Detailed Insight into the Art of Making Clogs

Introduction:Wooden clogs for women and men may have seen widespread adoption, but they actually have been around for centuries. Although they were worn mainly by the early French, Dutch, and other natives of Europe, they were popularized by the Swedish in the 1960s across Europe and North America. Gradually, wooden clogs, especially the designer high-heeled variants became a hit among women.

This article attempts to give a detailed account of the clog-making process.

Raw Materials:3 types of wood are commonly used for making clogs: Tulip Poplar, Yellow Poplar and European Willow. These wood variants are hard and water-proof, which makes them the perfect raw material for clogs. After obtaining raw wood, they may be treated for extra protection before crafting them into clogs for women and men.

Cutting Into Blocks:After raw timber is collected, it is roughly cut in the shape of rectangular blocks. The size of the block determines the size of the final shoe. For example- a block needs to be 37 x 13.3 x 13.3 cm (14.5 x 5.25 x 5.25 inches) in dimension to be made into a men’s size 8 shoe.

Exterior Carving:A special machine called shaper is used to cut the wood in shape. A vinyl shoe is used as the template on which the final design is based. Shoe makers use different vinyl shoe designs for making different clogs.The shaping machine has a pointer to detect pre-fed pattern and two cutters to shape the exterior. A tracer traces the outline of the vinyl shoe and the cutters cut the block of wood accordingly. Usually, both the left and right clogs are carved simultaneously by two shapers working together.

Interior Carving:After the exterior is done, the clogs are placed in a machine called borer, which carves the interiors to the required dimensions, leaving an extra 0.64 cm (0.25 inches) of wood all around. The machine has 3 tracers, two of which work with the left and right clog simultaneously while the central tracer tracks the dimensions from the vinyl shoe template and feeds them to the other two tracers.

Refining, Drying & Finishing:The clogs are placed in a refiner which smoothens out the interiors of the shoes, cutting through the extra wood left out in the previous process.They are then left to dry for about 4 to 6 weeks which hardens the shoes. They are then treated with sand to remove any stray wood, after which they are finally ready to be worn.They can also be painted or varnished for decoration.