This boot design and partnership with the Frank's Boot crew has been a wonderful experience and we are just getting started! Thanks to Junior and Frank on the fitment. And an extra special thanks to Michelle as my contact and design partner.
The Maxon Boot starts off with Frank’s Boots. If you haven’t heard of Frank’s Boots, they are a Pacific Northwest boot maker that specializes in work boots for forestry, wildfire, and general heavy duty physical work. Their boots also include a heritage lineup that can double as work or casual boots. Either lineup is overbuilt for usage and will last a lifetime if taken care of for anything you can throw at them except the most absurd of usages.
After designing some boots in the past, I especially wanted to work with Frank’s Boots as they have been great at sticking to the basic roots of the company and what Pacific Northwest Boot crafting is all about – ruggedness! If it ain’t broke don’t fix it so to speak. What this means is they do not cut corners and they have an excellent crew of boot makers that hand crafts each boot with precision and care. They make a great product at a truly silly cost point when you look at what you get for the money and how long their boots last coupled with the rebuildable nature of their products (resoles possible, complete rebuilds possible). So what you get as a customer is a top notch overbuilt high quality boot at a more than fair price point that can last you a life time if you treat the boots right. I call these “lifetime boots”.
The design builds on the Frank’s Boots basic Wilshire boot lineup. There are four tow box options for Frank’s Boots and this boot uses option 3 toe box. This is the second widest toe box option. A celastic toe box is used along with a cap toe with double row stitching.
From there a specialty leather (as compared to the Frank’s Boots “standard work leather” options) is used. This is USA made Horween Predator Steel leather. It is gray in nature. But in the right light it can actually appear as several different colors depending on the lighting. This ranges from a dark brown looking hue to a medium to dark gray hue to a black hue to a dark olive green hue. It adds a lot of character to the leather in a sense you can really wear this leather and boot with any type of outfit whether it is brown toned or black toned. Very versatile from a styling perspective. But more importantly, it is a durable Horween leather with combination chrome and veg tanning process. A similar process to chromexel, but without the surface color that can be scratched or worn off. Instead it has a good amount of oily pullup nature and also that buffability where it can be scratched or nicked, but you can brush or rub the leather and work the oils to the surface and the scratches and nicks basically disappear like magic. This boot will use a 5.5 - 6 oz exterior Horween Predator leather and a 3.5 oz interior liner. Here is the official leather description from Horween:
"Horween Predator leather is combination tanned and blends the durability of a chrome tanned base with a heavy vegetable re-tannage. It then incorporates a rich blend of waxes to create a tonal appearance of the leather which will burnish over time and create a rich patina.
- subtle pull up effect
- great for footwear
- available in 3.5-4 oz, 4-5 oz, and 5-6 oz"
The aesthetics of the boot consist of several distinct components. Besides each boot having a unique unto itself variation and character due to the leather, there is a black accents theme including black hooks and eyelets, black upper stitching, black rolled top, buttery soft black tongue leather and of course the black Vibram 700 rubberized traction outsole. The stitchdown thread is thicker white in tone along with a natural midsole finish to contrast nicely with the gray leather and black accents. The finishing touches are the Frank’s Boots leather stamp on the outside boot upper along with a Heritage Quality Goods leather stamp on the inside leather upper. All of this combines to create a boot that is easily matchable to any kind of outfit you might want to wear and usable for any activity from a night on the town to a rugged hike in the mountains. For those of you that have a hard time choosing between a 6” or an 8” height, we have you covered and offer both options! The prototype boot is an 8” height.
As I mentioned before, these are overbuilt. Wear them hard, enjoy how they uniquely age to your lifestyle and activities. If the sole wears out Frank’s has you covered and can do a resole or a rebuild. Enjoy these boots and pass them down to your children (if they fit!)!
Last but not least in details. We will be giving back to a charitable cause. With every sale of a pair of boots a donation will be made to a charity that supports Autism. Doing our part to help. Thanks for your support!
