean it, but you can see I've got squashed bits of fruit everywhere and vegetation. Uh, needs a bit of a clean. Um, yeah, so I wore this last Sunday, uh, out in the yard uh, almost all day. We started work We had a late breakfast, um, uh, and and I I, um, I filmed last week's, uh, on Sunday morning. So, we had a late breakfast and we didn't really start work until about 10 or half past 10 around the yard. My wife did the weeds and I did the tall stuff, getting up on ladders, uh, which this helped in a lot. >> [snorts] >> Uh, that was a almost a full day event. Wore this to the pub for dinner. Um, and then, uh, through the week after I finished work, I changed out of these and get into these, um, for being around the house or uh, if we had to go out in the evenings, uh, we went out to do grocery shopping or whatever in these. And Saturday, that's yesterday, again I wore them in the yard. Again on fruit trees, which I think I finished, thank goodness. Okay. So, before we go on, I want to insert a word from the editor. Have a look. If you love heritage boot videos, we need to chat. YouTube fundamentally changed how it recommends videos, and it could completely bury our community's videos if we don't fix it right now. >> [snorts] >> YouTube no longer pushes new videos to all subscribers or people who click on like on heritage boot videos. Instead, YouTube's AI tests uploads on a tiny seed audience called viewer clusters. Problem? The AI often misreads the data. It might mistake a $600 Pacific Northwest work boot review for a fast fashion fashion trend. If YouTube drops my video into a budget mall brand cluster, for example, those viewers click away in 10 seconds. It's not for them. That poor retention tells the AI the video is bad, and it completely stops showing the thumbnail to the actual heritage boot community, even to my subscribers. I [snorts] need your help to get the AI to put it into the right cluster. When you see my thumbnail, click on it fast. Early data trains the AI on who the real audience is. I upload videos every Saturday and Sunday, which in the US is Friday and Saturday. If a new video doesn't show on those days, manually type in bootlosophy into search, then click the video. This tells the AI exactly what niche we belong to. Finally, bypass the feed entirely. Make it a strict habit to check the bootlosophy channel directly every Saturday and Sunday for new uploads. Subscribe and hit that notification bell today so you get notice and let's keep real boot content alive. Cheers. Okay, next I want to talk about how the wear has shown in 5 weeks but it's not true. If you've been following the series, you know that I've been wearing the comfort craftsman and the redwood for about 2 years now since I bought them. Not you know, not in a in a in a great amount of frequency but certainly enough to say that I worn them. There's no need to break them in blah blah blah. So a lot of the patina and and creasing you see has been brought on before the last 5 weeks. But I have noticed changes and I'll take you through them. This one is a lot more infrequently used. I've owned it owned it about the same time. But let me insert here a little piece that I filmed yesterday. And the first one I'll take a look at is this >> [snorts] >> redwood boot now called the gardener. And it's a it's it's the colorway is called bark. But it is a newbuck leather. So it's slightly corrected grain so it becomes a bit nappy but otherwise it's a it's a full grain leather with the with the tops that are sanded to give it a that that suede look. And the major changes that you can see is sort of bits of That's not dirt. It's the oils that have been rubbed into certain areas because of the way maybe I've been scuffing things or sometimes when I'm on the ground I'm sort of pushing against the ground sort of thing. And it comes through sort of that side as well. And any basically any pressure points where my where my bones of the of the foot are pushing out a little bit that's dirt. And the toes as well. And the leather, you can see I just did a little bit of scratching. Marks quite a bit, but it's easy enough to sort of brush it with a suede brush. And this is where a lot of the oils have come out and just my pants sort of rubbing in that area and back here. And the other boot is reasonably the same. You can see a lot of that oil shininess coming there. Uh few drops of dirt that I've allowed to drop on and I I can't You know, like I don't think that's grease. I think it might have been maybe sap from trees or something. But again, you can see the effects of just scraping um bits that stand out all along the heel. And that's what this leather will eventually turn like. It needs a bit of a clean. Uh but that's what this leather will eventually look like in that sort of a spotty oil look. The next one I'll take a look at is the yearling leather, but this is not the yearling boot. This is a comfort craftsman. So, this is 1-year-old cow. Uh and you can see the creases that have happened. And I assure you, if you can look carefully, this is not loose grain. This is this is creasing. And I guess if I use shoe trees, it might not have been as bad. Although, I suspect this is the type of leather that does that. Few scuffs on my right foot. They've been accumulating for a while now. Um little bit of little bit of rub off of the top of the leather >> [snorts] >> um because I have scraped that. And then you can see the creasing again on the shaft. But otherwise, it's a fairly uniform chocolaty brown chestnut leather. Um and the patina does not show through as different colors, but more as the crumpling and collapsing of the leather as the fibers start to collapse. The other boot is also similar. Really not much else to talk about that. And then finally, I think this is the one where I've seen the most change. This is the turn out in Warwick yearling and you can tell, I think, the difference in the two yearling leathers in the way they crease. If you see the the deep creases in the chestnut craftsman versus the very crystalline creases in this yearling Warwick yearling. Warwick's the color. Few scrapes but and I'm not sure this comes out on camera, this has changed in color. Um there are patches of light and dark starting to appear on this because it's a much lighter color than than the chestnut, of course, so you can see variations in it. And it's not it's not a pull up by any means. All right? But it obviously has some sort of waxes in this leather and it has moved as I wear. Um the other boot has a similar change to it. This is probably the one with the most marked change that I've seen. All right. Now, let's talk about some lessons that I can take from this little challenge of last 5 weeks. People will say you're being slightly ridiculous because if you're trying to show us how boots wear over time, 5 weeks just