what-when-how
In Depth Tutorials and Information
5
manufacture of specialist therapeutic footwear is still very much a craft
process, however, and paper patterns are still used by many manufactur-
ers in this area.
Upper cutting
There is an art to cutting leather, owing to the nature of the material - in
terms of grain, blemishes and tightness. This part of the process was
traditionally called clicking because of the sound made by the cutting
knives (
Figure 5.5
) as the shoemaker cut the leather. The cutting was
done by hand, with curved hand knives or a beam press with shaped
press knives, to the required pattern. More modern techniques use com-
puterized and laser equipment for cutting the materials for the component
parts of the footwear.
Figure 5.5
Traditional cutting knives
