Last month the Red Wing Shoe Store Amsterdam had the pleasure to visit the lovely town Red Wing, Minnesota in the United States. During this yearly visit in Red Wing, Stephen and Mitch were able to do a tour through the Red Wing Shoe Factory and S.B. Foot Tannery to get more insights into the production of the Red Wing Heritage boots. Of course we want to give you as much imagery of what we have seen during our visit. In this post we will take you on a little tour through the Red Wing Shoe Factory with pictures and video's, so you can see how and where your favorite Red Wing Heritage boots are made. First of all we want to start with thanking the amazing Mark Engnes (Product Developer for Red Wing Heritage) for giving us such a fantastic, informative and cozy tour through the Red Wing Shoe Factory. We got the best impression which was possible.
Here we go!
As you might already know, all the Red Wing Heritage boots are manufactured in the USA by hand. We've had a tour through the Red Wing Shoe Factory Plant 2 in Red Wing, Minnesota where almost all of our Red Wing Heritage boots are manufactured. Plant 2 is about a 5 minute drive from the Red Wing USA Headquarters in Minnesota.
This is the entrance of the Red Wing Shoes Factory Plant 2. (When we were in Red Wing it was about -10 celsius degrees and there was a lot of snow as you can see).
We noticed some Red Wing Shoe Factory staff guides when we entered the Factory which we thought were nice to share with you. We like Fat Wrinkles!
Here you can see the finished upper of the famous 8085 Iron Ranger in Copper Rough & Tough going to the next fase of adding the insole, Goodyear welt construction and outer sole.
In the video below you can see how two pieces of leather get stitched together to create the actual famous Moc Toe such as on the 875 Classic Moc Toe in Oro-legacy, 8881 Classic Moc Toe in Olive Mohave, 8890 Classic Moc Toe in Charcoal Rough & Tough and many more.
As you might know all our Red Wing Heritage boots are manufactured with a Goodyear welt. The Goodyear welt is a small leather strip which is attached to the upper and insole of the shoe, the outer sole will be glued and stitched on the leather strip which creates are really strong and durable construction. In the video below you can see the leather strip being attached to the Red Wing 877 Classic Moc Toe in Oro-legacy.
When the Goodyear welt strip is added, for some models there will be a midsole attached to the strip before they put the actual outer sole underneath the shoe. In the video underneath you can see a Red Wing Moc Toe getting a midsole stitched to the leather welt strip.
Some soles will be fully stitched through on the leather strip welt without the midsole. Underneath in the video you can see a Roccia leather sole being stitched on the leather welt strip of the 2917 Chelsea Rancher in Briar Oil Slick.
The heels of our Red Wing Heritage heeled shoes are being nailed through the outer sole onto the leather insole of the Red Wing Shoe. In this video you can see a very friendly and passionate man nailing the heel onto a 3343 Blacksmith in Copper Rough & Tough with one of the oldest machines in the Red Wing Shoe Factory.
Thank you for reading and watching all of this. We hope we brought you a little closer to knowing how the Red Wing Heritage boots are made and found it as interesting as we did! If you ever have any questions please feel free to contact the Red Wing Amsterdam staff and we will try to answer all of your questions. Have a pleasant day!
