Boot Review: Diehard - or Easy?

My second pair of boots for my under-employment employment: DieHard tactical-look boots.

credit: Sears.com

This is my second pair in less than a year. The first pair - black Rothco classic jungle boots - split across both soles. I attempted to repair them with super glue and Gorilla glue to no avail. So I gave up and trekked down to Sears to get a higher-quality pair - in black, per company policy.


The boots I settled on were the DieHard Men's 8 inch Duty Lace-To-Toe Work Boot. They were on sale for $40 - half off. So I got a complete set of boots for the same price of the jungle boots, after I bought insoles for the jungle boots.

The DieHards have zippers, which I wanted to avoid, because I occasionally have to clean a room with a high-pressure hose. But I grew to appreciate the zipper. It makes the boots relatively easy to get on and off, helping me avoid unlacing the top several holes. And the boots never leaked through the zippers, though I never submersed the boots that deep.

The soles have much better cushion than the jungle boots, so my feet felt less fatigued throughout the day. And the uppers provide better ankle support than the jungle boots, which just flop over if you attempt to stand them up.

credit: Rakuten.com

But then after several months, things started to go south. The soles started to split. I attempted using super glue, before the splitting progressed too far, but the glue wouldn't hold. I tried Gorilla glue with a negative result. Then I started to research what people use to repair split soles online. I stumbled across barge cement. It's used for boat repairs. But originally, it was used as a shoe-manufacturing adhesive.

So I tried the barge cement - a couple times. The adhesive, at least some of it, would hold for a couple days, then fail. Also, though the packaging says it takes overnight to dry, it took at least 48 hours, which concurred with what I read online about doing shoe repairs. Side note: on another pair of shoes, I have had better luck reattaching soles to the bottom of shoes, as opposed to repairing split soles.

So in the end, I am left with two pairs of split soles after using them at a job for less than a year. In all fairness, I do kneel and "fold" my feet quite often, so that is an obvious contributor to the downfall of the Rothcos and DieHards, but I still would have expected more wear from both of them.

DieHard or DieEasy?

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