Veldtschoen

Veldtschoen translated from Dutch literally means field shoe. It is a form of shoe construction devised for enhanced waterproofing during mainly country pursuits. Instead of the upper leather being folded underneath itself and stitched to the welt the upper lays on top of the welt and projects outwards on top of the visible welt so any water naturally falls away from the shoe. This certainly helps to repel water but the downside of Veldtschoen construction is that when a re-sole is required new holes are punched into the upper leather itself. This limits the number of re-soles that a Veldtschoen shoe can receive and so rather undermines one major purpose of goodyear welted construction where new holes are punched into the replaceable welt only and so can be repaired any number of times. For this reason expensive shoes and boots these days tend not to be of a Veldtschoen construction. If you work plenty of good quality wax polish into your goodyear welted shoes you can waterproof your them to a fairly high degree.