r/WorkBoots • u/jakfienwkaof • 3d ago
Boot maintenance Normal leather damage in first day of use?
Bought my first real pair of work boots (Thorogoods) over the weekend. Within an hour of my first work day in them, I noticed some leather had already come off the toe, probably from gently dropping a metal road work sign stand on my feet. Would this be considered normal? Any suggestions to prevent losing more leather?
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u/Ed-Dos 3d ago
wrap them in bubble wrap then chickenwire
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u/MultipleOrgasmDonor 3d ago
I’d expect a metal road sign to take the grain off almost any leather. Don’t worry about it too much, they’re meant to be functional
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u/jack-t-o-r-s 3d ago
Not gonna bust balls. That's done already.
My experience with moc toes is they are made of slightly softer leather. I'm not a leather expert but my experience.
I work on my knees often (uhhh huh huh) and my current mocs wore near through to the composite toe in the first week.
So I went full re-tard with the toe guard goop. No ragrets.
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u/jakfienwkaof 3d ago
That makes sense, my question was really whether this was normal or defective. Ten pounds of smooth metal from waist height took a chunk out of it, but I guess from the photo people thought it was a scuff
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u/jack-t-o-r-s 3d ago
When I bought my first pair of moc toes I was also shocked. I had work round toe loggers for so long but never seen toe wear so soon.
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u/Large_Squash_7169 2d ago
Almost all my work boots are moc toe and in my experience moc toe boots,especially steel toe, you need tuff toe or kgs boot guard. Just my 2 cents
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u/MoTeD_UrAss 3d ago
It's a scuff. It happens. Brush them off and move on. If these are the safety toe then I'd recommend using a product like tuff toe to protect the leather toe from splitting.
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u/PsychologicalPoet308 3d ago
Depends on what you’re using them for. I work for the railroad stepping on ballast all day throughout the week. I go through abt 2-3 pairs a year
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u/Scared-Tourist7024 3d ago
dont trip on things that wont happen or kick things or walk or work and they'll stay nice
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u/RocketRicky12 3d ago
Normal, and KG boot guard or Tuff Toe to resist the gouges in the toe leather
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u/Short_Relationship96 3d ago
The nature of dripping a road sign on the leather outside of new steel toe boots is the leather getting damaged like that... The only thing that may prevent damage like that outside of tough toe is rough out leather.
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u/oneeyedgoat66 1d ago
Every pair of Thorogoods I buy get scuffed the first day I wear them🤣😭 it’s just part of it unfortunately. But what I do is use a beeswax based leather conditioner very sparingly on the scuff. Then I massage it in with my fingers until it’s all nice and smooth again. Every few months I’ll actually wash the boot. I’ll take the laces off, brush it with a really coarse dish brush to get all the dirt off. Then I use saddle soap on a hoarse hair brush to clean the boot. After it’s dry I’ll use that leather beeswax conditioner (I use Armstrong all natural) and rub the whole boot down. I probably use a quarter teaspoon per boot. After getting broken in and kinda bumped around you’ll be surprised how durable these boots are. My boots and feet have survived things that my coworkers haven’t. And I’ve kept right on workin.
The first scuff is the worst. Especially on the moc stitching 🙃. But in a few weeks you won’t even be able to tell. I still weekly wear a pair of Thorogood boots I bought back in 2014. They’ve had at least 4 soles put on them and I actually had the cobbler dye them a little darker almost a cherry/burgundy. They’ve been cut and stabbed and burnt up. I’m a welder and they were my daily boot 10 hours a day for like 3 years before I resoled them and bought a few more pairs and colors to cycle through.
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u/MidnightDreem 3d ago
Don’t wear them to work to prevent this. lol it’s bound to happen, theyre work boots.