Making Bespoke High heels - Part 8 The Insole and Heel

Well, before lasting, one has to have an insole. Insole creates a spine on which the other components are fastened. By various methods I might add. My method is the cemented (glued) structure, which originates from around the middle part of the last century. It's quite modern, but one of the most common structures these days. The  gentleman with an keen eye on quality dress shoes despises this structure, but to my mind it's well fitting for ladies shoes. Although there's only the adhesive (another english word for glue ;) that keeps the structure together, it's a long lasting shoe construct that's quite easy to repair and faster to make too.

Back to business:

First to draw an approximate outline on a 3mm thick purely oak tanned insanely beautiful german traditional  leather.
Too much adjectives? ;)

After cutting, the pieces are scraped with... a piece of broken glass?
Yes.

Many of you might not know about the great qualities of vegetable tanned leather: it might be quite stiff when dry like this type of leather I'm using, but after soaking them in water they turn into the mother of all elastics and completely formable. A beautiful traditional material. <Sorry for the blurry pic!>

The wet leather is fastened with nails to the last.

A carefully applied rubber band.

Voilá! All wrapped and left to dry to shape.

To add some modern high tech; I put the first supportive layer out of 0,8mm carbon fibre plate. Heat formable stuff.

And because with high heels the arch needs to be as stiff as possible, I'm going for the ultimate. I'll laminate this piece of steel between two layers of carbon fibre.

Sadly, I didn't have any more detailed images on the actual process of making these.
But here's one, all ready for action. You can see that right after the heel part the edge is trimmed almost to zero. But there's a heavier supportive ridge at the center, which you can see better in the picture below.

A bottom view. The steel shank is laminated within those layers of carbon fibre.
And the heel is what I actually worked on for a full day's worth of time... For nothing. I found a perfect match for these lasts from a box. At my work. Perfect. That was a bit annoying. All that work for nothing.

Another rub of salt on my broken nerves.

And these are the babies I found. I've done some grinding on the top parts only. To get them fitting perfectly to the insole.

Next, it's lasting for sure :) See you soon!

Studying the essence of a high heel

For those that missed my morning announcement on facebook; I'm currently having a three day educational period in Kankaanpää, as a part of my Master Shoemaker studies.
When I first came this morning, I had no idea what was going to happen. So I made a mistake by not bringing some high heel lasts or previous patterns I had made. Even though it was all awkward for me, my instructor quickly guided me to begin a test project from a pair of vintage heel lasts.

Let's see  what happened today:

This is the last. Now, I won't modify it in any way, just design something and eventually make it.  Luckily, they had some components ready: the heels and the insoles are ready :) which makes my work alot easier.

I'm currently not a big fan of pointy heels. Maybe that'll change some day?

As another proof of their antiquity: they've been cast on a wooden block.

A wooden filling inside a brass tube. You ain't gonna see this kind of construction anywhere anymore. These babies have to be nailed.

The insoles are an almost fit. Needs some tinkering.

This is the sketch I did. A full brogue oxford cut. Well planned is half done.

Next up was making the tape copy.

And that 3D shape transformed into 2D.

And this is waiting for tomorrow's mockup.

Shape that high heel last, baby! Shape!

After an embarrasingly quiet week for blog posts, it's been a less embarrasing week of actual shoemaking. Niina's second mockup is sent by mail and she's going to try them on and we'll propably take a look at them via a video chat. And if they're a fit, it means a step closer to their completion :)

Meanwhile my main concern has been Ms. Melissa's black knee-high boots, to which I started to shape the lasts. Her concern is a wider-than-usual ball of the foot, and a higher heel hight (9,5cm). Her lasts came ready today, so ladies & gents, let's take a look!
Shape, rattle & roll!

This is the beginning stage. an untouched high heel last.

I just dig that asymmetry! This is a front view and one can see the skill of the guy who originally made these. This asymmetry makes the shoes more elegant and even functional. Qualities that come rare on everyday common shoes. The art of last making is for some reason losing it's glorious heritage, and nowadays it's more common to see ugly and bulky lasts. Even for women.

She wanted a higher heel, so I started to build it to this area.

And here's the finalized shape.

After the heel hight, it's time to make the lasts more fitting to the clients foot. Here's a traditional ink print of the foot with measurements and the ball of the foot marked.

We'll place the last over the print and start to estimate the new required width of the last.

The growth areas are marked and sanded and cork material is added.

And after some time we'll have something like this. The lasts are shortened and the girth of the ball of the foot has already been modeled.

Whaaaat?! :D Yes, I'm serious! You're propably wondering why did I ruin them? Well, they're going to be boots so I thought of extending the shaft for a better fit. But it does look more like a terrifying sculpture than a last.

*Bling!* After a few hours of making friends with Mr. Grinder, Ms. Last became ready to be patternized ;)

Put a sock on it!!! Literally! This is a great way to see how they're really going to look like.

Next up with these boots is making some patterns and a mockup.

Making High Heel Boots - Part 2 Test patterns

Now that we've got the lasts done, think about this challenge: you have a three dimensional object with curvy shapes and all, and you're supposed to draw patterns to it. All the more, patterns that can be reused and modified later. How on earth could that be possible? With your everyday masking tape! :D
Here I'll demonstrate how the patterns are born to a shoe.

Let's see how:

First the last is covered with masking tape in an orderly fashion.

Like so.

Next, the excess is cut thorough the edges of the sole.

Like so :)

Then, some necessary markings and a central line to the front and back.

And a cut along the middle lines.

And thus we'll have the inner and the outer sides of the last. Which are then removed separately, like seen in this picture.

They'll be a pair of quirky, mischievous pieces of masking tape after...

...So we'll discipline them flat on a cardboard.

Both of them are drawn on top of each other, to produce a single pattern.

When cutting the copy, some of the areas are halved.

And there it is! If the lasts remain the same, with this pattern one can now draw any kind of design on them.

I have to admit, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to drawing patterns. So luckily I've a very skilled colleague, a sturdy professional, Mr. Joonas. This base pattern is 99% his handwork. I just basically drew two lines to it.

Seriously, even Joonas was hesitant of the design, so I'll just have to make a test run with it. Then I'll see how different things'll work.

Next up is cutting the pattern pieces and using them to cut the leathers. And skiving and sewing the leathers, so we'll see what's up with the uppers. Cheerio!

Lesteille täytyy seuraavaksi tehdä kaavat. Yllä esitellään kuinka kolmiulotteisesta lestistä kopioidaan muodot kaksi ulotteisiksi, käyttäen maalarinteippiä :) Useiden vaiheiden jälkeen on viimeisinä kahtena kuvana kollegani Hra. Joonaksen mestarillinen kaavoitus. Itseltäni ei tuo kaavoitus oikein vielä näin mallikkaasti suju, joten oli mahtavaa saada rautaisen ammattilaisen apua. Seuraavaksi sitten leikataan kaavapalat sekä niitä hyödyntäen päällisnahat. Näin päästään testailemaan miten kaavat toimivat.