3January 2022
that was me testing my 15 foot tall boot cutting
guillotine with a 100 pound razor sharp blade in preparation to cut my first
collab boot in half the nd1 but first you might be wondering why we need
a 15 foot guillotine well if you remember six months ago nick's handmade boots made me an
indestructible boot and we cut it in half with a 60 000 psi water jet and ran it through a bunch
of real world tests to see how indestructible it really was and that video now has over
a million views and counting which is crazy and when that video first came out a lot of people
including myself wanted a pair of these boots to wear but the problem is they were so overbuilt
and over the top and overly constructed that they are nearly impossible to wear because they're
so uncomfortable and even more impossible to make Nicks broke several super thick needles just
building this one pair of boots so after a little convincing I went to work with Nicks taking this
design refining it developing it and improving it into a boot that's not only one of the most
durable boots in the entire world but also a boot that you could wear every single day and look
good doing it while still maintaining the essence and the feeling and the look of the indestructible
boot and in keeping with the indestructible video we had to do something atop the 60 000 psi water
jet hence the 15 foot death trap in the back of the shop that initially was just a running joke
inside the shop started by Breck that is somehow now a reality the height of the guillotine is
15 feet tall from the ground to the very top the blade is made of half inch thick solid steel
plate the blade itself weighs 105 pounds the frame is built from what is now apparently the most
expensive material in the world construction lumber it has a steel track hidden inside of the
wood with pvc lined sliding rails to make sure we get a smooth and efficient slice and the force
of impact as far as we've calculated it is 1 680 pounds which could be totally wrong
because we're all terrible at math but it's a lot and we've named this beautiful
death trap guillotina or Tina for short now let's go over what Tina is up against this is the first
of 500 nd1 boots designed by me and manufactured by nick's handmade boots in Spokane Washington
i wanted the Indy one to be something that you could use in every facet of your life whether
it was hunting hiking construction manual labor backyard labor motorcycle riding or if you don't
have a job or any hobbies that need a boot and you just want a really nice durable pair of boots to
wear casually that's what I wanted this boot to be essentially I wanted a boot that people would
live in I didn't I didn't want a boot that just sat in the closet and people would
pull it out two or three times a year and a lot of that came down to making a boot
that not only looked good new but that looked even better once it's got some wear and it's beat
up and it's got battle scars and there's just a lot of use and wear showing on the boot and a
lot of that came down to the leather choices so the leather i chose for the majority of this
boot is an eight ounce which is three to three point five millimeter thick leather and it's a
rough out finished flesh chrome excel by Horween out of Chicago and it's it's probably my favorite
smelling leather in the world and it's a really nice supple durable leather but being that it's
a flesh out leather which means they flipped the smooth side of the leather to the inside it has
the extra durability wear resistance but also that really unique patina texture of a finished flesh
leather I also wanted just a little pop of color so I chose Nick's new 1964 leather for just the
inside linemen patch and two-tone boots are a little bit of a fashion faux pas to some people
and I get where they're coming from because you know sometimes two-tone boots can be really loud
and obnoxious and draw a lot of attention to your feet and some people just don't like that and I
I get it but for me if I'm gonna buy a pair of premium handmade boots I want something that looks
really cool catches the eye but not so overtly loud and flashy that everyone is immediately
drawn to your feet and when designing this boot I really like the idea of from the outside when
people are wearing this boot they just look like a really nice good looking pair of heavy duty toe
cap boots but if you catch someone mid stride you get that little flash of color but it's not on
the outside but it's only on the inside so you just you only occasionally see it's just a little
pop of color it's subtle and it's it kind of it's reminiscent of kind of a Luis Vuitton style pop
of color just not quite as as red and as loud and honestly when these boots are brand new I
don't love the really heavy contrast between the two leathers but once you start wearing these
boots and you start getting those battle scars on them that that really rich red brown undertones
start showing through and it almost perfectly matches the color of the 1964 leather linemen
patch it becomes less of a two-tone boot and more of a subtle gradient of color from a really dark
brown all the way up to a rich kind of chestnutty red brown color and to me as a complete leather
nerd I just I just think it's so gorgeous I love the color combination and there were so many crazy
features in the indestructible boot and I wanted to keep as many of them as possible and maintain
that patched look to them so we kept the quadruple stitched true toe cap because a lot of the boots
you see with the toe cap are an actual full double thickness toe cap this is two layers of that eight
ounce thick leather and I wanted to do the inside alignment patch for the reasons we talked about
previously but for function wise you get all the durability and the wear resistance of that inside
alignment patch and the look of the indestructible boot but you also get a little hidden benefit
of that extra layer of leather being tucked underneath the insole gives you just a little bit
of extra arch support you can see it right here in the cross section of the indestructible boots
since this was my first boot and I'm putting my name I didn't want to just sell a boot that I'd
never really worn and never broken in and really I never really put to the test so I broke these
boots in over a 10-day bear hunt up in the top of Idaho almost to Canada and I've been wearing
them basically every day since until this happened obviously and I know I'm talking about and promoting
