Crocodile Shoes - How They are Made

If you're a lover of fine crocodile shoes. When it comes to dressing your feet, nothing beats genuine crocodile skin shoes. Unlike synthetic materials like vinyl, leather lets your feet breathe. And high end shoes like crocodile shoes feature superior construction techniques that just can't be used on cheaper shoes. Plus it makes them light weight and comfortable to wear. The designers vision first originates of the shoe design when it first gets sketched out on a plastic sheet. To help the shoe designer really put the sketch to life and make the designer perfect the shoe style, they put the sketch of the shoe onto a shoe form call a last. Exotic skin leather like crocodile have variations in them so an exotic skin specialist has to match and hand cut them to ensure that the right and left shoes match well. Next the crocodile skin specialist uses a splitting machine to shave off a layer from the underside of the crocodile skin to equalize the thickness of all the pieces of crocodile skin.

The next step is for the shoe maker to use a Skiving machine to thin out the edges of the skin to make for easier and smoother sewing. Depending on the style of the shoes made they will punch decorative manual holes into the skin using a press. The next step if for the shoe maker to sewn the pieces of skin to make the upper part of the shoes and hand hammer the seams to make them lay flat giving a smoother appearance. The next step is for the shoe maker to glue a leather strip along the border of the upper part of the shoe to hide the part of the leathers unfinished edge and provide a decorative trim for the shoes that are being made. The following step in making crocodile shoes is to attach a lining made of lambskin or goatskin leather and flax which is then fit over the last form. It allows for a much more comfortable type of insole for the shoes.

The next step is to put the lining into the upper part of the shoes and slip them over the last that are being made. Next the insole of the crocodile shoes in progress has to be glued on which has to have a both rigid section and a flexible section to allow proper walking and comfort that are being made. Now the lining of the shoe needs to be glued onto the upper part or outside part of the shoes and put it into a machine at the front point of the toe of the shoes and pulls everything straight. Next the shoe is put into another machine that has mechanical like fingers that pulls the entire upper front part of the shoes straight and glues it making everything symmetrical. Next it's put into a similar shoe machine that does the same exact thing for the back and heel part of the shoes being made.

The very next step is to grind down the bottom of the area where the leather sole is going to be sewn on to create a flat surface ensure a proper surface. The next step, the shoe artisans will heat the leather of the upper with a flame to make the leather mailable and hammer the upper until it full assumes the shape of the last and side. The hammering also rids the crocodile skin of any unnecessary wrinkles that may have been present before. After those steps are done, the next step is to coat the under side of the shoe with glue where the sole is going to be sewn on. The glue takes about ten minutes to dry and attache the sole to the upper of the shoe. The next step is to run the edge of the leather shoe sole through a splitting machine to separate a thin layer of the shoe sole which is then sewn to the upper part of the shoes using heavy duty twine which ensures that the sole of the shoe won't separate from the upper part of the shoes. Then depending on the style of the shoes, the stitching may or may not be hidden on the sole so the edge of the sole is then glued and then they grind down the edge of the sole. Afterwards the leather sole is given a thorough polishing to give it slick and fine looking finish. Afterwards another specialist is given the shoes to give it a full polishing to bring out intricacies of the leather uppers. This is the very last step in over 200 different steps that are used to make a pair of hand made crocodile shoes.