To order this boot please go to the Frank's Boots website under the collaborations menu:
https://franksboots.com/collections/franks-x-rugged-outdoor/products/the-maxon
Heritage Quality Goods x Frank’s Boots “Maxon” Boot Specifications
For this wallet, I wanted to use shell cordovan. At the time this was designed I had very little shell cordovan leather in my collection. I wanted to try this leather in a wallet so I could compare it to many items I had aged with natural vegetable tanned cow hide used as the leather of manufacture. I quickly fell in love with shell cordovan for leather accessories. It is more dense and less porous than cowhide leather, and always has a magical shiny luster. Being more dense, it ages a bit slower than other natural vegetable tanned leather items I had aged. While slower to age, it developed a more rich tone than cowhide natural vegetable tanned leather being less blackish with age and more of a rich golden tan with lots of shine and luster. This became my favorite leather accessory rather quickly if you haven’t yet made that prediction while reading. Besides the leather used, I wanted a wallet that was not overly thick, yet could hold a large number of credit and debit cards as well as cash and of course business cards. This design became more of a smaller version of a long wallet, without being as long as a long wallet if that makes sense. Almost like billfold turned sideways and opened like a book instead of a traditional billfold design. This design fit my desire perfectly. Not overly big or thick, but could hold a large number of things. Between the leather and the design, it became my "Forever" wallet - I love it that much!
Here is Tucker’s write up of the build process (thanks Tucker!):
This wallet is made from Natural Shinki Shell Cordovan. Sourced from the Shinki Hikaku Tannery in Japan, this is some of the finest Shell Cordovan available in the world. You can expect it to age gracefully, form to its contents over time, and develop a beautiful patina.
The wallet is entirely made by hand. I click the pieces out in order to ensure that every wallet is the same size, and that all the pieces line up properly. All of the edges that won't be accessible once the piece is completed are then burnished with a burnishing agent and burnishing cloth. I also take the time to carefully stamp the two logos on the corners of the card pockets at this stage.
The next step is to prepare the inside of the wallet. I do this by glueing in each card pocket one at a time. After a pocket is glued in - I will complete a row of stitching at the bottom of that pocket to hold it in place, and then move onto the next. All of my stitching is done using the saddle stitching method, which is an incredibly durable stitch and involves absolutley no sewing machines. The saddle stitch method is done by attaching one needle to each end of a length of thread, and completing a figure-eight like stitch through the material after prepping the material with your pricking irons or awl.
Once all the interior pockets are in place and stitched in - I glue the interior panel of the wallet to the exterior panel. I then stitch this in place.
The final step - is to sand and burnish the edges of the wallet. I begin with a 200 grit and move upwards incrementally until I reach 1500. I find that this provides a nice glossy edge even before you add your burnishing agent into the mix. I will then coat the edges with a light coating of burnishing agent, and use my burnishing cloth.
Besides doing fantastic leather crafting, Tucker is also a great human. He donates 5% of all proceeds in K&H Leatherworks to First Nations Development Institute, an organization that improves economic conditions of Native Americans through direct financial grants, technical assistance & training, and advocacy & policy. We thank you for your support of this collaboration!
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Western Work Shirt
This shirt was designed with several features in mind based on my experience wearing various work shirts, western shirts, and work jackets of all types of materials (denim, canvas, waxed canvas, flannel, twill, chambray, et cetera). The shirt focuses on timeless styling yet primarily on function over form.
Fabric
The fabric on the initial run is a USA manufactured 12 ounce deadstock selvedge canvas from the 1960s in Graniteville, North Carolina. It is olive in color and has a very course texture, much more course than modern canvas I have in shirts and jackets. This causes a few interesting characteristics. First, the fabric will develop aging character very quickly where creases in the fabric rub together. This will cause fast fading, faster than any denim I have experienced, even some of the Japanese milled denims I have experienced that are specifically engineered for fast fading. The course fabric also will collect indigo from raw denim if you wear raw denim over top, such as a raw denim jacket. This is subtle at first but it happens quickly. It can easily be avoided by not wearing a raw denim jacket in combination with this shirt. But if you like that kind of aging characteristic, the fabric collects indigo faster than any other fabric I’ve seen. Due to the mid-weight density of the fabric, it feels more like a jacket than a shirt and should absolutely stand any abuse you can throw at it.
Fit and Features
This is a slimmer fitting design, but the sizing runs big. You likely will need to size down a size from your normal shirt size. Possibly even two sizes. Carefully consider the size chart when you select sizing. While the tag sizing runs big, the torso has a slimmer fit once you do identify your proper shoulder and chest size. So again, please carefully consider the size measurements. The buttons on this shirt are jacket buttons. This was intentionally done to avoid threaded/sewn on button which have a tendency to loosen eventually, and potentially fall off and get lost. It does not use snap buttons like a traditional Western shirt. This is based on my experience of using slimmer fit Western shirts, and having the top snap button(s) come open when doing lots of movement and range of motion. These buttons never pop open like snap buttons. The upper shirting has a Western shirt yoke design on the shoulder. But instead of using traditional Western shirt snap button front pockets, the shirt has open non-flap, non-button front pockets for maximum ease of putting things into and taking them out of the front pockets. Usable pockets are important. When you combine all these features, you have a cross between a Western shirt and a work shirt. Also a cross between a shirt and a jacket. I probably should have named this the “Western Work Shacket” but that might have caused a lot of confusion since shacket is not a real word. So, Western Work Shirt is the name. Like the other products mentioned in this three part series, this shirt is meant to be worn, and worn hard. So I hope you wear it hard. When it eventually has some wear flaws and needs repairs, free lifetime repairs are covered!! Wear em hard!!!
