Altenberge Holzschuhmacher ( german wooden clog manufacturing )

[JRD77VET]

German dude making wooden clogs

Pretty cool how the different machines make a mirror image off the single pattern

Altenberge Holzschuhmacher - YouTube

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holzschuhmacher
If it didn't translate to English from German .....

clog
Jumptonavigation Jumpto search

Clog maker monument in Neuenkirchen

Clog maker on machine
The clog was probably from the late 15th and mid-16th century to the late 19th century a widespread craft outside the guild system of the former cities. Until the mid-1950s, wooden shoes were everyday footwear for a large part of the rural population in Westphalia , especially in the Münsterland .

Originally, clog making was not an independent craft. Kötter and Maurer made wooden shoes as a side job in winter. It was only after the First World War that clog making became an independent craft with apprenticeship training and a master's certificate. Since the end of the 19th century, the manufacture of wooden shoes has only been increasingly carried out in larger handicraft companies and, from the 1920s, mechanically in larger quantities. So the profession developed in the communities Ahaus in the district of Borken and Neuenkirchen in the district of Steinfurt and other places (including Bocholt , Altenberge, Coesfeld ) especially in western Münsterland until the mid-1930s to a stronghold of the clog craft.

Favored by the shortage of raw materials during the Second World War and the post-war years until the mid-1950s, the profession of clog maker experienced a heyday between 1939 and 1955. Between 1939 and 1945, all major craft businesses were classified as "important to the war" because they supplied the civilian population as well as the defense industry and the Wehrmacht with indigenous raw materials . The boom in the clog craft continued after the war until the 1950s.

In northern Germany, the wooden shoemaker guild, after the guilds of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia had previously merged, became the shoemaker guild in 1968, since rubber boots and steel toe shoes had been used since the beginning of the 1950s in wooden clogs, which at that time were known as “poor people's shoes”. apply and were no longer sufficient to meet industrial safety regulations.

Steps
The profession of clog maker includes - to this day - the following steps:

Choosing, felling and storing the wood (storage period approx. 3 years; first as a trunk, then as a tree disc; from 1920 also by machine using the chainsaw)
Cutting out the so-called "Bollen" from the tree disc (Bolle = the log from which the clog is made. From 1920, splitting the bollen with the hatchet increasingly replaced the circular saw - making work easier, but accepting a significant loss in quality.)
External shaping with the help of the tension knife. (From 1920 also by machine using lathes.)
Hollow out the footbed with spoon knives. (From 1920 also mechanically using so-called copying machines.)
Fine sanding of the footbed and the outer shape. (From 1920 partly also mechanically using the belt sander.)
The way the clog maker has worked has not changed significantly since today (2012).

[SQUIRMIN VERMIN 84]

Very cool!

Impressive machining jigs there!
I picked up a pair of clogs in West Germany (FRG), in the late 60's.
Surprisingly comfortable, especially with heavier wool socks!