This is one reason why I love living an hour and a half from Red Wing, MN. I can get a pair of RW boots from their outlet (in the basement of their museum) for about $125 and in MN there is no sales tax on shoes! Sure, there is going to be a slight cosmetic fault in the boot, but it doesn't effect the quality one iota for a work boot!
I love "factory-seconds" shoes. The cosmetic deficiencies are generally very minor and won't be noticed on day 2. And it gets used instead of being thrown away.
My dad grew up in Hayfield my mom in Austin. It was funny that when I got a job in a gas station in high school my mom took me down and bought me a pair of Red Wing Oxfords. She never bought me anything as a young man. I still wear Red Wings in honor of my Minnesota heritage.
Red Wing DOES NOT stray away from using belly sourced hides. Ask me how I know. Got a pair of amber harness Iron Rangers with such bad QC that it actually blows my mind that Red Wing is still advertising them as a quality heritage boot. My Iron Rangers have the same issue (as a 75 dollar fake Chinese moc toe) of a loose grain upper that causes ugly hairline creases. Unfortunately, this defect is only present on one of my boots. My friends and I sarcastically joke about "left " and "right"shoe factories, and in this instance, the joke fully applies. The welt was cut way too short, and the stitching was suspect to say the least. Absolutely unacceptable BS, I'll take my business elsewhere. Fuck Redwing
Yes, it didn't look bad, until he pulled the sole off with his bare hands, and showed us the fiber board insole. Of course if it looked bad from the outside, they wouldn't be able to fool anyone into thinking they were genuine Red Wings.
I live in Chiangmai Thailand and I always see these boots advertised in supermarket floor sales. I wondered about the quality and what they really were inside. Thanks for your video. I’ll stick with my sneakers
Great video and interesting analysis! I suggest using a belt sander to study the wear resistance of outsole. A fixed force/weight pressing the heel against a belt sander should yield different weight reductions depending on sole material. :)
I was about to write that it is too bad they aren’t just selling this under their own name as a decent super budget boot…and then I saw you pull it apart.
Great vid Weston! As someone who has been known to purchase “pre-loved” heritage footwear, I should probably be a little more vigilant… because damn, those Rod Wangs could have fooled me.
It's been great watching this channel grow, and have the chance to own a pair of boots you've helped design! I'm glad you and your team/company are almost at 1M subs. you've earned it!!
I'd love to see more Georgia boot reviews, namely the logger boots. Maybe a logger boot matchup of Carolina, Georgia, those types of brands. Like $150 - $250 price range, not the P.N.W. brands.
Can you do a comparison between men’s and women’s heritage boots? So many reviews focus on men’s boots, and it is easy to assume the same model in women’s is built the same. But it would be nice to see if they really are.
I'd love to see this. I'm a women's 8.5, which means I sit _just_ on the edge of the range men's shoes come in, and having concrete proof of the quality differential in shoes as well as clothes would be very validating.
@@ghostoflazlo If they only go down to 7, that's usually too big. Floppy boots are miserable, and thick socks are only a viable option for ≈1 month a year, b/c desert.
I'm a US Citizen and and I'm going to support my own the best I can and would rather keep my money here than send it overseas and never see it again.. I care about my family friends and neighbors keeping a roof over their heads
Fake products are a global scourge. For a large number of people, the status of being noticed sporting branded products is more important than that product's authenticity. Almost nobody gets faked by a fake if they have ever handled or worn authentic top tier products. In the end, a fake can only be as good as the time and materials put into it, and in most cases, fakes, even those crafted with studious attention to detail, are materially inferior and less labor intensive than what you actually end up paying for them.
such a privileged point of view. Do you think that people buy low quality fakes out of their choice? Because guess what, millions if not billions of people all over the world only have access to fakes. Chinese, Vietnamese, Chinese factories pump out literal tons of fakes because they sell to distributors faster. I know, because I grew up on fakes. We would go to the shady alley shoe store and all there was was fakes - I would ask if they have anything unbranded because it's obvious they are fakes. But they never did because that's all the supply they could get. It's obvious you never lived that life so you can't know
@@GuyIncognit Do you come to the internet looking for pity? I buy the things I need, a fashion brand is no assurance of quality by virtue of being original, and there are tons of quality off-brand locally made products in every country I've visited. The dark alley of hawkers you speak of is simply a place in some cities where knock-offs make their way into the domestic market despite having been produced to be sold to unsuspecting shoppers in higher markets abroad. When you are poor and buy a knock-off, you are simply helping to keep yourself poor by throwing your money away on a low quality item meant to fool customers into thinking it is worth more.
