Shoe Soles

[PaganBear]

Hey all,

I'm embarking on an endeavor to learn a bit of shoe and boot making, mainly for personal use. I can find plenty of information on patterning and construction of uppers. By examining some other's work I'm getting a good idea of the construction as well. I'm hitting a roadblock though where I can only seem to find limited, if any, information on soles and how to attach soles of types other than leather/sole bend.

The best tool I've had to learn about soles from is a pair of custom boots that a friend has. I can see that it is a 3 part sole with the top most layer being the insole, an outer sole layer of a different material, and a heel section of the same material as the insole. Through research I have found that the original maker used high density crepe rubber for the sole. I dont know if this would be the inner sole and heel or the outer sole. I also cant find any suppliers of this material.

Any suggestions about where to find a supplier for this, OR any better suggestions for soles, OR any info in general that anyone might think helpful in this project would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance and I hope to no longer lurk and get a little bit more active in the forums.

- Corey

Orlando, FL

[rickybobby]

Corey,

You could try Southern Leather in Co. 1800 525-9302 or Tucson Leather 520 624-7981 Both are suppliers of shoe repair supplies.

Boot vamps (leather around your foot) are held in by the "foot bed" which is stitched to the welt then that is stitched to the vamp and the sole.

Some boots have a "midsole" between the foot bed and sole.

Crepe sole is usually only glued on but can be stitched as well. Crepe comes in diff. colors and thickness' 24 iron is about 1/2 inch, it comes in 12 and 30 iron as well (1/4 in and 5/8 in).

Try taking some boots apart at the sole to see how they are put together. My business partner is working on a DIY video for resoling & rubber heels for your boots that is "down the road" from now.

If you have some pictures of what you are doing that may help us help you.

Rick J.

[PaganBear]

Thanks for the advice Ricky. Hopefully I can upload these pictures correctly. These pictures are of my friends boots that I am cleaning and reconditioning for him.

This is obviously the sole by the heel. You can see how it has two layers and then the heel. Examining the inside of the boot, I can feel that the leather uppers are stitched to whatever the thin top sole piece is.

This is the toe area, the separation of the two soles is one of the things that my friend has me reconditioning for him. Since it was coming apart, I peeked. Difficult to get a picture of it, but I can see the stitching from the leather through to the first sole layer.

All in all, these boots seem to be very well done yet simple construction. I like them a lot and if I could figure out where to get the sole material, I think I could reproduce these.

- Corey