World's Toughest Work Boot Leather: How It's Made 

Being in the leather business, we never see this end of the tannery process because all leathers are done when we receive them. So it’s fascinating to see the process

Another great video but it would have been great to have grant or someone from the tannery give a voice over with some explanation of what we were seeing.

Interesting process. Also interesting to note that every person in the video is wearing a NEW pair of Nicks boots!

I don’t fully understand all of the steps that I’m seeing here, but it makes me want to go to a tannery and ask and learn to be honest

You know it’s a good product when the companies employees are wearing a pair of Nick’s boots 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Thanks for the video! These workmen seem sincere and totally immersed in their work! Wish them protection and good health!

When I was a kid, I made my own moccasins, and other leather objects. I was a huge Tandy's customer. This video is very interesting, visually, but it really doesn't explain anything.

Where's Mike Rowe to walk us through the place?

It's fascinating that all the leather is blue from the chrome tanning before it's dyed

Love to see new videos. One on how the tanker pros are made would be awesome!

A narration on what’s happening would’ve been nice!

Man this is so awesome. Rewatching this video again a year later and still amazed.

I’ve been around cow critters everyday for the last 55 years. Texas rancher. This still fascinates me. Excellent!

I really appreciate you guys making these videos. Super informative and well made. I'm looking forward to buying a pair of your boots - hopefully sometime this year :)

My mother in law worked at SAS( SAN ANTONIO SHOES) FOR 40 Something years. And she can look at a pelt of leather and tell you how many right shoes and left shoes will come out...She was a cutter....and she is still alive and doesn't look 74..

I’m a leather hobbyist I would loved to have seen little info titles with each process Like each time it goes through the rollers what is happening sciving glasing??

The amount of work before you can even start working on making a boot. ❤️

Thank you for a rare look inside your tannery.....very much appreciated I'm impressed !

I’ve owned a couple of pairs of nicks. Great boots! This is cool to see how the leather is made

People wonder why these boots are around $450. Here’s another reason why. I’ll gladly pay the money for handmade quality American products.

This is going to sound crazy but the place at the end with all the finished hides has to smell amazing!

I can’t wait for my wife and I to go out west this year, .we’re gonna go to this factory 🏭 and we are going to buy ourselves some boots!

Very amazing and educational video of the many processes the leather have to go through to its final product.

"Two Years Before the Mast" a must read ...the leather trade has been around for ever

It's funny how water ruins leather, but cattle can be outside in the rain and their skin is just fine.

Great to see this stage of the process.

Imagine how many bunnies had to die for all those hides!

I bet this place smells amazing

I'm sure I'm not the only one noticed that alot of if not all were wearing Nick's Boots. Might be a perk for working there. Very nice!

Either voice over or some text would be helpful for us noobs who know not what we see. Really did enjoy it, though!

So the 1964 leather is chrome tanned first? Interesting 💚

It all makes so much more sense to me now.

Our daughter ( then 16 ) came home about ten years ago and declared she wasn't going to be a party to the murder of animals - in fact anything with a face, including fish. She started emptying her room of all animal-derived products, leather jackets, belts, shoes, gloves, pants - everything, and boxing it all up for me to take to the dump, she went apeshit when we suggested giving it to homeless people, saying it was perpetuating the holocaust. We let her just go for it. Then she refused to eat at the table because the meat smell from our meals was the smell of murder and death - she made herself some salad with foam earplugs stuffed in her nose and ate outside. After dinner, she came to the family room ( still with the fluro green plugs in her nose ) and stood with her arms folded and told us she wasn't going to live in a house that has the smell of death in it, lounge suite is leather, everybody has leather shoes, jackets, wallets, belts, gloves etc. it all had to go. She said the smell of death was tantamount to child abuse. We all looked at each other, with a stunned WTF ! look. The wife said, "Fair enough, go for a long walk and we'll discuss what to do. " We all had a quick discussion, went into the garage, got our family camping tent and set it up in the backyard, camp bed, portapotty, sleeping bag, extension cord, portable tv, little caravan fridge, camping table and folding chairs, set up the camp stove on my old drill press bench, pots and pans, tinned baked beans, tinned vegetables and fresh potatoes and vegetables. I set up a portable camping shower frame with a showerhead and curtain. We ( the wife and two sons ) set it all up inside half an hour. Daughter came home, stood at the door, with the green plugs up her nose, arms folded, all high and mighty and said, " Well ? " Wife took her by the arm, led her down the driveway to the back, pointed to the tent, outdoor stove, opened the tent flap and pointed to the suitcases full of all her clothes, tv, portapotty, shower and said, " Your new vegan home - enjoy. Oh, and you'll now have to bus it or bike it everywhere because the cars have leather seats, and you'll need to get a job to buy all new sporting gear 'cause your roller skates, rollerblade boots and softball stuff is all leather and we're boxing that all up as well and dumping it like you wanted. '' The next day we were having steaks - cooked inside, but we ate on the back deck, daughter called the cops on 911 and said she was being abused by the smell of cooked meat ! Cops and a social worker came to the house, checked out her new accommodation, while we were sitting there eating our meals. They came over to talk to us, with our daughter standing behind them - arms folded, smirking with the green plugs in her nose. The social worker had a look through our home, the daughters room and said that this matter would need to be investigated, turned to our daughter and said to pack some clothes, she was going to have to go to a shelter until the investigation was completed, then a court hearing - could take a week or two or three. She came home with the social worker the next day, balling her eyes out, begging to come home, after having got ONE overnight taste of shelter life. She spent ten days living outside, cooking her own meals, sleeping and showering outside. We could hear her crying herself to sleep. Eventually, she found out her bedroom window was 'mysteriously' left unlocked and would sneak in and sleep under her bed and get up before she thought anyone would notice. She came good in the end. But whenever she even looked like acting up, her mother would just point to a photo of the tent set up in the backyard - my wife had taken a photo of the tent, had it blown up, mounted and hung one in every room in the house, including the boys, as a reminder that she will not take any shit - she's looked at me and pointed to the photo in our bedroom (yeah, our bedroom) a couple of times, but I'm a quick study. Leather, how it's made ? Oh yeah, good video, thanks.

