Revisiting the Dying Art of Making Wooden Clogs By Hand

Wooden clogs for women and men have been produced by the Swedish and the Dutch for long, but there is a vast difference in the manufacturing process employed now and the traditional methods used in the past.

Most modern wooden clogs for women and men are factory-made, using dummy cast shoes as reference for designs.

Traditional clogs, which were mostly unisexual, were made by hand without using any automation machines. Each and every pair was made by an expert shoemaker by hand.

It took more time, but required more skill and precision.

This is a dying art that is already outdated in most clog-making communities as more and more shoemakers are shifting towards machine-based manufacturing for faster production.

This article outlines the steps involved in making a wooden clog by hand:

1. Selecting The Tree Trunk

Experienced shoemakers can determine the size and number of shoes that can be made just by looking at the tree trunk.

Usually, a rounded trunk can be carved into 2 pairs of large-sized clogs, while oval shaped trunks can be carved either into one small and one large-sized pair or two small-sized pairs of clogs.

2. Splitting a Wooden Log

The wooden log is inspected for faults and marked for splitting.

A fine log of wood can give about 5 usable blocks of usable wood for carving clogs. Splitting is done carefully using a cleaving hammer and chisels.

3. Trimming The Wood

After the log is split, two wooden blocks are selected, which form the left and right shoe. Both the shoes are to be made simultaneously so that they form the mirror image of each other. The outer bark is then chipped off slowly and carefully before starting the carving process.

4. Shaping The Shoes

A large, tapering knife is used to shape the two blocks of wood into shoes.

First of all, the front part of the shoes, called beak, is carved.

The heels are shaped after that, giving the shoes a rough outline.

Both the left and right shoes are carved together to avoid size mismatch.

5. Boring The Inners

The shoes are wedged firmly and holes are bored using a long knife and hammer. Boring is started from the heel side and the shoemaker slowly works into the front side.

A large drill-knife is used to scoop out wood from the deeper parts of the shoes.

6. Fine-Carving

A thin knife is used to carve out the finer details of the shoes and to remove excess wood. Other tools are used to sharpen the exterior of the shoes.

7. Finishing

Glass pieces are used to scrape and smoothen the shoe exteriors, after which, they are ready for coloring and treatment.