After the leather soles are hammered onto the boots, the edges must be trimmed. I cut the waist area of the boot with a knife. It’s a crucial step — leave it too wide and the boot sole has all the shape of a potato. But there are absolutely no do-overs here, so you must not cut it too narrow either. Plus, there are of course two boots, so each one must not only have a nice curve on both the inside and outside of the sole, they must also have nice curves that *match each other* and leave the sole exactly the same width on each boot. There are no templates for this and I don’t draw it on; I simply take my knife in a steady hand and trim the soles, then compare them.

The boot on the left has been trimmed and the boot on the right is still potato-shaped.