Red Wing vs. Chippewa Engineer Boots

[Vintagestyle]

Yes, i knew the heel was replaceable without the sole as they are different part , not one piece with sole and heel together .
I am not a specialist of the boots materials but from what i saw on the nailed down 100th anniversary 1939 British tan Wesco engineer boots, the nails seem to be brass and the heel made of hard leather i believe and rubber at the bottom.
I didn't know some engineer boots had wooden parts on the heel , i would tend to think it is too hard for that .
Which ones have wood in the heels ?

I don't know what type of metal nails are used by Chippewa for their heels but i believe they use some nails and also that the heels are made of leather and rubber .
I think part of the RW heels ( top part ) are nailed as well.
Type " red wing heritage how they are made nailed heel construction" in google and select Tumblr and it seems they specify nailed heel construction ( i didn't click as they want people to accept they collect our private infos for connecting)

 

[Kane]

FWIW, The Red Wing 1155 roper boot has the same plastic heel piece. That boot has been around for years. Not sure if it always had the plastic piece in the heel.

 

[Vintagestyle]

Do you know if the Red Wing 2268 really loosen up at the instep once broken in or if they should stay as tight like that ?

 

[Vintagestyle]

I don't think the quality of Red Wing is much better than Chippewa and personaly i prefer the oil leather used on the Chippewa better than the shiny leather on the RW .
Here are some pictures of some RW , you can see some regular wrinkles on the right part of the boot on the pictures but also some quite bigger on the left and at the top , that are typical of a loose grain that you can find on the belly of the cow ( that should not be used ) which is weaker and stretches easily and it is not nice ( that said it happens as well on Chippewa boots).
I had posted a comment about it ,from a guy who works in the leather industry ,in anothother topic about Chippewa boots defects :
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...pewa-engineer-boots.84438/page-2#post-2497132

 

[Vintagestyle]

Here are some pictures of another RW and a Chippewa that only have the slight natural wrinkles but not the loose grain .

 

[Vintagestyle]

Also , they don't always have some symetrical soles when you look at them , side by side ( the two pairs here don't have symetrical soles between the two boots of the same pair ) ,some have the soles trimmed more than others on the side , what gives them a different look with some thinner soles on the sides of the boot ( first picture ) , some seam have too much tension ( second picture ) , contracting the leather ...etc
It might not be important for some but it's clear they don't pay that much attention to details unlike higher end shoes and boots .
Some Chippewa can also have some defects , small or big , so both brands can have some defects ( more or less big ) except i haven't seen yet some RW with stitches problems unlike Chipp.

 

[Vintagestyle]

When you see the trimming of the soles here ,you can see a skilled person can do it correctly quite quickly ,so i don't understand Chippewa and Red Wing have so much problem on some boots ,to get some symetrical soles !
Do they ask workers to work much too fast or do they employ inexperimented workers ,or some who don't care ?

 

[Bfd70]

View attachment 152631 View attachment 152632 View attachment 152633 Also , they don't always have some symetrical soles when you look at them , side by side ( the two pairs here don't have symetrical soles between the two boots of the same pair ) ,some have the soles trimmed more than others on the side , what gives them a different look with some thinner soles on the sides of the boot ( first picture ) , some seam have too much tension ( second picture ) , contracting the leather ...etc
It might not be important for some but it's clear they don't pay that much attention to details unlike higher end shoes and boots .
Some Chippewa can also have some defects , small or big , so both brands can have some defects ( more or less big ) except i haven't seen yet some RW with stitches problems unlike Chipp.

I’d be very surprised if these RW were not sold as “seconds” which they do quite frequently, typically at 1/2 off. Obv Lofgren to protect the brand isn’t doing that. Just different markets. It’s only fair to expect less from a $20,000 chevy than an $80,000 mercedes

 

[Vintagestyle]

I can tell you for sure that both these pairs of Red Wing above were sold at the regular price unfortunately !!

 

[Sloan1874]

I checked my boots and they're completely uniform. Looking at them last night, I reckon that, with a bit of polish, they could develop a nice shine.

