Not many people can say that they've made their own shoes, but our friend @RN recently did, and @CO and I were thrilled to support her on her journey. I'm sure Rachael will make a post here with a bunch of details about her process, so I'll just give you an overview and focus on where we were able to help.
All shoe designs are slightly different, but they're generally made up of a few key parts pictured here:
Each part is built around what's called a last. It's meant to mimic the desired shoe shape that encompasses your foot.
Of course, because there are many different shoe styles and because everyone's foot is different, lasts come in many shapes and sizes. Rachael started by purchasing a last that matched the same shoe size she's been wearing for years.
After building her first practice shoe and trying it on, she was surprised to learn that she's been wearing the wrong sized shoe all this time!
Not yet knowing about this handy tool called a "Brannock Device", which will precisely measure all sorts of things about your foot, Rachael simply ordered a slightly smaller last.
She built a second shoe and again found that it was too large. At this point, although she had now purchased a Brannock Device and could order the perfectly sized last, she found that her vendor was no longer selling them. Being thoroughly committed to this particular shoe style, and not wanting to start a search all over for a vendor that could supply one, Rachael and I schemed a way to use a bit of high tech to get her the perfect last.
Using a Peel 3D scanner in the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, Rachael scanned her smaller last and then opened the mesh data in SOLIDWORKS.
She simply added a non-uniform scale feature to reduce the last's length by a centimeter.
Then she mirrored the last and split both the left and right in half so we could prep to cut it on a CNC router.
With a few hours of machine time, we cut all of the parts.
Then Rachael took them home, glued them together and refined the shape with a bit of two-part, self-hardening putty and a lot of sanding.
There was of course a lot more work involved to craft her shoes around this new last, from pattern making, to sewing, to leather work, and more...
...but I'll let Rachael tell you all about it in her post.
For now, you can watch this video to see how the project came together.