This shirt is a designed and crafted partnership between Rugged Workwear – Heritage Quality Goods in Marietta, Georgia and Ciano Farmer Denim in Denton, Texas. This initial run will be a limited run of 12 garments due to fabric limitations. Keep a look out for more small batch design products from this partnership.
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Work Pants
Work Pants are designed to accommodate physical movement of all types. The product goal is to adhere to heritage design features, but ensure they are durable and can be used for physical activities and work. The core fabrics in the previous Casual Denim Pants blog post and the Work Pants use the exact same core fabrics. A key consideration is using mid-weight fabric. While the trend in heritage denim is towards heavyweight fabrics, if you are using pants for physical work, it certainly is easier if the fabric is middle weight which bends and creases more easily than heavy weight fabric (17+ ounces) and especially very heavyweight (21+ ounces) fabrics. Even after those heavy weight fabrics are broken in, they do not bend as easily as middle and lightweight fabrics. With this in mind, the core fabrics are as follows:
Besides a nice range of core denim options, here are the design features for the pants. The front and back pockets are designed the exact same way as the Casual Denim Pants. That info* has been placed at the bottom of this post in case you already read that in the previous article.
Front Panels
The Work Pants use double front panels that double the thickness of the pants where they have the most friction during most physical work type activities. The panels are the same fabric as the overall pants fabric. This allows for durability in high wear spots, but maximum range of motion and movability in all other places on the Work Pants so you can still move around easily in the pants.
Belt Loops and Patch
The design uses six belt loops evenly spaced around the waist. The middle back has the leather patch instead of in a traditional jean location to the right on the back of the pants. This patch is placed in the middle with sewing on top and bottom for belt pass through ability which allows the patch to be used as an extra durable “belt loop”. It is placed in the middle of the back so it is in the place that has the most stress on the belt loops typically and spreads out the stress across double sewn leather versus on a narrow belt loop which will maximize durability. Unlike the Casual Denim Pants, the Work Pants use a contrasting color leather patch similar to traditional jean and dungaree work wear clothing.
Sewing, Thread and Miscellaneous Details
Contrasting stitching is used throughout the pants. The thread and hardware are all USA sourced. And finally, the pants are meant to be worn often and worn hard for any kind of physical activity. With this in mind, the pants have free lifetime repairs available for customers. Wear em hard!!! The pants are a design and crafting partnership between Rugged Workwear – Heritage Quality Goods in Marietta, Georgia and Skinner American Goods in Tallahassee, Florida.
Thanks for reading and please do not hesitate to reach out if you have design questions.
Utility Pockets
There are several subtle hidden utility pockets in the Work Pants. Tonal stitching is used for these pockets. And they are located in each front panel and also the rear pocket. When working you can never have enough pockets in my experience.
*Front Pockets
The front pockets focus on function over form. However, they do look great playing the part of functional pockets. First, the pocket bags are made from 12 ounce natural sashiko fabric. This is a very durable fabric, and it also ages quite beautifully with heavy dye transfer from the denim used in the pants. Besides the aging characteristics, the bags are large and deep so you definitely can use these to warm your hands on a cold day and also to store a lot of stuff. One of the things I like about the front main pocket is the ability to store larger phones without the phone gouging your upper hip/abdomen when you sit down which happens often with traditional jean pockets with short pocket bags. The other design feature is slanted pocket openings for very easy access and usability. One thing I hate about many jeans is when the front pocket openings are restricting and you can barely get your hands in the pockets (if you can at all). Also creating difficulty doing very simple things like putting your keys in your pocket and taking your keys out of your pocket. That is not an issue in these pants. Very usable. The secondary front pockets are made with the same fabric as the overall pants. They are sort of like a coin pocket, but much larger and usable for many things besides a quarter or a nickel or a penny. The pockets are 6 inches deep and wide so they are nearly as large as many traditional jean pockets. And easy to get things into and out of. Making for more functional front pockets should you need them. Four usable pockets instead of no usable front pockets on many jeans nowadays. A final design detail is the pointed top pocket stitch which on the casual denim pants is very subtle, with tonal stitching. But interesting when you examine the details closely. And will make for an interesting aging feature while the pants fade.
