15December 2021
I was really excited for this one but it
turned out to be a bit of a bummer. So let's cut these carhartt boots in
half. And I'm actually re-recording this because the first time
I recorded it we had a sponsor for the video
and then they dropped out last minute, and so I apologize for this being a day
late. Usually they come out on Sundays but
it's coming out on Monday. So thanks for watching.
If you haven't
subscribed consider subscribing and for those of you who are subscribed
thanks for all your support. I've been a fan of Carhartt pretty much my whole life
because growing up in a small town everyone had their Carhartt coat and
everyone had their Carhartt overalls for the winter. And so when I
saw they came out with the boot- or they had boots
I was pretty excited, especially for this Moc toe series.
And um, They're a decent price. They looked good.
And then I got them in person and the red flags were just kind of going up all
over the place.
So let's go over the boot information
and then we'll talk about those three red flags that i saw before
we cut them in half. So the brand is Carhartt. The model is the
six inch wedge. The color is the brown bison oil tan. I'm
pretty sure it's not bison leather. I think that's just the name they decided
to call it. And they retail for $155 to $160 depending
on which toe you get. They weigh one pound 12 ounces per shoe
and they're made in China.
Now let's go over the three red flags
starting with the first one which is the welt. So
right off the bat i could tell this was a plastic welt which isn't that big of a
deal. There's- there's quite a few boots that have plastic welts. I just don't-
i don't like them as much as the leather welt because leather has that internal
fiber structure that gives it strength that a plastic
will never have, because if you chip a plastic welt or get a crack in it
that crack is going to go all the way through the welt because there's not that
reinforcing fiber structure to give it any strength. And also the stitching on
the welt is really loose and kind of sloppy. You
know, if you look at it from a side profile it's
really high and the thread is really loose and just not secured very well.
And you can see holes where they stitched the welt to the upper.
Either they had to re-stitch or unstitched a certain part of it.
And it's only on one of the boots which is more just a concern of quality
control and lack of precision in the
construction more than anything, because most people
aren't going to notice that and they probably aren't going to spread,
but when it comes to wearing these boots for a long time, having
holes, obviously, in the upper when you first get the boot isn't usually a great
sign.
Red flag number two: The leather. So right
when i got this boot i noticed that there's a fake embossed
leather print into the leather. This isn't the natural print of the leather.
This is embossed in. And i also noticed that the
texture of the toe is different than the shaft of the boot.
The toe has more like a suede or nubuck feel,
and the shaft of the boot has a more finished, shiny look to it. So what does
that mean? Well at the tanneries they usually split
the hides into two categories, the really nice
hides that have fewer imperfections. They turn that leather into
full grain leather like we saw on the red wings and the danners,
and then the other stuff that has a lot more scars and imperfections
they basically send it through a sander to remove the very
top portion of the grain to get rid of any of those surface scars and scratches
and make it a more even looking leather. And
then in the case of this leather, instead of just leaving a buffed finish
they take that extra step to emboss a print into it to make it look more like
a full grain leather.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad leather.
But it does kind of make me question why wouldn't they just use a full grain
leather instead of a sanded and corrected grain
leather that is made to look like a full grain
leather? And it's probably because they're trying to
get this to a certain price point so they're cutting a little bit of a corner
to get a full grain looking leather for the
cost of a corrected grain leather. And as for the thickness of the leather, it
feels pretty thin. So I cut the collar just a little bit just enough
to get my caliper down in there, and it measures at 1.8 millimeters
which is pretty thin especially for a work boot. You know, the Danners were on
the thin side at two millimeters and the average work boot I'd say it's
like 2.5 millimeters all the way up to 3.5 with the Nicks builder pros.
So not the best leather for work. Issue number three is the outsole, and this is
probably the the most damning aspect of this boot, and the
the biggest issue I have with this boot.
Because these wedge soles are notorious
for wearing out quickly. But that's referring to the red wing
danners and any other boots that use a Christy style rubber
sole. This sole is just a really really light
foam sole. So this is going to wear out even
faster than these boots that are known for wearing out fast.
And this foam is so soft that if you were going to use it in a work environment
you would wear through it within a matter of weeks or months,
and any hard or sharp thing you step on is going to start splitting it and
taking chunks off of the sole.
