Why Do Thorogood Boots Have a Fake Stitch?

Today I'm cutting open the Thorogood
boots to find out the truth behind some of the long held questions about these
boots. And thanks to Beardbrand for sponsoring this video.
So this is going to be kind of a two-part video because to really
understand these boots you almost have to compare them to the red wings.
So in this video we'll cut them apart, answer some of those questions. The next video
will compare them to the red wings because there's some really important
things to consider when deciding between these two boots.
And then we got two more moc toes for the Moctober series. We've
got Thursday's boots that'll be- that'll be on Thursday and then White's
new moc toe which i'm super excited for, and then the finale. So there's really
three questions i want to answer in this video that I haven't really found
answers for in any other videos or reviews of these boots.
The first one is what is this triple stitch across
the side of the boot here? The second one is just generally what's inside this
boot and what are all the layers? And the third
one, is this a goodyear welted construction like it says in the product- product description, or is it storm
welted or norwegian welted kind of like it looks like with this
extra stitch on the welt? So now let's kind of go over the boot information and
go through what we know so far.

So the brand is
Thorogood. The model is the American Heritage six inch Moc. The
leather I got is tobacco. They cost 205 dollars but Thorogood doesn't
sell them directly so the price kind of varies depending on
where you get them. I got these on Amazon for
$205. They weigh one pound 14 ounces and they're made in the United States. So
usually I don't really talk about my wear and experience with these boots
or any of the boots I do because I don't have the time to wear them all but these
ones I actually wore for quite a while.

I wore them to
actually move the shop down here to Salt Lake. I wore them
logging for a weekend and I wear them quite a bit in the shop, and
I was really impressed by how comfortable these boots were right off
the bat. They- I wore them for eight hours the
very first day and the only issue I really had was right at my pinky toe
where that leather creases, it kind of was rubbing on my pinky toe
but other than that there's really no break-in period with these boots and I
don't really talk about the breaking of boots unless they're
really hard to break in or if there's no break-in period.
So I thought that was worth mentioning.

So, now let's kind of go over the
information that we can gather from these boots before we cut them in half
starting with the leather. So, this is an oil tanned leather which is basically just
a chrome tanned leather with tons and tons of oils infused into it
and it's tumbled and that's kind of where you get that really soft
feel and the malleability of these boots compared to all the other boots that we
we've reviewed. These literally have no break-in period because the leather's
tumbled, and if you're not familiar with what
tumbled leather is- so, most leather in all the boots we review
are just a regular leather and the temper of the leather is
is the natural temper or the firmness the leather after it's being tanned.

But
with this leather they actually throw it in basically
a giant barrel that's like 15 feet across and there's tons of hides
in there, and it rolls and flips the hides and it just slowly kind of
softens and folds and gets the leather to a
point where it's almost pre-broken in.
But because it's tumbled and because there's so much oil infused into this
leather the actual color of the leather varies
quite a bit from from boot to boot. Like if you see like
this side of this boot, it's pretty dark compared to this boot is
quite a bit lighter.

And this boot is from a different pair of boots. This is
the boot I just barely posted that video on how to clean
and condition these. So if you haven't seen that one
check that video out. But you can see the difference in the color. And then as for
the thickness of this leather, it's 2.5 millimeters. So about on par with
the other work boots that we've seen. And that kind of brings us to the first
question. Um what is this stitch line for? And one of
the big disadvantages of a tumbled and
really oiled chrome tan leather is it tends to have a lot of
stretch. And it's not really a big deal in some of
these smaller panels like around the toe because
with an inch and a half of leather you're only going to have maybe a
quarter inch of stretch at most, but when you've got a giant panel
of leather like here at the shaft, like this is eight inches of leather.

And
with this tumbled leather you're going to have a lot of stretch throughout here.
The positive side is this tumbled leather is really easy to break
in but it tends to be a little bit floppy and stretches a little bit too
much. So the stitch gives just a little bit of
structure and a little bit of support so it doesn't over stretch.

Next is the
outsole. So this is Thorogood's maxwear outsole
and it's kind of different from all the other wedge soles out there because all
the other wedge soles in the various thicknesses and and
densities are all rubber based. Well Thorogood's,
theirs is polyurethane based. So it's allegedly a lot more wear
resistant, but also like people say "it's a little bit
harder and it's not quite as soft." Next is the welt. So most boots in this
price range you're going to see a leather welt
but the Thorogoods are some sort of man-made material welt whether it's
rubber or plastic or probably PVC. I'm not a huge fan of
plastic welts because they have a tendency to
crack and split especially in cold weather.
So I would way rather see a leather welt on these boots
but a lot of people say they don't they haven't had a lot of issue with them, and
if you have had issues with it cracking let me know
because I haven't seen a whole lot of people that had issues with it.

Next
is the insert. So usually I don't talk much about inserts because they're
usually replaceable and they're not really interesting. They're usually just
foam, but I actually really like these one- or
this one, because it's it's a dual density to where you've
got foam throughout most of it and then at the heel.
And at the ball of your foot there's little patches of gel, and it's
super comfortable and they call it their ultimate shock absorption system.
Next, to the lining. So, this boot doesn't really have any lining except from the
toe and the vamp area and it's just a cotton drill fabric
liner.

