Re-soling Brogans

[bob 125th nysvi]

I have a pair of 'no-name' Brogans I got off of Ebay a number of years ago. They are great and fit fine however the soles have worn through (darn last parade on asphalt).

Can anybody recommend someone to re-sole them? I need a company that is willing to do work on other people's products.

Thanks

[Pvt Schnapps]

I took mine to a local cobbler and got them half-soled. When the heels wore down he did that too. He even had heel plates. In each case I had them back in a week and there was no cost for postage. My buddy took his to another place in the area and had pretty much the same good experience. So my advice would be to find the closest shoe repair place to where you live and just ask.

[Fenian]

A local shoe repaiman had learned "pegging' in Italy and welcomed the chance to try it out once more.He wouldn't believe that my brogans weren't antiques though!?!

[TheQM]

I also use a local shoe maker. Funny story. Our local shoe maker is Korean and doesn't speak very good English. The first time I took in a pair of brogans to be halfsoled, I told him I wanted the soles pegged. He said "NO, I sew". We went back a forth and I finally picked up the shoes and headed for the door. He asked "Why you want them pegged?" I explained the best I could and he finally said okay. At that point, he opened up a drawer under his workbench that contained about a bizillion pegs of various sizes. He was just trying to give me a better job than I wanted! :)

He now understands about the weird reenactors and has asked me to bring in photos of me in uniform.

[Poor Private]

Heck what wrong with a flapping sole, or a hole in them? Just toss a peice of paper in that there shoe to cover that hole. or find a piece of cardboard. Wear em out like they did. Sounds to me like your supply wagon is caught back yonder. There is a couple guys in my southern unit that have shoes that are shall we say in need of repair. But strangely enough them there brogans of theirs never seen to get any repair, and never seem to get wore out worse. They have kinda hit a time warp, and in stasis. :confused:

[FloridaConfederate]

Heck what wrong with a flapping sole, or a hole in them? Just toss a peice of paper in that there shoe to cover that hole. or find a piece of cardboard. Wear em out like they did. Sounds to me like your supply wagon is caught back yonder. There is a couple guys in my southern unit that have shoes that are shall we say in need of repair. But strangely enough them there brogans of theirs never seen to get any repair, and never seem to get wore out worse. They have kinda hit a time warp, and in stasis. :confused:

Think of the exposure to germs. bacteria and filth from shoes with a hole them.

Icky. Yucky. Caca.


Chris Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[westcoastcampaigner]

Anthony's Shoe Service is great. He will do half soles and it only costs $35-$45. He is a graduate of Athens Greece School of Shoe Design and does excellent peg work. I've had two pairs of shoes resoled by him and I won't go anywhere else.

Village Square
43 South Main Street, Rt. 25
Newtown, CT 06470
203-426-3955

Hope that helps.

Best Regards,

Josh Sawyer
Liberty Rifles

[Rob Weaver]

I had a pair resoled by a local cobbler about 10 years ago. I told her to do the repair exactly like the other shoe, which I left for a model. In broken English she indicated when they'd be done. I was certain that when I picked them up I'd be the only reenactor in the world with Vibram soles. But they were perfect, and only $30. I sold those shoes a couple years ago and the next owner got them resoled late last season, by the same cobbler. It's not as hard a repair as it would seem.

[Danny]

Same experience here with my brogans, in this case the heels. Just the local shoe repair did fine. They don't ask who made the shoes, and it was less than 20 bucks as I recall.

Dan Wykes

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

I had a pair resoled by a local cobbler about 10 years ago. I told her to do the repair exactly like the other shoe, which I left for a model. In broken English she indicated when they'd be done. I was certain that when I picked them up I'd be the only reenactor in the world with Vibram soles. But they were perfect, and only $30. I sold those shoes a couple years ago and the next owner got them resoled late last season, by the same cobbler. It's not as hard a repair as it would seem.
Rob, you would by no means be the only guy with vibram soles, as I went a couple of years back to the guy who has been doing my modern shoes for years. He's a very nice Korean who speaks no English, but his wife is the translator. I did the same thing, left the other shoe with written directions, and when I came back, they had wonderfully and artfully replaced both shoes with Vibram and rubber heels. When I made mention of the fact that I was slightly displeased, they told me that the rubber was "much more comfortable and you won't slip". They eventually did what I wanted, but with a lot of back and forth and 8 weeks away from my prized shoes. If the late, great Jim Lammers was still with us, I just would buy more shoes whenever I needed a repair. The problem with his shoes was that you rarely needed a repair - they wore like iron.