And they say it's a dual density rubber outsole,
so I guess it's a rubber foam but it's just- it's just super light. And they also
have this patch of rubber on the inside here that I guess is made to give
it some extra traction and wear resistance, but it it's
not even in the places that you would associate
with the most wear, like at the heel or at the big toe. And I read some
reviews online where this entire rubber patch just comes off, and
So I tried ripping it off, and I recorded it and almost killed my
camera in the process.
But it stuck on pretty well. So you know,
I think over time it has- it might have a tendency to come off, but
initially it's glued on there pretty well.
But overall this is about the worst type of sole you
would want in a work boot. You know, it wears out quick. It's going to chunk off.
It's just a bad outsole generally but especially for work.
So those are the three initial red flags that I noticed,
and they're not the the biggest deal in the world, but if you're using these as
Carhartt markets them, as a work boot, they're kind of a big deal.
And so now let's cut them in half to see if there's any other things going on
inside, any redeeming qualities or any more potentially damning issues with
this boot.
So let's cut them in half. Okay. We got it cut in half. Let's see what's inside. So we got an okay construction but the
way it was done is pretty poor. And there's some issues
in here that make this a never buy boot for me.
Issue number one is the way that the outsole is glued to the midsole.
Literally as I was cutting it you can probably see in the footage that it
wasn't glued all the way through, and so it's only a matter of time before
this outsole comes apart. And it might just be a one-off
issue, but also the quality control in this entire boot seems to be pretty
pretty far off. Issue number two is the execution of the
guts of this boot. The inside of the boot shouldn't be this
loose and floppy, and all the layers shouldn't be independently moving around
and easily detached because it's only a matter of time
before all these layers are slowly moving around and
sliding back and forth before you get a lump in there, before something wears out
prematurely, or before the entire thing just
disintegrates.
The third issue is a pro and a con. It's- and it's the voids in the
hill here. Because the voids cut down on weight and they make the
heel a little bit more comfortable. That's why you see
some small voids in some of these other soles. But with voids this big you're
gonna get a lot of comfort for the first couple weeks,
but after you've after you've stood on that for eight or ten hours a day for a
couple weeks those cells are gonna get compressed.
You're gonna have a really odd shaped boot where your heel is extra compressed
into the heel block here and you're going to lose the structure
of the boot, and you're going to lose the comfort.
So for work
it's a terrible thing to have that big of voids in there. And the last
issue is the lining, and more specifically the lining near the counter
area because no matter how perfect your boots
fit, you're always going to have just a little bit of heel slip.
And the problem with that is every one or two millimeters your heel slips it's
slowly wearing out whatever fabric your heel is hitting against. So that's why
you see a lot of boots have like a flesh out leather counter or a thicker
piece of fabric or something that's wear resistant. But with this
all you've got is this really thin jersey material backed by that
really thin layer of waterproofing. And even worse: you've got a stitch line
going right up the middle of it. So you literally just have to wear out one
little thread and the whole counter area starts falling apart. So overall what do
i think of this boot? i think this is a cheap boot posing as a
work boot that's clearly overpriced.
And if you're
just wanting that Carhartt name, you want this little tag
on a pair of boots and you're only going to wear them casually, you might be happy
with these boots. You might be fine paying a little bit extra money.
But to me there's nothing inside this boot that makes me think it's worth $150
If it were half the price, you know, somewhere around the $80 range I'd say
"yeah it's a decent boot for the price." There's
clearly some flaws you're going to have to deal with but you're getting a
cheaper boot.
But at $150 plus for a few-
like 10 or 20 dollars more you can get the Danners, the Thoroughgoods, and you
won't have to worry about any of the corners being cut. You get a higher
quality leather, a solid outsole, and a solid construction. So so I guess
my biggest issue isn't necessarily the quality of this boot
but that Carhartt is using their workwear name and selling a boot that's clearly
not made for work at a higher price, and people might be
relying on that, and they might end up buying a boot that's going to
wear out in a few months, and they've wasted 150 bucks.
So let me know what you
guys think of this boot. And I actually have a bonus episode coming out
tomorrow of Ariat's Chelsea work boot which will be perfect
because it's the same price and you'll be able to compare and contrast a real
work boot compared to the Carhartt boot that's pretending to be a work boot.
Thanks for watching. Thanks for supporting the channel. If you're not
subscribed consider doing it because it makes a huge difference.
And uh onward with Moctober. See ya..