I used to live in Vietnam and for things like this there were two variants of any product intended for foreign markets on the local black market: 1: things stolen straight out of a foreign owned company's factory. Lots of companies manufacture in Vietnam. These things were the real deal. 2: things made in the factory with during a night shift when the factory isn't making product for the foreign company. These use the foreign company's designs, but are made with less and/or cheaper materials. Usual way to spot these is single stitching where it should be double, feel of material, lack of lining, etc. Looks like these are the latter.
No, I don't think that really fits in this case. The issue is that there is no factory in Vietnam that makes real Red Wing boots during any part of the day. Those boots are made in the US. So this is another level of deception above what happens when a second level of boot is made in the same factory during a different shift
I always liked Red Wings, they were the only boots I ever bought that I could buy a brand new pair. Go to work and work a 12 hour shift and they were comfortable all day. No break in time.
The Vietnamese fabrication industry is well above many other countries. Eberlestock and Mystery Ranch have their stuff assembled there. They typically do good stitching, materials not withstanding
We need wide toe box boots allowing toes to spread naturally when weight is applied. I’m tired of my feet hurting due to jammed up toes in safety toe boots
Awesome video and a very good point on why this should not be supported. I think it's fine for competition to exist but not when someone is trying to pass off a fake using the heritage and name of a well known brand. Suggestion for next video...SUREWAY 6 in Men's Soft/Steel Toe Wedge Work Boots. Curious how they stack-up to Thorogood. Excellent work as always, keep up up the great work !
OMG, I literally just got out of the hospital a day ago from getting metatarsalgia from having really not great insoles... finally switched them out, but you are not kidding, have size 10.5 Double Wide EE shoes? Ya, good freaking luck finding an insole WITH NO ARCH... ugh. I had to trace my foot to cut this flat Dr. Scholl's to actually somewhat fit me... feels okay, but my left foot is still f**ked up.
Please spend more time talking about the construction and materials after cutting it in half. The series your channel was built on "cut in half" now gets next to zero time. You spend all this time hyping up this cutting in half and then when you do it you spend no time talking about whats inside, rather you just jump to "so why should you or shouldn't you buy this"...please talk about the layers or at least put a diagram up with lines pointing to whats in the layers. That's what we want to know.
If they just removed the stamp, added a veg tan insole and did 360 stitchdown or goodyear welt construction and upgraded their adhesive for the outsole, they could sell these for twice as much as they do now and they would sell twice as well, even at 200 dollars with those three changes these would fly off the shelves and the additional cost to them would be less than 30 dollars per set of boots at volume.
ROSE ANVIL - I’d like to see you do a batch of work boots from TEMU. Steele Toe, Composite Toe, Soft Toe and evaluate each one. I’d be curious to see if across the different examples the same manufacturing techniques are used or are they wildly different in quality? Maybe do the same with their warehouse work shoes. Thanks in advance if you see this note.
I used to see some posts on r/gyw about certain heritage boots being the most comfortable pair of boots/shoes people have worn. That's just driven me crazy because clearly any pair of tennis shoes will probably be better than a thick leather insole.
And it's obviously nonsense. Even once they conform to your foot, there's no chance a PNW boot is as "comfy" as a spongy foam midsole. That's not what the PNW boots are for. They are moderately comfy (once broken in) but *much more durable* for off-trail work. THAT'S why they exist.
@@TheJohn8765 A heritage boot can be very comfortable due to the increased stability, rigidity, and improved gait especially while doing manual labor. They're not as comfortable walking around on concrete as a Nike, but the wedge soles can be very close and less fatiguing over a long day. Most importantly, the guy with the (appropriately) overbuilt boot will likely end up spending less money than the guy blowing through Nikes.
You may want to define quality of the leather. 1. Full grain, is the entire hide 2. Top grain, the hide run through a machine to split it the top is used and the back gets processed into genuine leather. 3. genuine leather, is the leftover from splitting the Hyde it’s processed to make it look like full grain or top grain leather. It is of poor quality and is easily ripped. 4. Bonded leather. Is all the scrap pieces of leather ground up and glued together, it’s like particle bored for leather.
I'm going on 10 years with my Redwing boots. Granted, I don't wear them daily but have gone through a few different jobs wearing them daily in the past.
Worked in maintenance in a paper mill my whole career. I always wore a good name steel toe boot. I retired in 2013 but I still have a pair of Red Wings I wear to ride my Harley.
I remember buying Dr. Marten in Vietnam or whatever left over from the factory. Same issue with the real one - the welding failed first while the upper leather is still good. Using shoe glue to get back the outsole; hold better than their factory weld.