 

[Vintagestyle]

And these ,do you think they would be sold as factory seconds ?
It seems some dirt got between the leather and the steel toe but they sell them at regular price !
It would not be a problem if it was somewhere at the back or on the shaft and not just on top of the steel toe , just in front of the boot !

 

[Blackadder]

When you see the trimming of the soles here ,you can see a skilled person can do it correctly quite quickly ,so i don't understand Chippewa and Red Wing have so much problem on some boots ,to get some symetrical soles !
Do they ask workers to work much too fast or do they employ inexperimented workers ,or some who don't care ?

White's boots and Wesco have stitching problems too and White's asymmetrical sole problem is worse than Wesco and not much better than Red Wing and Chippewa. It is often said that since these are work boots, one should not expect dress boots quality but they are being sold at dress boots price. I have a couple of pairs of Grenson boots that cost less than my White's and Chippewa and even the made in India Grenson is better than these work boots in terms of QC. Of all the more popular American made "work boots" I own (Red Wing Chippewa Thorogood Frye), I find Frye to have the best QC but they usually cut corners by using cheaper materials. Oh and I rarely see these problems in cowboy boots which makes me wonder the same as you do.

 

[Vintagestyle]

Man made is a bad excuse cause the problem is the care they put in building them !
When looking for as much profit as you can, you produce the fastest as possible ,paying the workers the least as possible ,so obviously the result is that !
There is a difference in putting as much love as you can in something you build and just doing that for the money !
I understand they can't be always perfect but some problems are worst than others and when you pay a certain amount , you expect to get something nice without imperfections or defects that are obvious !
I see many things that could be avoided by putting more care in the manufacturing process, even before the quality control !
I understand the QC can't reject all the boots with small imperfections but this can be taken care of before .

 

[Sloan1874]

View attachment 155271 View attachment 155272 View attachment 155271 And these ,do you think they would be sold as factory seconds ?
It seems some dirt got between the leather and the steel toe but they sell them at regular price !
It would not be a problem if it was somewhere at the back or on the shaft and not just on top of the steel toe , just in front of the boot !

I wouldn't think twice about sending those back. Red Wings are more than capable of producing perfect boots, both the pairs I own arrived pristine, so I'd ask for them to make good on their error.

 

[Vintagestyle]

I wouldn't think twice about sending those back. Red Wings are more than capable of producing perfect boots, both the pairs I own arrived pristine, so I'd ask for them to make good on their error.

The problem is that you never know if the pair you will get in replacement will be better or worst and that's really boring !
I don't think it is normal to have to wonder if it's better to have to accept a defect or imperfection ,because you don't know if the next pair will be worst !!
One thing i have noticed with Chippewa ( that doesn't seem to be happening as often with RW ), is that quite often the steel toe edges are quite viewable under the leather cause they used a too thin leather and / or applied to much tension on it when manufacturing the boots , so the steel toe edges stick through the leather and this is really ugly when really too obvious ! I am not a specialist of the vintage ones but i have the feeling the leather was thicker a few decades ago and that this problem was much less frequent !

 

[Bfd70]

I’ve kinda lost the direction of the thread here but seem to remember someone looking for Chippewa. Seller from Miami on ebay has a bunch for $99. You really can’t miss at that price.

 

[Edward]

I’ve kinda lost the direction of the thread here but seem to remember someone looking for Chippewa. Seller from Miami on ebay has a bunch for $99. You really can’t miss at that price.

That's the sole bright spot with these discontinuations: I've picked up some great bargains. I now have two pairs of Chippewas (the 7" 1901M52 in oxblood, and the 1901M69 in a thick, chocolate brown hide with soem very nice graining on the uppers), and a pair of Redwing 2268s in black for half the retail price of them all together.

Comparing the two, I found the RedWings to be bang on my size right from the off, as are the Chippewa 1901M69s. The M52s I had to force a Coke bottle into it for a few days to widen the heel out enough to get my foot in on the left boot (the larger of my feet. Worth noting: people often complain that one boot of any brand feelssmaller than the other, but many don't realise that it's a rare individual indeed whose feet are identically sized....). After that, grand. In terms of sizing nomenclature, all three pairs of boots are a US9 / EU 42 / UK8, which is exactly what I take. The Redwings are a standard / D fitting, which is also what I take on average, but the Chippewas are both E. It seems Chippewas run true to size lengthwise, but narrow. I suspect I'd have been okay with them in an EE, exept with an insole. My Caterpillar engineers (which are, to be honest, really just toys compared to these) fit very nicely off the bat true to size, while my SJCs and my Grinders both are a little wide (a true E -and they only came in one width), albeit that a decent insole snugged those up perfectly.

