The
fitting is created roughly with the chasing drill as
described in chapter 9.
"Adjusting the size". But in
order to give the fitting its final touch, the wooden shoe
maker uses a series of knives (fig 15).
The hookknife is used to remove redundant wood which stayed
behind after parbuckling. The wooden shoe maker can't remove
all the wood with the drills you know.
Photo 41 shows that the wooden shoe maker uses the tip of
the hookknife on the inner side. He also creates
sufficient room for the big toe with this hook (which is
important to prevent toe nails from growing into the toe).
On photo's 42 and 43 the wooden shoe
maker uses the flathook.
With that knife the wooden shoe maker
creates the platform that serves to support the foot to the
heel. This becomes sort of a basin in which the back of the
foot, the heel, fits exactly.
At the
way the wooden shoe maker holds the tools, one can see how
it is wielded.
A good fitting for a high wooden shoe is more difficult to
create than the fitting for a low wooden shoe. This is
because not only the floor of the wooden shoe must carry the
foot well, but also the hood of the wooden shoe needs to
have the proper profile.
Photo
45 shows how the floorknife is used to create room for
the little toe and the joint of the big toe.
The final touch of the fitting consists of creating the
proper profile of the hood of the wooden shoe.
Photo 46
shows how the floorknife is used to do this. The wooden
shoe maker takes it, as shown, in his hands and takes care
that the shaft is supported by his shoulder and his neck.
This in contrast with the flathook which is wielded freehanded.
Instead of the floorknife, sometimes a so-called profile
knife is used, but as it is the case with all these knives,
some tasks may be performed with several of them.
After being parbuckled, the wooden
shoes are pushed out of the boring bench with a firm flick
of the hand.
All chips on the floor are coming from only one pair of
wooden shoes. From this alone you can tell how many times
any of the tools was used (photo 47).