boots

Remember back in 2007 when I got new boots? Well, they broke. 17 years ago I said “they should last at least 10 years” and they did!

But in the last few years I noticed they were cracking and sort of falling apart. For a minute considered getting a new pair because I am an adult with more than a few hundred dollars in my savings account…

But then I thought, maybe I should try to fix them? So I did. First, the damage… see the photo above and the two below.

The right boot wasn’t too bad, but the left was terrible. It came apart right below the seam where it is sewn together and in other places the boot had cracked and split open. You can see the white filling on the inside of the boot.

I’ve had this Plasti Dip since at least 2017 (I know this because I used it for a project) and honestly I think I dipped all the tools I needed to dip. I started the repair by grabbing a cheap bristle brush and “painting” on a coating of Plasti Dip. I let it dry and did a few more coats and called it a day.

I then wore the boots outside, did some walking around, and they split open again. Obviously the solutions was… more Plasti Dip!

This time I grabbed a popsicle stick and just slathered it on, filling in the cracks and gaps and I did this a bunch of times to build up a good layer of rubber to stick everything back together. (You might notice I also fixed the aglets with some heat shrink tubing.)

I’ve flexed them a bit and they feel like they’ll hold together, but if not I can always just pour the rest of the can onto them. Seriously though, I hope this does it because I’d really hate to buy a new pair, mainly because I want to cut down on buying new things if I can repair old things I already own. I probably wear these boots less than 30 days a year since we don’t really get that much snow and I don’t spend a ton of time outside if it’s extremely cold outside.

So fingers are firmly crossed that this fix works!

Update: 10 days later the boots are holding up but I lost an aglet.

My bummin’ slummin’ friends have all got new boots… Ok, maybe not, but I got a new pair of boots.

I couldn’t find my old winter boots last week (I haven’t worn them since last year) and was convinced Dana threw them out. She threatened to do so last year, because honestly, they suck. I’m pretty sure I got them from the trash, and they might be 30 years old by now. (She didn’t actually get rid of them, she just hid them so I’d be forced to buy new ones, which is what you have to do when dealing with me.)

Anyway, I went to look for boots. Now, keep in mind, I have not been winter boot shopping since my Mom took me some time in the 1970s, so I had no idea what to expect. When I was a kid, boots were huge, unwieldy monsters you strapped onto your feet which made it difficult to walk, but kept your feet warm. No so today…

I asked the guy at the store where the big winter boots were, the ones with a 1/2 inch of black insulated liners. He said that unless I was going ice fishing all day long, I didn’t need those, and besides, almost no one makes or sells those anymore.

On the left, the “curbside specials” I’ve been using for, oh, I dunno, possibly 20 years… And on the right, a pair of North Face Chilkats. These things are amazing. They are so light and comfortable, it just seems wrong. I’m too used to barely being able to walk, let alone run with boots on. They were less than $70 on sale, and I figure they should last at least 10 years, so I’m all set for now with boots. (Unless there is some amazing new breakthrough in boot technology I just have to have, like, you know, if Apple, Inc. starts making iBoots or something.)