I've got a pair of shoes which are a bit down at heel. The leather uppers are in fine shape and the soles have quite a few miles left.
The problem is the heels. They seem to be solid from top to bottom i.e. there's no removable sole I can replace. To complicate matters there's a circular shock absorbing insert down the middle.
Before I bin them, has anybody successfully sawn off the end of the heel (the part that contacts the ground) and replaced it?
Another Dave
My local shoe repair franchise re-heeled mine by grinding off the old stuff and gluing on 'rubber'[1] heels. The first repair lasted 2 years and I've just had them done again.
[1] may not be actual rubber but neoprene or some such.
It's a bit fiddly, but you should be able to re-build the heel with Shoe Goo.
+1
Unless you're dead set on DIYing it I would have thought it makes more sense to take it to someone with all the tools, glues, replacement soles and experience. Far more likely to make a reasonably lasting job of it (if it's possible) than doing it yourself.
Tim
The local shoe repairer said it wasn't possible, hence my question.
Perhaps I'll try elsewhere.
Another Dave
Ah, that's different then, now it's a challenge! ;-)
No harm asking. It may be time time to write the shoes off but hopefully you'll find someone prepared to "give it a go". That said, I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.
Tim
I've been wearing Clarke's Polyveldts (now called something else, I forget what) all my life (*) , and they always fail the same way - the sole cracks across at the ball of the foot. I've never found any way of fixing them, the every shoe repairer I've shown them too has declined to attempt it. No glue I've ever used will close the crack for more than an hour or two. The uppers are always OK, and I just sigh deeply and throw them away. Any way of fixing them would be most welcome.
(* Called "programmer's shoes" by a FOAF)
Clarkes fit whole new soles, or used to.
The original Polyveldts were fantastic shoes but I've not see them for
35 years or so. There are Clarkes' shoes with similar soles etc but not the original style. I've had some resoled in the past. Whether it is economic is debatable, as I recall it cost about half the new price but you could sometimes get new shoes at a Clarkes outlet for 2/3 the high street price.
I used to wear those, for years, but stopped. It may have been because they didn't apparently make them any more, so I'd be interested to know what they *are* called now!
And yes, they always failed at that point.
Are you saying that some shoes are made with a heel that is separate from the sole and is glued/welded onto it in such a way that this bond can be broken and a new heel attached to the sole? All the shoes I've seen have an all in one moulded sole/heel, and when I've had them re-heeled, part of the heel has been ground off to make a flat surface onto which a new partial-thickness heel is bonded.
Which reminds me, I need this operation doing on one of my pairs of shoes, because my left shoe always wears down on the LHS side of the heel; the right shoe wears on the opposite side but far less so. Someone who analyses gait would probably tell me that I walked all wrongly :-)
we used to repair composite heels and soles years ago so I would imagine they still do, but it will cost.
I wear Clarkes shoes and the style I wear now has very elastic soles and do not crack. Others I have had crack within 3 or 4 weeks.
Do you get leg pains? You probably need orthotic insoles which you can get on the NHS.
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"Active Air" (Oh, the irony, given their popularity with people for whom activity was anathema.)
should have said they were not from clarkes, and they did go back for refund.
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