Now to the counter cover, which is a flesh out
leather counter cover, which I like a lot especially compared to the Danners that
was literally just fabric that will wear out significantly
faster than a leather counter cover. Now the next three things I still
have a little bit of question about starting with the insole. So underneath
that insert there's a layer of poron which is a
really shock resistant. Not like electrical shock but like every time you
take a step that shock of your foot in the ground travels to
your body. Well Poron is supposed to- or allegedly
cuts that down and makes it more comfortable. I don't know if that's
really true or not but I know for sure that
these boots are more comfortable with that Poron layer. But I don't really
know what's underneath it.

I don't know if it's a leather insole underneath or
if it's fiberboard. So let's see when we get it cut in half. Next
to the shank. So I know that it's a fiberglass shank
but I don't really know where it's at in the boot because, like the red wings
didn't have a shank, the Danners: the shank was actually
built into the outsole itself, and most boots have the shank attached
to the insole. So, it's fiberglass but I don't really know
where it's at. And the last thing is the construction. So this is-
I'm not 100% sure about this one because on their website they say this is a
goodyear welted construction but this extra stitch line around the
welt makes me think that it's a norwegian welt.
And what's the difference? Well a goodyear welt, the stitch that holds the
upper to the welt is hidden underneath of the
welt and a norwegian welt, that stitch that holds the welt to the
upper is exposed just like we see here.

So it looks just like a Norwegian welt.
And I haven't really seen any videos or reviews talk about if it is norwegian or
if it's goodyear welted, and the only way for me to know
is by cutting in half. So, let's cut it in half after we take 15 seconds to talk
about Beardbrand. The really cool thing about Beardbrand is instead of having
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this stuff's delicious. So thanks to Beardbrand. So you may have been thinking "man that-
boot that Weston was cutting up was really similar
to the boot he just finished restoring and made an entire
video about fixing." Well you would you be correct because I
cut one boot in half and then the memory
card was corrupted.

So I was like "okay! I'm
gonna switch memory cards." And I recorded
and everything looked good and then I went to review the footage afterwards
again and it got corrupted. So there was another boot
destroyed. So I switched cards and cameras
and had to cut my own pair that's fully broken in,
perfect shape, and I just spent all that time on that
ASMR restoration video. So kind of sad, but let's see what's inside. So now let's answer question number two:
What's inside a Thorogood boot? Let's go through the layers. Starting with the
outsole working our way up we got that maxwear outsole and then that rubber
midsole and above that we got the cork filling,
and above that is the fiberboard shank. And it's-
it's not really attached to anything. It's just kind of glued to
the insole.

I don't think it's riveted because
I don't think you can rivet a fiberglass shank. And above the shank we
can see now that it's a fiberboard insole and not leather
topped with that poron. And then if we look at the counter, it's
a non-woven cellulose counter which is pretty common
for this price range, and then we can finally see the lining here
that's that cotton liner. And what's interesting is on one of these boots,
I was looking at them and it has actually started to separate a little bit already
which was really surprising.

So it kind of makes my suspicions of this
wearing out a little bit faster than leather a
little more realistic. And that leads us to the final question that's
been unanswered about Thorogood boots: What's going on with this welt?
So now we can see that this stitch right here is actually a fake stitch.
That stitch up on the side wall of the welt doesn't really stitch to
anything, which is really surprising especially in
a work boot. You'd think that all the stitches would have a purpose. So I guess
it's just for decoration which really isn't that big of a deal
because we saw in the Solovair boots they had a decorative stitch on the welt
and I don't think it's that big of a deal.
The only concern I would have is this being
a plastic or rubber welt.

Those extra holes might make it a little
bit more susceptible to cracking and splitting,
having those threads being punched in there. And if you look closely
you can see that stitch line going from the welt
down through the midsole and then the stitch line going from the upper
to the welt that's tucked underneath of there. So now we know it's a goodyear
welted boot and we know that that stitch line is fake which is really surprising.
So now what do I think of this boot after cutting it in half and kind of
answering those questions I had? I think it's a really good boot for a
really good price, and it's really comfortable-
or it was really comfortable until I sacrificed my own pair.
And yeah, I think it's really good- a good deal especially compared to the Danners
for around the same price range. This boot fixes a lot of the
problems Danner has, and I think it's still just as
lightweight. I think it's just as good of a boot
with a lot of those problems fixed, and the only issues I really have with this
boot is that non-leather welt, that fiberglass shank
that's kind of floating around in there, and this lining.

It ooks like it has the
potential to split and come apart. And all those aren't that
big of a deal. Like I don't think you're really going to have that big of an
issue with the shank or the welt. It's just getting a little bit nit-picky.
And I think that's really where this next video of comparing these to
the red wings is going to give a lot of context to this boot
and why you'd want to choose one over the other, and really help
people make an informed decision about which boot to buy and why.
So thanks for watching, and let me know what you guys think.

And if you own a
pair of these, have you had any issues with this boot? And what were they? And if
you enjoyed it, consider subscribing because I'm trying to get to that 300,000 subscriber mark by the end of the year.
And if we do, I'm going to give away 30 pairs of boots to you guys,
30 pairs of boots to my local homeless community to help them through these
cold Utah winters, and then give away $3,000
worth of store credit for my website. And speaking of giveaways, I keep forgetting
to announce the winners of the white sneaker
video giveaway and the red wing giveaway. So here they are. Congrats to the winners
and thanks for everything you guys do. And I gotta go buy a new pair of
Thorogoods. See ya..

As found on YouTube