Qualitatively, my Chippewas and my Red Wings are, I would say, on a par with each other. The Chippewas have maybe slightly nicer leather, though its' not enough of adifference to seek one out over the other imo. All have nicely shaped heels, bit of a traditional American curve to them without them looking too "cowboy". Again, the Caterpillars are toy-like by comparison - nice enough boots, but definitely not the "last a lifetime" feel of these much more expensive options. Like comparing a pair of DMs to REd Wing Iron Rangers, or William Lennon B5s. The SJC boots definitely hold their own; if Simon were to be doing another run of these with a nicer heel shape, I'd definitely be in the queue. (As it is, I'm not sure they are - I know they were a nightmare to get the sizing patterns scaled. Fit is hard on a pull-on boot - much less room for adjustment for the wearer.)

I'm going to be keeping an eye on more bargains as things go, though in terms of buying full price I think my next bootg move will be to save my pennies and hope for a rise in the value of the pound so I can seriously think about some Wescos. For now I have the three basic colours (brown, black and oxblood) well covered.

I must try and get some photos up. The Chips are very nice indeed - the M52 has a non-steel, slightly lower toe, while the M69 has a nice bump toe with a steel toe guard underneath, not unlike the shape of the RW 2268s.

One thing I'd love to know is whether there's any significance in the model numbers given to the Chippewa boots - i.e. does the '69' denote a repop of a model built in 1969?

 

[Vintagestyle]

Both Chippewa and Red Wing engineer boots are nice when well made but the problem is that if you really pay attention to some " details " and want some that look really good with no defect , you better buy them directly in a shop where they stock several of the same size and of different size to be able to pick the ones you like ( but there are very few shops who do and less and less cause they are " out of fashion " and fewer people ask for them from what several shops told me . Even some Red Wing shops don't stock them anymore even if they have them available on their website and when they do , they have very few of them ) !
For Chippewa , it is no more an option , they permanently stopped manufacturing all their engineer boots , 11" and 17 " size , except the polish Baden troopers with steel toe ( that they didn't have in stock for about a year !) .
Red wing stopped manufacturing the brown ones and only still propose black 2268 .
I went through quite a few pairs of 2268 to find some without any problem !
The leather of the 27863 Chipp was a bit softer than the RW ones, which have a quite thick and hard leather that takes more time to soften.

 

[Blackadder]

Both Chippewa and Red Wing engineer boots are nice when well made but the problem is that if you really pay attention to some " details " and want some that look really good with no defect , you better buy them directly in a shop where they stock several of the same size and of different size to be able to pick the ones you like ( but there are very few shops who do and less and less cause they are " out of fashion " and fewer people ask for them from what several shops told me . Even some Red Wing shops don't stock them anymore even if they have them available on their website and when they do , they have very few of them ) !
For Chippewa , it is no more an option , they permanently stopped manufacturing all their engineer boots , 11" and 17 " size , except the polish Baden troopers with steel toe ( that they didn't have in stock for about a year !) .
Red wing stopped manufacturing the brown ones and only still propose black 2268 .
I went through quite a few pairs of 2268 to find some without any problem !
The leather of the 27863 Chipp was a bit softer than the RW ones, which have a quite thick and hard leather that takes more time to soften.

I am not sure about Chippewa but Red Wing's choice of production (for non-US market) is often based on distributors' and retailers' orders. Often times you can find a lot of different models (colourway) of Red Wing engineer boots in Japan then later Europe.

 

[Edward]

Interestingly, the easiest REd Wings to fidn in the UK are the ones with the low-profile heel, which, of course, is much closer to the typical heel you'd find on an Englisdh riding / motorcycle boot.

I've obviously been fortunate with all my boots if they're as variable as it sounds...