At some point while I was overseas it happened, get up, swill coffee, throw boots on feet and begin lacing it up ready to go to work. While I was walking to work I noticed that one of my boot laces was suddently looser than it should be. I waited until I got to the office and realized that one of my speed laces had given up the ghost and had gone for a little adventure of its own. After two weeks of lacing my boots awkwardly around the missing speed lace, I decided to forcibly retire the boots and send them out for re-soling. None of the local joints around here did in house re-soling and the boot needed a little bit more care than that anyway. I played with the faded little Made in the USA tag and thought “you deserve better”… So I looked into Danner’s Boot Re-crafting service.
The process is fairly easy, just download their PDF form detailing the type of service you’d like, package up your boots with the order form and your credit card information in it, ship off your boots and wait. There were several packages to choose from, and I needed the hardware replaced or repaired and I needed the boots resoled so I picked the re-sole package for $130. Not the cheapest, but it’s brand new Vibram soles and the package included:
replace midsole as needed
replace outsole
replace any broken hardware
repair any damaged stitching
recondition, clean & polish leather
new set of laces
new set of insoles or inserts
return shipping via ground
Not bad. I sent in my package with the box checked and got a reply via e-mail from Debi in their recrafting department. She mentioned that during their review of the boots the Goretex booties had been punctured in several places, meaning that they would continue to leak even after being re-crafted. She asked my permission before charging me for the Supreme Package which included replacing the liners. The price was $220. At the time I felt like I was being up-sold, certainly the liners alone weren’t worth $90. I knew that the fabric and labor were expensive, but I’d paid $390 for the boots several years ago and they were the priciest boots I’d ever bought (more on that later). I went back and looked at the order form, and sure enough there was a liner package for $155, the re-sole package was $130, but it wasn’t until you got to the tippy-top quality Supreme Package at $220 that both sole and liner were replaced. I sighed and acquiesced to Debi’s request, knowing that I had just put a price on dry feet and that price was $220. Debi let me know that my boots would be ready in 4-5 weeks. For reference, that package includes the following services:
replace liner
replace midsole
replace outsole
replace shank
replace heel counter
replace any broken hardware
repair any damaged stitching
recondition, clean & polish leather
new set of laces
new set of insoles or inserts
return shipping via ground
A couple weeks later Marci from the boot re-crafting shop e-mailed me to notify me that my boots had been completed and, like a puppy who was about to be sent home after being watched for several weeks, she sent me a recent photo of them. They looked fantastic. A pair of already broken in boots that were for all intents and purposes brand new. About four days after I got the e-mail I got the box on my doorstep.
Inside the box from Danner was my boots, complete with new soles, a new set of laces with Goretex medallions, a new set of airthotics. The recrafting team went through the boots inside and out and communicated with me over email the entire time they were working on them. They reached out from the time that they received the boots, to when more repairs were needed than when I originally intended, and even sent me before/after photos when they were done. Unfortunately the boots arrived two days after my month long sojourn in the woods in northwestern PA, so they didn’t get to be field tested immediately.
Before recrafting these poor guys had seen some things. Leather only got conditioned once per year with Sno-Seal and laces had been replaced three times. Sole was worn nearly through and I’d lost some hardware.
Service wasn’t exactly cheap, coming in at around $200, but when you factor in that the boots listed for $390 when I bought them three years ago and I wear them literally every day I’m putting way more milage on these boots than most other folks. I use them both for hiking and hunting but also for the concrete jungle. Put that in comparison with when I was paying $120 per year for a pair of Belleville combat boots and machining through them — I still need another year to come out ahead. Given how my boots have held up for three years of my neglect and allowing them to never be truly conditioned until they were falling apart — I think I’ve learned a lot about boot care and will manage to come out ahead. In any event these boots are superior to the combat boots in wear as well as the Goretex lining giving me the waterproof breathable membrane I need in order to hike wherever I please in the mountains or city. I would gladly send my boots back again to be worked on — I just think I’ll take better care of them this time so they don’t need to go back any time soon.
After re-crafting I had new laces, soles, goretex booties, a pair of airthotics, and the leather was cleaned and conditioned. Bonus, they even sewed in a brand new Made in America flag.
