during our holidays I tried some “do it yourself” job, that I am not accustomed to:
Repairing the outsole of one of my favourite pairs of shoes.
I bought a pair of semi sports leather sneakers in 2007, that I still like a lot. It was
one of the early shoes, which combined a sneaker sole glued to a semi casual leather upper.
Lloyd Abbas porchino
Nowadays those type of shoe often sports an outsole, that extends towards the toe area of the upper
leather:
These didn’t and are run through at the front corners. I already tried to “repair” them with
“ABS latex” , but when I tried to sand it the latex peeled right off, despite having wiped the surfaces
with alcohol. (At least now I have one latex piece as a pattern.)
maybe shoo goo, but it will be a mess. You can’t really repair an outsole. Best you could do would be to replace it but not so easy on a shoe like that and probably not worth it.
Game over. Your choices are to wear a pear that is worn and abused or get a new pair. If you have had them since 07 I’d say you got more than your average wear out of them.
There might be no “cost efficient” way. But there most be
some possibility to repair this.
As of now I can’ t source a new pair. That would be the
first sensible thing to do. A different pair of comparable quality
would set me back around 100-130 Euros. But I can’t
find one in the right color.
So any professional repair job, that costs around 100 would
still be reasonable for me, if it could improve on the original
design failure.
It’s not really a design failure. No toe bumper is a stylistic choice as much as anything. You won’t find anything to bond to rubber and bonding to worn leather is very tricky. They aren’t worth 100eur.
It’s not that unique of a style or an extremely well made shoe to start. Not worth a repair. Sure you can
Find something pretty similar.
Sugru looks like interesting material, thanks for that introduction.
Side note, Shapeways has a new flexible rubbery SLS material, I wonder how far we are away from being able to print a new sole (or section) and use contact cement to adhere it.
I’ll try to improve on the look of it. Perhaps using the pattern, that I already have, for
a silicone mold, smoothening the mold and filling it with Sugru could be a (labourous) way.
Thank you so much, Engio, I’ll keep this thread updated.
No problem. I’ve used it personally and can attest to that it works as advertised, it is awesome. Added thumb grips to a glass lid for a cooking pot - it’s still there after 6 month of use including dish washing machine. It’s pretty much like working with clay, as mentioned it sticks to almost anything and is soft(ish) when cured.
There’s also a way to make your own with silicone sealant and corn starch. I’ve tried that too but failed miserably, couldn’t get the right consistency. (Lots of others have had success. I think I used the wrong sealant, just grabbed what I had at home)