Interesting video but it would have been much better with some narration.

The next video will be the exact same one with captions or a narrator explaining exactly what is happening here. It was lovely visually, but I got nothing from it.

I’d love to have just one of those hides! Such beautiful leather.

Fascinating! The changes it took in every process.

Amazing video 📹 👏

Loved the shot with the hanging Culver's bag :P ha. This is super neat. Didn't know leather production was so much about feeding it through rolly things in different orientations.

Oh Wow, now I know why my feet feel amazing in my Nicks boots.

A narrative of what’s happening would have made this much more interesting.

Nicks is just awwwwsome!

cool to see. a voiceover of more details would be cool too.

Very cool , looks like you could make a lot of boots with the amount of leather being prepped

Why do people post these "how it's made" videos without any narration?

3:31 Wisconsin Culvers represent!

Great video. Never knew so much went into leather prep.

I saw the culvers bag and wondered where in Wisconsin this factory was lol

My next boots would be a Nicks. It just out of my price range right now.

Pretty cool only 90 miles away from me

Interesting video ,nice camera work!

I from indonesia, amazing video good job👏👏👏

Ive been watching tannery youtube for a while, and Im curious what makes this the worlds toughest leather. Can someone tell me like whats going on in the video, what the process is, or describe how the worlds toughest leather is tanned differently from the worlds weakest leather? Or is it just the cow? I bought a jacket that has really thick/heavy leather, and compared to most leather jackets, it is almost 2x as heavy, and it has a gorgeous brown texture with actual leather texture. Its so nice that its difficult to not rub with your hand, and I was curious how that happens when there are other leathers that look like a windbreaker with almost no substance.

When are the new colors coming out?

I love the fact that everyone is wearing Nick's boots. Lol 😆😁

This is hypnotizing!

some nice leather there, WOW

That is beautiful leather

Would have been much better if there had been descriptive captioning of the various stages...

I saw the blue initial product and immediately thought chrome-tanned leather. Can’t tell if this is Horween or W&C but I do love the final product.

In which step is it given its final color?

Wish your videos had some overlayed explanations or discussions

This is good stuff!

Need some commentary of what they're doing

I wonder if there is a way to make a tan 1964 leather

some explanation on what they are doing would be nice. cool to see but no clue what the machines are doing.

How do these Boots NOT cost thousands of dollars per pair? The amount of effort and craftsmanship that is plied to the process is alarming.

Boy it'd be nice to have some captions or something explaining what's going on in the video. Lots of really interesting stuff, but no clue what it all is. Not asking to learn the secrets, just some background.

Just amazing.

How many times is this sheet rolled!

Need to explain what is being done.

Bahaha, Culvers bag spotted. Love it.

My son wears size 22. We've been looking for boots they will fit him for years. Nobody we've contacted is even willing to try. Could you guys make him something like that? We are very serious. Thanks for any response.

What process are the machines doing at :10 sec and :50 sec? Skiving machine?

This is what aliens will be doing to our hides

Good video hope of more 😁

Is that a 6" Overlander or?

An exceptional product needs to master the quality of the materials... It's increasingly rare to see this attention to details.

Does Nicks still have the goofy owner that walked around eating garlic cloves all day? (I worked there in the late 90's)

What facility is this? And who supplies the in-the-blue hides?

Amazing 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻❤️

Thanks for explaining what all those machines did. I actually fell asleep watching this.

WTF! I can clearly see that there are some processing going on. But what..? What's significant to a higher quality leather? Next video; describe process and highlight differences, please...

They left out the actual cows. Thank you for your service. 🐂

Great video. I scrolled down a bit and the answer is popping out for me if its already been answered, but can someone ID the boots at 7:50, please. And what is the height? 6 inches? Thank you.

Very nice… made in USA!

Do you guys sell the leather by itself?

Is the power sliker necessary?

A little explanation as to what is happening in the different steps would be helpful...Just Saying

Was that British tan they were running that day? It looked like it at the end but in person and in camera they don’t look anything alike.

Where do the pieces come from and why aren’t they bigger? 😅

I hope we never lose this industry to automation. It kind of seems like we almost did but then we pulled back before it was too late. If a civilization loses a skill like this, there's a chance they'll never get it back.

For no particular reason I want a whole sheet of leather

Thicker than 1mm is a different story, but up to 1mm thickness I would bet that kangaroo is the toughest. You reckon I'd lose that bet?

Is this the SB Foot Tannery...

I was looking for a more natural boot option and contacted you about your vegetable tanned boots. I was basically told they still smelled just like the chemically tanned ones. Maybe from all being in the same building or something. Anyway, I went with another option but was disappointed to not be able to try your boots as I loath them chemical "leather" smell.

Wow ! That's a lot of cows !

It sure would be nice to know what was happening in each step process. To an untrained eye, it just looked like people grabbing a skin, flattening that skin, and folding the skin.

Меня бы туда, на пару часиков!!!

“How it’s Made”. Proceeds to explain nothing.