What is your name, position, and where is Nicks Boots located?

Grant Pemberton, General Manager, Nicks Handmade Boots located in Spokane Washington (Grant is the second person featured in the video below, in the awesome green flannel).

What types of boots does Nicks produce, and how have your current offerings evolved from Nicks’ beginnings in 1964?

The “original Nick” worked for White’s Boot and wanted to build a better boot, so he started Nicks in his basement in 1964. At that time, he was focused on logger-style boots and general-purpose farming boots for the Spokane community. The wildland fire community got wind of Nicks and demand starting going up in the early 1990s. More boot-makers were hired, and the operation went from a handful of cordwainers to more than a dozen. Nicks was on the map! Soon people were coming to Nicks from all over with all kinds of “custom” requests. We introduced Packer boots, station boots, safety toe boots, etc. It wasn’t until around 2014 when we started introducing some lighter duty, dress-causal boots for customers that wanted something “they could wear to church or dinner”.

In an interview Sergy Sherbinin (Nicks’ Production Manager) gave to Spokesman-Review, he mentioned the leather at Nicks’ was much thicker than what he was used to when he crafted shoes in Ukraine. What qualities (type of tannage, thickness, animal, etc) help determine if they’ll be used for a Nicks’ Boot?

For serious work boots, 7-8oz oil-tanned steer hides with a propriety hardness has been key to our success. Some companies have maintained the thickness but have reduced the hardness or stiffness to make the boot making process and the break-in easier. Customers identify these changes very quickly as humans have about 7000 nerve endings in our feet: “Feels like the leather is softer than what is used to be?” Other companies have tried to use thicker leather, which can result in a boot which can’t be broken in. The key is finding a receipt which is thick and tough, but will soften after 80-120 hours and hold up to the adverse working conditions that our customers experience day in and day out. Concerning lighter duty and dress casual boots, durability is less of a concern. But since we are known as a serious work boot company, our dress boots are still 5.5-6.5oz and require significant break-in as well.

Nicks Boots started out under a different name, Nick’s Custom Boots. The change makes sense, because you now offer stock boots that can be fitted on standard lasts…but you still offer custom options. It’d be really interesting if you could give, say, three memorable examples of custom boots that Nicks made, just to give an idea of how far you’re willing to go in order to have a satisfied customer.

We have cut toes off shoe lasts to customize for amputees. We have done “double uppers” for customers that more or less want their boot to function like a brace or a cast. We have a soft spot for veterans and amputees who just can’t find good footwear. We recently did a custom pair for a boy with Down syndrome. He was about a size 3 1/2 on the right and a size 4 on his left. We are in the process of building a boot for an Afghan War vet who lost his leg. The “good” leg will have a standard boot, while the “bad” leg will have a highly customized light weight boot to fit his prosthetic.

And as a follow up — making something custom for a client is a special responsibility. If done right you’ll create something they’ll treasure for decades to come. Are there any replies that stuck with you from customers who ordered a custom pair of boots?

Nothing specific comes to mind, but a common comment that we hear in our store or via email on a weekly basis is something along the lines of, “Thanks to Nicks, I can work again”. So many people battle with cheap, off-shored footwear that doesn’t fit and doesn’t last. The foam and cardboard construction, combined with cheap leather, fails a few months after wearing them and they begin to suffer for the next 8-12 months before they complete disintegrate and have to throw them away and purchase a new a pair. Boots are a tool, and we love hearing when people are actually able to work again because of the pain relief they experience with our higher arch boots.

If you had to guess, how many square-feet of leather goes into a pair of boots, say a men’s Size 10 “The Traveler”? And what about something more rugged, like a mens’ Size 10 “The Hot Shot®”?

Roughly about 4 1/2 to 6 ½ square feet.

In 2016, Nicks moved into the Display House, a building formerly used as a costume and party supply retailer. This new building is more than 3x your former location – 20,000-square-feet vs 6000-square-feet. What are some operational procedures this new space offers the company? Was there any celebration on the last day at your old location (which Nicks occupied since 1991)?

Moving to our new location was necessary mainly for our employees. The old building was in dire need of an overall. There was no natural light and poor air filtration. Our new shop has window spanning the entirety of the production floor. Anyone can look through the windows and see the whole operation, and more importantly, the employees benefit from the natural light and air filtration systems we have installed. Also, we are becoming a destination location, so having a bigger retail space was important as well. It allows us to get more people “walking in boots”, and enables us to showcase all the available boot options. There was cause for celebration when we moved as our employees really deserved a better working environment. These are some of the hardest working people I have ever met.

This might seem like a big question, but it’s not something everyone’s aware of: could you walk through the welting process at Nicks, why it’s important, and what it can offer a Nicks’ Custom Boots customer that a typical, non-welted department store boot can’t?

The key to building a great boot is tying the upper portion (the leather that covers your leg and foot) of a boot to shoe to the lower portion (the insole, midsole, and outsole). Roughly 99% off all boots and shoes out there utilize a glued on sole. The sole is simply glued to the bottom of a foam or cardboard insole. There is no welt. When the glue fails, well, your toes are exposed. At Nicks, we use a combination of Blake stitch (to tie vamp liner to the insole) and “stitch down” (to tie the vamp welt to the outsole) construction. This process locks all the layers together and prevents the upper portion from separating from the outsole. For those who are boot connoisseur and appreciate traditional boot making, we can “hand-welt” the boot which involves attaching a welt-strip to the vamp and insole by pushing an awl and thread through all the layers of the vamp and into the insole. We don’t do this on our serious work books as the holes created by the awl can cause dirty and water to enter the insole when the boots are expose to harsh conditions.

Are there any misconceptions about boots or their construction that you’d like to set straight?

There is a place for automation in boot-making. Machines can do some steps better than manual hand-tools. A Rapid-E outsole stitcher is going to make a boot hold together much better than sewing a sole on by hand. A Mckay stitch may be more durable than a hand-sewn welt. On the other hand, shoes and boots that are made mostly by machines may not be as durable as a hand-lasted and hand-bottomed boots. There is a place for automation just as there is a place for traditional hand-work. They are not mutually exclusive. All our boots are lasted by hand and hand-bottomed. Every pair is pulled by hand around the last with lasting pliers, and every pair has nearly 100 nails which are driven in by a hammer. We believe we have found a perfect mix of tradition and automation in our process.

Where can people find more about Nicks’ Custom Boots (links to online store, blog, Instagram, etc)?

Our website is a great resource (www.nicksboots.com) as well as our Instagram feed (@nickshandmadeboots).