[Tiger_rifles]

Ok, while we are telling stories.......
About 15 years back I came across my old "Desert Boots". Those that have been in "the hobby" remember the cheap way to get brogans 25+ years ago was to go to Kenney's Shoes Store and buy thier "Desert Boots"! Then dye them black!
The rubber, one piece, soles had dried up and cracked apart, and the threads were all dry rotted. I re-stitched the body with linen thread, drilled out the metal eyelets, Took the tops to my cobbler and had him put on a complete pegged sole. My Dad had just cut a Cherry tree out of the front yard. Made me a set of Cherry heels and added heelplates. Couple of coats of neatsfoot oil and bees wax and I had a nice pair of civi-shoes!
*NOTE*: Not the best shoes to wear for any long Marching!!!!
Those wood heels will wear you out FAST!

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

"Think of the exposure to germs. bacteria and filth from shoes with a hole them. Icky. Yucky. Caca."

Mostly when marching behind cavalry...

Or those lads a day or two old in a porta-potty.

;) :)

CHS

[Pvt Schnapps]

Heck what wrong with a flapping sole, or a hole in them? Just toss a peice of paper in that there shoe to cover that hole. or find a piece of cardboard. Wear em out like they did. Sounds to me like your supply wagon is caught back yonder. There is a couple guys in my southern unit that have shoes that are shall we say in need of repair. But strangely enough them there brogans of theirs never seen to get any repair, and never seem to get wore out worse. They have kinda hit a time warp, and in stasis. :confused:

They wore them out, but no more often than they had to. I've seen journal entries for getting boots re-soled at 50 cents, which was considerably cheaper than buying a new pair, which would come out of your clothing allowance. The 34th Massachusetts even bought shoemaker's implements and materials from their regimental fund and repaired their men's footwear at cost price.

If you bring up the full 84 meg archival tiff of the following photo, you'll see some interesting footwear on NCOs of the 93rd New York. The sergeant on the right has some decidedly private looking shoes; the one on the left appears to have had his brogans half-soled.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?ils:5:./temp/~pp_mHb8::displayType=1:m856sd=cwpb:m856sf=00815:@ @@

[Regular3]

Yep - My story is similar to Bill Rodman's. I took my 20-year old Jarnagin shoes to a local repair shop, also operated by a Korean man. When I put them up on the counter and said I needed a half-sole job he looked at the shoes, looked at me and said "Which side do you do?" The young woman assisting him asked what the heck he was talking about and he explained it was a Civil War army shoe. I guess I wasn't the first reenactor to cross his doorstep :mrgreen:

My only gripe was pretty minor - I wanted him to sew them but he nailed the half sole in place. But he charged less than Jarnagin had when I'd sent them back once before, and I didn't have to wait 6 weeks for them to be done, and his nail job has lasted longer than their repegging job did.

[harley_davis]

Heck what wrong with a flapping sole, or a hole in them? Just toss a peice of paper in that there shoe to cover that hole. or find a piece of cardboard. Wear em out like they did. Sounds to me like your supply wagon is caught back yonder. There is a couple guys in my southern unit that have shoes that are shall we say in need of repair. But strangely enough them there brogans of theirs never seen to get any repair, and never seem to get wore out worse. They have kinda hit a time warp, and in stasis. :confused:

Here is my "Its funny but its not" story: Last fall I fell in with a Confederate unit, my first time as a Reb. I had a pair of brogans that had the floppy sole syndrome so I thought that would be just the ticket for the "raggedy" Reb. As we moved up a sidehill to flank the Federal force, it became apparant that the floppy sole was a definite impedement to my graceful manuevering. We captured a Federal camp and I "acquired" a leather thong and wrapped around my shoe, instant repair. I was pretty proud of myself and then the main advance across an open field on the entrenched Federals. All was going well until my leather thong repair caught on a hidden stick and I became an early casualty. Fortunately, we were in a line of skirmish and was far enough away from the other lads but the potential of a problem was certainly there. The not so funny part was the obvious safety issue to myself and my comrades. The moral of the story. Perhaps your worn out shoes would be better served for your in camp impression.
Respectfully,