*Back Pockets
These are designed like traditional worker “French pockets” on work pants, but look very similarly to traditional back jean pockets, but with rounded instead of square edges. Back pockets are fully lined with the 12 ounce natural sashiko which is used for the main front pocket bags. This ensures that the back pockets have maximum durability so holes from wallets and phones do not develop quickly as is typical with traditional jeans using unlined rear pockets. The pointed stitch detail is also used on the top of the rear pockets instead of arcuates. Like the front pockets, the rear pockets are larger and more usable from a storage perspective.
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Casual Denim Pants
The Casual Denim Pants are designed with versatility in mind. The product goal is to bring a trouser to market that can be very easily dressed up or down for almost all occasions except a black tie event. The pants are a cross between traditional jeans and traditional chinos. I mentioned some of the core fabrics in the previous blog post, but just to expand on that the four core fabrics are:
Besides a nice range of core denim options, here are the design features for the pants.
Front Pockets
The front pockets focus on function over form. However, they do look great playing the part of functional pockets. First, the pocket bags are made from 12 ounce natural sashiko fabric. This is a very durable fabric, and it also ages quite beautifully with heavy dye transfer from the denim used in the pants. Besides the aging characteristics, the bags are large and deep so you definitely can use these to warm your hands on a cold day and also to store a lot of stuff. One of the things I like about the front main pocket is the ability to store larger phones without the phone gouging your upper hip/abdomen when you sit down which happens often with traditional jean pockets with short pocket bags. The other design feature is slanted pocket openings for very easy access and usability. One thing I hate about many jeans is when the front pocket openings are restricting and you can barely get your hands in the pockets (if you can at all). Also creating difficulty doing very simple things like putting your keys in your pocket and taking your keys out of your pocket. That is not an issue in these pants. Very usable. The secondary front pockets are made with the same fabric as the overall pants. They are sort of like a coin pocket, but much larger and usable for many things besides a quarter or a nickel or a penny. The pockets are 6 inches deep and wide so they are nearly as large as many traditional jean pockets. And easy to get things into and out of. Making for more functional front pockets should you need them. Four usable pockets instead of no usable front pockets on many jeans nowadays. A final design detail is the pointed top pocket stitch which on the casual denim pants is very subtle, with tonal stitching. But interesting when you examine the details closely. And will make for an interesting aging feature while the pants fade.
Back Pockets
These are designed like traditional worker “French pockets” on work pants, but look very similarly to traditional back jean pockets, but with rounded instead of square edges. Back pockets are fully lined with the 12 ounce natural sashiko which is used for the main front pocket bags. This ensures that the back pockets have maximum durability so holes from wallets and phones do not develop quickly as is typical with traditional jeans using unlined rear pockets. The pointed stitch detail is also used on the top of the rear pockets instead of arcuates. Like the front pockets, the rear pockets are larger and more usable from a storage perspective.
Belt Loops and Patch
The design uses six belt loops with the two in the middle back spaced to help keep the pants in place without “bunching” or slouching of the pants as can sometimes happen if the wearer prefers a looser waist. The patch is in a traditional jean location and uses matching leather to the fabric. The patch uses sewing on upper and lower patch so it can double as another belt loop holding the waist in place as much as possible.
Sewing, Thread and Miscellaneous Details
Tonal stitching is used throughout the pants. Again, this helps the pants more resemble a chino in appearance than a traditional jean. The bottom hem at the ankle opening is a one inch chino hem versus a traditional jean hem with thinner fold. The tonal stitching, hem, matching leather patch, and pockets all allow the pants to be easily adapted to any wear situations including physical work, casual wear, and business casual. The thread and hardware are all USA sourced. And finally, the pants are meant to be worn often and worn hard for any situation. With this in mind, the pants have free lifetime repairs available for customers. Wear em hard!!! The pants are a design and crafting partnership between Rugged Workwear – Heritage Quality Goods in Marietta, Georgia and Skinner American Goods in Tallahassee, Florida.
Thanks for reading and please do not hesitate to reach out if you have design questions.
