Shoes a Simple Improvised Pattern

Description

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning folks they've calibrated the pathfinder school joseph Doddridge wrote in his journals of the indian wars along the eastern frontier that many of the frontiersman that ventured into the woods to either explore or market hunt or become long hunters working for a bigger company wore Footwear very similar to the Native Americans and that they wore moccasins and moccasins weren't described in his writings as only a civilized way of going barefoot moccasins were in constant need of repair they got very wet and saturated in wetter Easter woodland weather many of the long hunters slept most of the time with their feet toward the fire to warm their feet up throughout the night because they all suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and things of that nature because of their feet being cold all the time and not well supported moccasins would not lend themselves very well to protection from things like locusts thorns or sharp pointy objects but they were better than going barefoot the reason they didn't wear boots much back then was because the boots that were made in that time period generally had flat leather soles on them with a little bit of a heel they were very slick and very slippery not that moccasins were not because they were but they were also quiet and they were easy to remanufacture from natural materials and I think that goes right back to my mentality of survival to begin with is using gear that's easily replaceable or reproducible with the right knowledge given resources with natural material and you carry the things on your body that are difficult to replace with natural material or your skill level may not be there to replace those items with natural material so shoes are something that sooner or later you may end up having to replace if you're in an emergency scenario where you just have lost your shoes you didn't have your shoes maybe a boat is capsized and you lost your shoes you may get yourself into a position we need to make some type of Footwear what I'm going to do today is I'm going to use a piece of that rubber sheeting that we use to make our trapping apron out of it's pretty thick inner tube thickness rubber sheeting but it's easy to work with it's easy to see so what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you a pattern that I created that I adopted for I'm a little bit of modern technology as well as museum drawings and things of that nature of ancient footwear that was made from Rome and into the European periods and medieval times as well it's a very simple pattern that you can make and you can use anything to make these shoes with that's a robust material you could use animal skins with the hair on the inside so that they were insulated and then the leather would be on the outside you can use rubber sheeting like we're going to use today if you were trying to make some type of waterproof Footwear in an emergency or a stocking shoe of some sort you could also make them out of brain tanned deer hide just like moccasins were made or you can make them out of a heavy wool blanket or any other material that was robust that you could find in a given situation where you had to make your own shoes so stay with me I'm going to show you how to make these right now it's real simple guys

I think a couple things that are worth noting real quick on this project is first you're going to need a length of cordage and I chose to take a 20 foot section of paracord and cut it in half to make two 10-foot sections and these are going to be my lacings for my foot where you really don't need a whole lot to make these and I think that's the most spectacular thing about this pattern is I don't have to have a really good knowledge of sewing I don't have to have a good knowledge of how to make Footwear like mocs and center seams pucker toes things like that at the same time I don't have to have a lot of equipment to make this either you know that the frontiersman carried what was called a moccasin haul with them on our shooting bag almost continuously because they were constantly repairing and remaking moccasins wore bundles that have been found by Indian tribes that were in war parties the war bundles that were kept in their camp at night have been found that contained over 20 pairs of spare moccasins alone for the war party so they went through moccasins at a pretty good rate and you're going to go through any type of footwear that you manufacture even something like this you're going to go through it at a fairly good rate so you got to be careful what you're walking on or where you're walking and even if this is made out of a really thick animal hide like a deer skin you're still going to go through it pretty fast the important thing is is that it doesn't take a lot of tools to make this I punched these holes with a leather punch but I could have just as easily punched these holes with an awl if I had to so what I did to measure my pattern was basically I took my boot off and I put my foot on top of my piece of rubber then I folded the rubber over to make sure that I had a tongue which is an improvement over the medieval and Roman design to make sure that I had a tongue that was going to overlap at my ankle and I marked that with just a piece of chalk and that's where I cut my length out of this square then what I did was I made sure that I had half again the distance of my foot or the length of my foot so I measured my foot and I measured half the distance of my foot and I cut my other piece on the backside that length so that it would be as long as half my foot behind my heel and as long as my foot to where my ankle comes up in the front then what I did was I took the same piece of cordage and I tied a knot in it and I put it around the widest portion of my foot and marked it with my finger and that was the width that I cut the front of my shoe right here so I went to here and I cut my square down right there that width down to right at the base of my foot where my foot turns up to my ankle right here if this was folded over and I still had these flaps on here because this is square I drew a lateral line across here and this is where I stopped my actual foot wrap or my boot wrap and that's where I opened this up a little bit a couple inches so that I could account for what was going to wrap around to the top around my ankle and the top of my foot then all I did was cut this off at a 45 degree angle here and here because that's going to become the toe of my shoe so it was a really simple measurement process that I just used cordage to measure doesn't take a whole lot to do very very simple nothing complicated about this pattern at all