isn't enough. Uh three pairs probably is right because you're swapping them, but 5 weeks probably isn't enough, particularly as you work in an office job. Sorry, but that's what I do. But I I think it's a reasonable experience in the sense of if you were not a boot collector or a boot reviewer who needs to get a lot of boots to create a lot of content, this is the sort of thing you might do. Number one is you choose in your boot collection the types of boots that you wear most days. Now, I'm not saying that um if you work in the city, you don't go out and buy a Nick's boot or a, you know, White's work boot because getting one of those in your collection, even as as modest as it is, it's up to you. It's fun. If you want to wear it, wear it, you know? But on the whole, I think the sensible thing is choosing the type of boots that goes with your lifestyle. So, if I were less of a boot reviewer and I knew nothing about boots except that I liked wearing boots and my lifestyle is working in an office and sometimes out in the yard and sometimes uh going out for long hikes, these are the types of boots I'd choose. I'd buy three pairs of boots, two of which can be rotated um around the office and in the city, a third of which can be used as a kind of work boot, casual boot, and I would probably buy a a fourth which would I would use for hiking purposes. Uh and once I got them down to that, this is the way I would wear them. I would rotate my daily shoes, uh I'd wear certain shoes to work out in the yard or in other places, and um you know, doing DIY stuff, and I might have that fourth boot to go out on my long hikes. So, I think that's that's a interesting lesson which I also pointed out in my previous series, 12 Boots in 12 Weeks, which you you should go and see. So, I'll put a link to that to that playlist down below as well. Uh the second uh lesson I think I learned is that R.M. Williams is as comfy the first time you wear them as they are 5 weeks down the track. As I said, I've worn those a bit more. I think I might have worn these in the last 2 years maybe 20 times, not a great deal. So, you could hardly say they were broken in, even though if I, you know, a lot of those 20 times I wore them for a full day. I do not remember them being harder to wear in the in the beginning. Um, so they're as comfortable as they are now. I think the the reason for that is two things. One is the uh, lack of a of a mid-sole. No mid-sole. Horses for courses. If you want that flexibility [snorts] on day one, putting in a a a full leather mid-sole could make it quite hard to break in. Frankly, right? So, R.M. Williams today are designed for the boardroom farmer, right? They're not designed for the guy who buys them, jumps on a horse, rounds up 2,000 head of cattle. Because these are now $600 boots that probably those people can't afford. Uh, they last, I believe, just as long, but nevertheless, you want a namby-pamby, you know, manager, CEO, director's foot to go into these and not go, "Holy crap, these are hard." You want them to go, "Oh, okay, I can wear them to the office straight away." Like you do with any shoe. The second reason for I think that comfort is the uh, Poron uh, insole. Now, let me stress, the Poron insole sits on top of an insole. So, it's just a comfort insole. It's glued in, not removable. Poron, on, you watched week three, I think it was, uh, is an open cellular structure. So, unlike PU or normal foam, it doesn't squish. It actually remembers. It's a memory foam, in other words. It does break down after couple of years of solid everyday wear. It won't break down for me, because I don't use these solid everyday. Uh, but during that time, it's very comfortable. And what happens at the end of couple of years, when maybe it does break down and it's it's a little lumpy, you take it to a cobbler, you rip it out, and you put another one in. It's a glued-in insole, for goodness sake. You don't even have to recraft the welt, or anything. Or send it to RM Williams. Uh, another lesson that I've learned, particularly about RM Williams, is that some of the leathers really come alive. Like this one, in the in yearling, a year-old calf, really comes alive. You can't see it here. I'm hoping that you'll be able to see it in the um insert that I did yesterday, in sunlight. But there are variations in this sort of mid ready brown color, that were not there at the beginning of 5 years. Not so much this one, because it's a uniform dark chestnut. And in this one, I'm not sure about coming alive, but it's definitely showing the patina, as hopefully you saw in that in that little insert. Uh, part of that lesson, though, was that what they call yearling, depending on the tannery, does behave itself a little bit differently. Remember that you don't have to buy the best boot, but you want to buy the boot that fits your lifestyle and is comfortable for you. And at $600, you might think that's expensive Australian dollars. You might think that's expensive, when you can buy $200 uh Chelsea boots from a shopping center. Uh, even made from overseas, like an Ecco, but those are probably around $300 with glued soles, those fall apart in 2 years if you're wearing them solidly for 2 years. These will not. These will easily last you for if even if you're wearing them every day, this will easily last you for 4 or 5 years before you have to resole them. And then, you can wear them onwards again for another 4 or 5 years before you resole them again. My original black pair of classic craftsman, which uh I have reviewed, I've had them now for well over 20 years. I keep forgetting how where the count, but it's well over 20 years. As solid as ever. All they've had to do is I I felt a bit of softness in the leather um sole in the middle, so I got my cobbler to put in a toppy. That saves it for a few more miles. Okay, so in summary, I'm not going to do a 6-week Sorry, guys, for those of you who asked. Uh it's a bit repetitive, and I think the lessons that I've just told you about uh can be learned in 5 weeks as much as in 6. Uh I like doing these longitudinal reviews, except that I don't get to wear my other boots, which is, you know, I as I was wearing these boots in the last 5 weeks, I look at my collection go, "Oh, I haven't worn those for a while. I wonder if I Oh, no, I'm supposed to wear one of these." So, apart from that, boot envy is a real thing. Um I hope you enjoyed the series. I really do. Uh it it it is it is short. It's only 5 weeks wear, so what can I learn from it? Well, I I think those lessons I learned are pretty good uh summary of of uh what you can learn. Uh if you like this type of longitudinal review as much as I hate doing them because I can't wear other boots, uh let me know. >> [snorts] >> And uh click on like, click on subscribe, make a comment, a nice one. And take care out there. Um, be well.