]]>I grew up in the Midwest, and moved to the South (Georgia) about 5 years ago. I was already into raw denim, boots, leather, and heritage style finely crafted goods well before moving to Georgia. So when I got down to Georgia I was really surprised to see there is not a lot of crafting down here compared to the East and West coast as it relates to heritage style finely crafted goods. Around Atlanta there are (as far as I’m aware) no real raw denim shops to speak of. There are some cool vintage themed shops, but nothing much in the way of hand crafted boots or raw denim. I did meet a lot of cool leather crafters though and have made some fast friends with them! Shout out to Tannery South, District Leather Supply, Axe and Awl, S.E. Sun Leatherworks among some other leather crafters I am friends with and that are close to me. And to be fair there are some raw denim brands down in the South East (Raleigh Denim, Billiam Jeans, Imogene and Willie, LC King Mfg (maybe not super far in the SE, but close enough in Nashville and Bristol respectively)), but nothing close to where I lived in northern Georgia. So for a long while, literally years, I’ve been thinking about designing goods leveraging some Southern brands, where the denim scene started with Cone Mills Denim.
The first newly designed products I have released in 2022 are with Skinner American Goods, a one man denim brand in Tallahassee, Florida. I met Daniel Skinner at a denim hang in 2019 and we have a very similar opinion and mindset on design work, so he is just super easy for me to work with and designing products with his crafting behind the design has been an absolute joy. There will be several other products and brands I partner with in 2022, but to start I am working with Daniel Skinner at Skinner American Goods. I designed Casual Denim Pants and Work Pants to kick things off. These two products will have several fabrics and options. But two of the core fabrics will be Vidalia Mills fabrics. A 14 oz indigo warp natural weft redline selvedge ID fabric and a 13 oz black warp black weft redline selvedge ID. These fabrics are woven on the old looms that were at Cone Mills Denim in North Carolina and that Vidalia Mills in Louisiana bought to revive the selvedge denim sourcing in the USA after Cone Mills would no longer be a source for selvedge denim when they closed in 2018. Both fabrics use cotton that is sourced from USA. After those fabrics, the Casual Denim Pants and the Work Pants will leverage all materials sourced from USA (buttons, rivets, thread, leather patches). All USA sourced cotton, fabric, materials, and crafting for 4 of the core options in the lineup.
As you can see, USA sourcing is important in my designs. I definitely will have non-core small batch runs of other things like Japanese and Italian fabrics. But the core lineup is focused mainly on USA sourcing, and definitely USA crafting. I also want to make a point and be crystal clear, I value high quality above all else in my design work. I appreciate high quality products from all over the world and other countries like Japan, UK, Germany, et cetera. I having nothing against those products whatsoever when they are created with precision and high quality. But I am starting with a strong South USA focus mainly because I was very surprised when I moved to my current area how nonexistent raw denim and heritage boot crafting is in this area (Northern Georgia). We will be doing some creative things soon including sourcing non-selvedge (but very high quality!) fabrics from places like Mount Vernon Mills fabrics located right here in Georgia.
So stay tuned!
]]>I’m Dave, the one person behind this brand and website.
Somebody recently asked me how I got into the heritage style, work wear, durable and quality goods genre. For me, the answer to that question is really easy. In college I worked with my father and did construction and landscaping work to help pay my way through college. This is not the only job I had before and during college, but it easily built the most character in me by doing very difficult manual labor. During this work, I wore Levis denim and Redwing logger work boots. While working and wearing these boots and denim, I quickly started to appreciate how much abuse they could take day in and day out on a job site. Nothing lasts forever in extreme conditions, but these goods lasted a lot longer than I would have expected. Since then, I have always appreciated finely crafted quality and durable goods.
Fast forward to now. I don’t do construction work anymore. But I do have a nice little chunk of land I do manual labor on. All sorts of things including tree cleanup and wood chopping, mowing of acres, weed whacking, landscaping, chicken chores, wood working/crafting, lots of fires to clean up debris and subsequent fire pit cleaning, brush control by our creek (I don’t want snakes to be able to hide in tall brush while the kids play back there), things like that. While I do this kind of stuff, it is a pretty interesting testing ground for lots of things I consider durable and quality goods. I like to see how these things age while I use them casually and also for some physical work activities. There is just something beautiful about how a finely crafted good ages over time.
I will be making blog posts from time to time to highlight some of these things I have aged and that I love. I also on this website will be selling some goods here and there. I don’t make a living on this stuff, but I do sell some things I think any person that likes finely crafted goods would appreciate owning and watching the aging process specific to their life. So enjoy some blogging and if you like something and want to know more about it, definitely reach out to chat. Also, I am pretty active with photos on Instagram so you can check out that content too!
@RuggedWorkwear on Instagram
Talk to you soon!
-Dave
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