a product that has my name on it but the way a well broken in heavy leather handmade boot
feels when you put it on it's just something you can't get in a cheaper boot because cheaper
boots even 300 dollar boots it's made to be broken in easily and the result is kind of a loose
floppy kind of a sloppy fit versus a boot like this once they're broken in it feels like putting
your hand in a well-worn pair of gloves that's how these boots feel when you slide your foot in
there it just it almost your foot almost snaps into place it just finds its perfect spot that
you've created by compressing all those layers of leather and you can't really get that feeling
without heavy leather but the problem is heavy leather is super hard to break in and it becomes
kind of a rite of passage to get your boots to a point where you've got that hand and glove feeling
you almost have to earn the the ability to to get that really unique feeling that you can't get
in a cheaper pair of boots with thinner leather finally to the price of the indie ones
so these are going to retail for 619.95 which is a very heavy price but with good reason
because Nicks is one of the only companies capable of making 500 pairs of these boots because
most of the mass-produced boot manufacturers have a machine with little clamps that grab the
the upper leather and pull it around the last forming the shape of the boot but the problem
is those machines aren't capable of using several layers of really thick leather it takes
a strong skilled craftsman like the guys at Nicks to physically grip that leather all those layers
of leather with a pair of lasting pliers pull it around the last and tack it in place with the nail
and they do that several times all the way around the boot and there's parts of this boot like the
toe is over a quarter inch thick but right here where the linemen patch meets the the heel counter
and the upper and the counter it's like six layers thick the skill and strength of those guys just
blows me away they're the type of guys you want to avoid getting arm wrestling matches with and
I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for taking on 500 pairs of these boots because these are not
easy boots to make we we owe you big time so that's why these boots are so expensive and the
fact that there's literally three times the amount of leather in this boot than most mass-produced
boots and once this video is done we're going to frame this boot and frame the cross sections and
hang it up in the shop because this boot is is really special to me and for a lot of reasons and
one of them being that when I was a young wildland firefighter all of my squad bosses and my crew
bosses had a pair of nicks then I always wanted a pair so the fact that I've not only worked with
Nicks but designed a pair of Nicks boots with Nicks is pretty mind-blowing to me and completely
inconceivable for the 21 year old firefighter me so this video means a lot to me and it's time
to break my heart by cutting these in half with probably the world's first boot cutting
guillotine so let's get to the cutting it was so close oh wow drop number two three two one that is so close I guess we just
keep sending her three two one okay we got cut in half that was a little bit
harder than i expected but let's see what's inside this thing's so sticky now you can see why these boots are so durable
and so hard to make you've got those three layers of leather at the toe making a quarter inch thick
you've got six layers of material between you and the ground at any given point and just look at all
that veg tan leather you can see now what I meant by these these boots give you that glove-like
feel because you can see where my toes have compressed that leather to give you those
little divots and you can see on the upper of the leather how it's compressed and
molded around my foot and if you haven't seen the amount of nails holding these
boots together along with all the stitching go watch my dissection of the regular builder pro
boots because spoiler alert there's 80 plus nails per boot holding these boots together there's
no cork in here part of that's because it's a stitched down construction but also because cork
works great for a casual boot or a dressier boot what's better than cork well in nick's opinion
a giant slab of vegetable and that seems to be nick's solution to almost everything is make it
out of a veg tan because look at the hill counter that's a giant slab of veg tan leather the shank
is a huge veg tan leather strip the midsole the insole everything that could be made out of veg
tan is because veg tan is is durable yet flexible hard yet compressing and conforming to the weight
of your body it really is there's a reason that we've used leather for footwear since the
dawn of time I can't help but be excited about these boots because they're just absolutely
ridiculous and I can't wait for you guys to get these boots in your hand and send me photos of
how they're breaking in and how their patina patina ink and that's the stuff I love as a
leather goods manufacturer is the longevity and the care and the love people have for durable
long lasting products so if you want to pair the nd ones we're only doing 500 pairs so hurry and
watch nick's sizing video and get your order in as soon as you can because we're going to deliver
them in batches of 100 so we don't completely exhaust all the Nicks employees and so the sooner
you get your order in the sooner you'll get your boots if we're already sold out by the time
you're watching this I'm sorry but I will put the limited edition email list in the description so
you can stay in the loop with future collabs and maybe help me convince Nicks to do an ND-2 boot
and I promise I won't send you a bunch of annoying marketing stuff it's only going to be the really
cool unique rare stuff the cool collabs because if you couldn't tell this is the stuff that gets
me excited so thank you guys for watching this and subscribing and being a part of this this was a
really big one for me it was it's really special for me and you're helping make a dream come true
I didn't even know I was allowed to dream and I know it's cheesy but the 21 year old firefighter
me would just be completely blown away by this and thank you to Nicks and especially the guys
at Nicks making these boots these are tough boots to make and I appreciate them being
willing to make these for me and for you guys and one more thank you to the Rose Anvil
crew the determination and grit that these guys have that I work with is
is astounding so thank you guys see ya