so we have our length we have our width we have our width of our shoe we have the width of our tongue and the width of my tongue was only measured by how wide my foot was I basically just eyeballed out I put my foot in there I balled the width of my foot and that's how wide I cut my tongue that was real simple so once I did that I cut the pattern out so that I had a square back here I had kind of a house rough looking thing here with a chimney coming out of it and that was my tongue now the next step in the process was to punch my holes the holes are very easy okay so once I did all of that and I have my pattern laid out I folded this over just like this and I punched holes directly on that fold to double my material thickness for my first draw point because that's going to draw my toe together like this and I want to double the material thickness right there when my foots in there because this is going to take a lot of strain throughout because my toes are going to be right here to be pushing against this all the time when I'm walking especially downhill so I doubled my thickness there then I just evenly spaced three holes here three holes here three holes up this side and three more holes up this side so I've got three three three three and then the double over hole right there that is all I need to make a shoe that's it the rest of it just comes in putting the shoe together now again I took a piece of paracord that was 20 foot long and I cut it in half so basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to come over here and the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to feed through both of these holes just like this and I'm going to feed through them on this back side because this is going to be pulled over the top anyway so we'll go through both of those holes just like this and then we're going to draw that evenly so we've got that 10-foot Accord you even now one thing that I found that's important with this is that you always lace these from over the top and what I mean by that is when you put your foot in this thing to begin with you're just going to push it up against the tongue now one thing that you can do with this that I found is very handy I have a set of our pocket insoles that looked like this something like this could very easily be made out of a double thickness of wool blanket all this is a double layer probably or triple layer of alpaca material I'll pack a felted wool that's been sewn on a machine to use for insoles inside a pair of boots and this is to fold and purpose number one it provides insulation from the ground so it fights conduction on your feet number two it gives you a little bit of padding so when you're stepping on hard rocks and things like that it doesn't hurt quite so bad on the bottom of your feet it gives you also a little bit of a wicking layer in there because alpaca and wool are very wicking so they're going to pull the moisture away from your foot and into this pad and then you can just take this pad out at night let it dry so if you make an insole like this out of a wool blanket in an emergency that will help you as well and then I just laid my insole in and put my foot on top of the insult just like that then I folded this over the top now the first draw like I said is going to draw the toe of this moccasin what I'm going to do from here on out is every one of these lacings is going to go over the top of the hole like this and you're going to have to pull these things and play with them as you go to keep them tight so now what you've got is you've got two lacings coming over the top just like this when you draw that down that creates the toe of your moccasin pull that up pull it in draw it together just like that now that created the toe of my shoe now I'm going to do is I'm going to feed each consecutive one over the top just like that and I'm going to draw it down tight as I go just like this keeping it tight there's a little bit of stretching this rubber you'll get a little bit of a stretch out of skin too some material you use may not stretch at all again I'm going over the top every time pulling everything down and keeping it tight keeping that tongue flat as I can okay

the good thing about this rubber is it's good and binding it doesn't slip very much so it holds really well with this paracord when you're lacing it up now once you get this the lace hole is done everything else becomes a tie because now what I have to do is I have to get the back of this somewhere so I'm going to lift this up a little bit so you can see what I'm doing I've tucked this Tong down inside now I'm going to bring this heel up just like this and I'm going to fold this one over as tight as I can get it and this one over as tight as I can get it I'm going to pull those down just like that then I'm going to fold this back side up and just flap that material over just like this and just like this over the top so they cross I'm going to come down below my ankle right the back of my heel with the first tie keeping it tight all the time and just cross it all the way up to the top just like this take one turn in it to take up the line come around and tie it off now you probably want to tie this off in some kind of a square knot or something like that to keep them coming undone I'm just going to tie it in a bow and now what I have is a very functional pair of moccasin type shoes something like this would come in really really handy if I were out stalking deer or something like that I wanted to be quiet and I want to keep my feet dry something like this would help immensely in that game instead of wearing boots into the woods to hunt with so there you go it's a pretty simple project real easy to do real easy to make again you know this stuff's not going to last forever they're not bomb-proof they're certainly not the best in the world but they'll definitely do what you need to do they're definitely functional and they're going to work if you don't have anything else folks I appreciate you joining me I have another video today remember that this skill as simple as it is is something it needs to be practiced just like anything else to truly own that skill so that you can rely on it in time of need I appreciate your support I appreciate your views I thank you very thing you do for me for my school my family and my business back another video soon as I can thanks guys

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