Who needs an old fashioned cobbler?

[shanekingsley]

Little update here.
I had another pair of boots that are Alpinestars Web Gore-Tex that had some stitching coming apart. The boots had faded from normal use and the soles were completely done, but these are super comfortable boots and still waterproof. I didn't feel like going all the way back to Scarborough, so I looked up a local shoe repair shop. This one is called Sam's Shoe Repair and is located in South Common Mall in Mississauga and he said $90 for all the work.

Overall it was $60 less than the Scarborough shop and he put on much better Vibram soles, fixed the seam where the stitching was really failing and did an awesome job polishing them up. Really happy with the work from this shop.

 

[mimico_polak]

Wow! Looks amazing! I’ll be bringing my work boots home from the cottage and going to Sam in the coming weeks!

Gotta be cheaper than a new $300 pair.

 

[shanekingsley]

Wow! Looks amazing! I’ll be bringing my work boots home from the cottage and going to Sam in the coming weeks!

Gotta be cheaper than a new $300 pair.

I think his name is actually Abdel and maybe Sam works in the one in Meadowvale Town Centre. That shop in South Common Mall seems to get a ton of walk in traffic to fix all kinds of things. I went there last night to pick up my boots when they closed up at 6pm, but there was a line of people asking to get their purses and shoes fixed. He apologized to me and said they weren't ready and he would stay late and work til 7:30 to do up my boots, and I said no rush I'll come back tomorrow.

So you can easily just walk up and drop your stuff off, but before picking up, make sure they are ready, because it seems they sometimes get swamped and don't have much control over it. I dropped those boots off to him on a Saturday and they were ready 10 days later. All of that waiting time was to get those specific Vibram soles in, because I had mentioned to him that I wanted them to work well in winter and on gravel roads. If you go there well before closing, there is no line-ups.

They are very nice and their prices are crazy cheap for the quality of work. Turns out they are from Lebanon, so it was nice to talk to them about their home country. Good, honest people.

 

[mimico_polak]

I wonder if they fix leather motorcycle gloves also. Will pop by next week.

 

[shanekingsley]

I wonder if they fix leather motorcycle gloves also. Will pop by next week.

I think there is a good chance they could. Be mindful that typically when gloves start to fail, the stitching elsewhere has also started to fail.

So even if you fix one section, overall the gloves may not hold up in a slide and the stitching is the weakest link which comes apart easily.

I’d fix a pair only to keep it as a backup pair, but not necessarily as my primary riding gloves.

 

[mimico_polak]

This is my issue…the thin leather ripped as I was putting on the glove. This happened a while ago but since I ride in the cold so little I wasn’t too concerned.

Not sure why GTAM has decided to start posting my pics at the start of my comment instead of the end.

 

[shanekingsley]

Oh that looks like an easy fix I think - maybe just putting a large patch over the entire area.
I say go for it for sure, because those gloves still look pretty great otherwise.

I did also just find a local tailor that I am going to send a pair of old pants too and see if he can repair some broken stitching. They have a waterproof membrane in them so it's more of delicate task than the shoe repair shops can do. I'll let you know how that goes if the shoe repair place can't fix that glove.

 

[mimico_polak]

Thanks! My seamstress MIL doesn’t have the equipment to repair leather.

It’s very thin leather so when you pull the glove down…it just tore.