Scoff’s Canvas Shoe Experiment: First Impressions

So as many of you around skateboard-city know, Scoffman is notorious for making some of the most durable skate laces around. A few weeks ago, Scoff posted a thread in the shoe section(http://www.skateboard-city.com/messageboard/showthread.php?t=244624) about a new idea he wanted to try out, coating canvas shoes with the same compound that his skate laces are treated with. In theory, this would make the thin canvas, which is normally very prone to ripping, much more durable.

So I sent my white Vans Slip-ons out to California and told Scoff to have his way with them. The shoes were coated on the toe and back panel with the Dirt Denial System 4/1 formula. The original formula would turn the shoes sort of an off-white color, but Scoff added some dye to the formula to see how it would turn it.



When Scoff had returned the shoes, I noticed quite a few new things. First off, the DDS formula made the canvas much more coarse and a little less flexible. When I ran my fingernail against the new material, it made a loud, raspy noise, which is much different than the normal canvas. It almost feels like suede with a thin coat of super glue over it, i’ve never felt anything quite like it before. I was worried about this at first, but as soon as I tried the shoes on my worries were gone, because the shoe was not very stiff at all and were still very comfortable. I could hardly tell the DDS formula was on the shoes at all.

Overall, i’m very optimistic as to how these shoes will skate. I don’t think the board feel or comfort will be effected at all, since the canvas is still fairly flexible. I also believe that these shoes will have to take an absolute BEATING for them to start fraying or tearing. I’m super excited to start skating these, big ups to Scoffman for letting me be his guinea pig in his little experiment. More pictures will be up once I try to beat the hell out of these bad boys.