The Altberg Factory
BS-EN-Certification
It was 1969 when I first saw the lasting room at the old shoe factory in Richmond… it was running at full speed and I thought it was one of the ‘wonders of the world’. There was steam and heat everywhere and it was noisy… with pneumatic machines hissing and blowing… and the deeper growl of the hydraulic machines and hammering of lasted toes being flattened... There were lots of different machines… some big, some small...and in amongst them were people… wearing aprons and smocks and all were clustered around six long conveyers. It looked chaotic… but it was the exact opposite… because they were making 5000 pairs every day… uppers went onto one end of the conveyer and a pair of shoes emerged every 7 seconds!!! At Altberg we don’t make such big quantities… we make 300 pairs a each day between our two factories, but our boots require a much higher level of craft and hand making than the shoes we made in the old Richmond shoe factory.
‘Back moulding’ making the heel of the upper
‘Toe lasting’ lasting the toe of the upper onto the last
‘Side-seat lasting’ lasting the sides and heel of the boot onto the last
The first job is to steam and shape the upper onto the last… and it must be lasted tight with no ’crinkles’.
Then it’s the turn of the ‘roughers’ and ‘bottom scourers’ to prepare the upper for the sole.
'Bottom scouring'
'Side wall roughing'
Once the soles and uppers have been prepared and glued and allowed to cure… the ‘sole layers’, ‘rand layers’ and ‘slipper offs’ continue with the process.
Boots ready for sole laying
Preparing rands and soles
Re-activating the sole
Re-activating the upper
'Laying the sole'
'Slipping off' removing the last from inside the boot
When the old shoe factory in Richmond closed in 1989 it was clear that in England the days of ‘mass production’ of footwear was mostly at an end… and that’s when I started Altberg… making small quantities (even single pairs) of specialist technical boots…
And I have to say the past twenty five years developing and crafting Altberg boots have been some of the best years of my working life… and I wouldn't wish to go back to 'mass production'.
But in my mind I will always remember the first time I saw the lasting room of the old shoe factory, it was in ‘full flow’ making 5000 pairs every day… it was like a symphony of noise and heat and sound… it was industrial music… and I and others were lucky to have had that experience.