{"id":2978,"date":"2019-09-23T11:50:51","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T11:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/?p=2978"},"modified":"2019-09-23T11:50:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T11:50:52","slug":"expert-interview-with-lifelong-cobbler-yakov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/2019\/09\/23\/expert-interview-with-lifelong-cobbler-yakov\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert Interview with Lifelong Cobbler, Yakov"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Explained the Project)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. \u201cOn your website I read that you repair Men\u2019s dress\nshoes, leather purses, boots, and luggage. With all these different services, what\nis the most common repair? What is the most common shoe repair?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakov. \u201cI focus on this grouping because usually they are all made from leather. [\u2026] The most common repair at Dr. Shoes is usually a resole. \u00a0We focus mainly on shoes and most of our clients need resoles on boots and dress shoes. \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. \u201cI read that you were a leather cutter for a company\nmaking custom leather shoes. It seems that many cobblers get their start with\nworking in leather. Do most cobblers only focus on Leather goods? Is there\nanything you can do to fix knit uppers\/athletic shoes?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y. \u201cYes I worked as a leather cutter in a shop that\nspecialized in making custom made shoes. A lot of my colleagues worked as an\napprentice like myself. The early stages of being a cobbler is all in leather\nwork. I began as a cutter and worked my way up to owning Dr. Shoes\u2026 [\u2026] I do not\nknow of any cobblers that work with athletic shoes. [\u2026] Athletic shoes are difficult\nto repair and cannot be resoled. The details in the soles and level of support\nneeded cannot be recreated in a cobbler shop. We focus with leather goods and usually\nwork with leather and rubber when resoling.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. \u201cIf there was a way to repair\/resole athletic shoes\nwould you implement the service in your cobbler shop? Why\/why not?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y. \u201cIt really depends on the process and if there is a\ndemand for fixing athletic shoes. As of now I do not know any cobblers who work\non athletic shoes and haven\u2019t had many customers asking me about them [\u2026] If\nthe service is proven and there is a demand then I could consider implementing\nit here at Dr. Shoes. [\u2026] That is about as much as I can answer on that because\nit is a space that I am just unfamiliar with. \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. \u201cRecently, the shoe industry has focused on bringing\nsustainability into their designs to help prevent excessive pollution. In\ngeneral, a Cobbler helps with sustainability by keeping shoes out of landfills\nby repairing them. Once you repair a pair of shoes what do you <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

personally, do with the scraps and any leftover used\npieces? Do you recycle or reuse?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y. \u201cAll of the old soles get thrown out immediately after\nreplacement. There is not much you can do with them after they are covered in\nold glue and have threading holes around them. [\u2026] As for the scraps it really\ndepends on the size. With resoling there isn\u2019t too much leftover scraps so anything\nlike that gets thrown away\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. \u201cOn your website I couldn\u2019t find any pricing for repairs.\nWhat do you charge for shoe repairs? (resoling, leather touch ups, panel replacement,\netc)\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y. \u201cWe begin with a basic resoling price of $35, since\nthe shoe market has become more affordable, I\u2019ve had to adjust my prices since becoming\nthe owner in 1999. [\u2026] Besides that, everything else when replacing a sole depends\non the level of deterioration in the leather and the level of work needed to\nfix them. [\u2026]\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. \u201cCould you take me through the process of resoling a\nshoe?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Got out a men\u2019s dress shoe that needed a resole)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began with cleaning the shoe saying \u201cThis is the most important\npart because it removes all the dust\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Destruction<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After cleaning the shoe, he took a knife and popped off the rubber\nand leather heel block that is connected with nails. This is where he would\nstop if he only had to replace the heel, but since this was a complete resole,\nhe said he had to completely remove the whole leather sole. With this he took\nhis knife and began cutting the thread holding the sole to the bottom of the\nshoe. After the threading was complete, he got out a solvent and began running\nit along the edges of the old leather sole. While do this he said, \u201cthis loosens\nup the leather allowing for it to be separated from the leather upper\u2026\u201d<\/em> He then\nproceeded to take plyers and his knife and rip the leather sole off of the\nleather upper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reconstruction<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point the sole was off and ready to begin the\nresoling process. He began with cleaning and sanding the glue and particles off\nthe bottom of the leather uppers (cleaning for a good bond to the new sole). He\nthen retrieved a leather sole blank and spreads glue on the leather upper and\nnew blank. He let them sit for 10 minutes to dry then bonded them to each\nother. After letting them set up he brought them to the sander and shaped the sole\nto the upper. After this he made a line about 3mm from the outside of the sole\nand began cutting a canal around the outside of the shoe. From here he walked\nto his threading machine and rethreaded the leather soles to the upper. After\nthis he began work on the heels. With this he got a rubber heel and glued it to\nthe leather soles. He then nailed ten nails into the heel locking it in place. Finally,\nhe went on the sander one last time to get the final shape of the soles. The final\nstep was dying the leather sole to the desired color and he was done. This\nwhole process took about 40 minutes with a lot of heavy machinery used. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Explained the Project) L. \u201cOn your website I read that you repair Men\u2019s dress shoes, leather purses, boots, and luggage. With all these different services, what is the most common repair? What is the most common shoe repair?\u201d Yakov. \u201cI focus on this grouping because usually they are all made from leather. [\u2026] The most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-voices-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2980,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978\/revisions\/2980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}