Would you consider doing a video with the Keen Cincinnati Work boots, either stand-alone or during Moc-tober? Seen very little content about these boots
when i worked construction red wings were the worst, they destroyed my feet. returned them, and switched up to carolinas, comfortable right out of the box.
I “use” to be a diehard Red Wing boot buyer until I bought a pair of boots with a Goodyear sole and within a month the sole cracked near the heel. Brought them to the store and they sent them back to the factory. The factory did not offer to repair instead offered a small discount on another pair. Decided to vote with my dollars and shop elsewhere.
Ive been wearing the red wing traction tread lites for the past year and they are made in vietnam and I think so are the irish setters, with a little quality control maybe the fakes could be decent
@TylerSnyder305 if you paid me a million dollars, I'd wear a box of tissues for a year. I'd buy these if I were tight on budget and they were branded red wing
@@krandlez well I have certain values and morals so I would not. And if you're tight on a budget, don't obsess over things you want but can't afford so badly that you'd sink low enough to buy counterfeits. Just buy something else, there is absolutely zero place for counterfeits in the world because all they do is fill a materialistic desire. Btw I wouldn't wear a tissue box for a year either, nor would I go barefoot for a million dollars.
What you were saying about real Red Wings never using belly leather does not hold up to my experience. My 877s have one quarter panel that's all super loose break (they probably figured it's covered up by your pants), and my roughout classic Chelseas have super loose leather all over the vamp (they probably figured you can't tell because it's rough out, but you can definitely tell). So yeah Red Wing Heritage definitely does use belly leather where they think they can get away with it.
I recently bought the leather insoles that Redback boots in Australia makes and they're a game changer. I don't know if you've ever tested them, but I'd be curious what foam they use under that thick slab of leather because it's perfect for insoles.
There was a final sale from Taft boots on their 365 collection. I thought their 007 monkey boot was an awesome looking pair of boots, and for the price (at the time was 55 dollars) I had to get them. Maybe about a month later from minimal usage the back part of the sole wants to start separating. Now it’s strange how it has a real leather welt and pretty nice pull-up leather but it’s cement construction. After watching this video it seems like my Taft boots and these fake ass RedWings are built in the same factory. Extremely strange coming from Taft especially when I’ve seen some very quality products. I thought I should add that the insides of the boots are identical.
Dr shoels work insoles are best 15 dollar upgrade. I'm security guard walk for 7 hours of my shift and big guy so yeah trust me when best upgrade to any shoe or boot the insoles are worth investing
My Walmart boots don't pretend to be anything else . At less than 50 dollars. They get me to work. Redwing and Rocky boots are good investments. They may hurt the wallet , 😮. But they are good for the feet .😊
I used to get good thick cushioning insoles from spenco with gel yellow part at heel now they are total crap they call them spenco gel but it is a garbage foam that crumbles and falls apart quickly I'd love to get some decent American made thick cushioning insoles that hold up over time.
I saw today Skechers released a boot collab with John Deere. Specifically the model called Cascades looks interesting for $150. Claims to have a Goodyear welt. Wonder if it's real leather?
The last time i got red wings was when i was cutting trees and with one day. They killed my foot had to go to my doctor and to weeks to heal up. Never again
*lmao 😅 The moment he ripped the bottoms off the fake boots, was so funny! You can literally hear how fake and cheap it is! Ill never buy the fake Red Wing boots lol 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣!*
Thanks for, yet a nother great clip! Sorry for going all PC on you but aside from the wear and tear of the boots themselves, how about the sustainability in a broader sense? It would be really interesting if you could grade working conditions, CO2 emissions, ability to unionize, wage vs living cost, ability to vote in fair elections etc, etc, on the original vs the fakes. This goes for all the stuff you look at. The grading won’t be as precise and indisputable as leather thickness but a rough estimate could be helpful when choosing between different options. I’m guessing there could be some NGO out there who could give some guidance.
Thanks for bringing this up to the attention of us. The market is saturated with junk boots and clothe, is not worth throwing away your money in this junk.
Natural tree latex is best and would work amazingly with a cloth fabric topper for sweat. It seems naturalatex is too nice for any brand to handle these days. I literally made my own
But I learned about how comfy latex is via Trask Reserve edition insoles. They had a cork & leather base, higher tier ortholite system in the middle, and latex on top that touches the feet. Amazing. If you put latex between a classic hard cork and leather sole, no ortholite, and put a light fabric on top for better breathability, it's still amazing. Just no ortholite support
