New huaraches

[NickW]

I am making some new huaraches today. I've been trying to use footwear lately for higher intensity runs and I've come to the decision that I really like my own sole material and suede footbed for comfort and ground feel over the actual soling material that you can buy from Vibram or other places. It let's my feet do what they need to do and as cheap as they are to make I just can't go wrong. I retro-fitted a pair of Lunas on my own a week or two ago but I am still not happy with them so I am going back to my material. The material may not last as long but as cheap as it is for me to make it's fine.

I think this time I am going to make a pair like the Unshoes Pah Tempe, only with a suede footbed for comfort and then a pair of regular huaraches to replace my dying ones. My soling material is a recycled rubber from a doormat that I picked up for $5 at Home Depot a while back. I can get about 4 set of huaraches out of this doormat. I'll post pics when they are done. In the meantime here's pics of my original homemade huaraches and the retro-fitted Lunas.

 

[NickW]

So went to my normal store to buy the leather for my new huaraches and found that they had changed the leather to a thinner crappier leather for the same price. Errrggggg . I wasn't very thrilled but I bought two chunks of leather anyways, different colors because they didn't have two of the same color. I got home and laid my pattern down to make sure I had enough leather for the larger size sandal and noticed that the leather was actually smaller too than normal. Now I couldn't fit a pair of sandals on one sheet of leather. Errrrggggg . Now I'm fuming mad so I went and started digging through some of my remnants leather to see if I had any that would match or if I had enough to even make one pair. None of my scraps matched what I purchased today but luckily I had just barely enough of a low quality piece of suede (has a lot of fuzzballs on it) that I could make one pair. I got it all glued and now it's drying underneath a 50 pound weight. I'm excited to finish this pair up tomorrow and see how I like the lacing method of the Pah Tempes. One thing I like about doing my own stuff is that I can make sure that every aspect is custom to my foot specifically. No buckles where it might hurt, ankle loop is long/short enough for me, velcro for the left over lace so it doesn't flop, etc. It's also just a great feeling being able to make your own footwear.

 

[migangelo]

say, won't your feet be covering the leather anyhow? if not people will just assume you're another weird portlander.

 

[NickW]

The problem Mike is I don't want them to fall apart fast. Oh well, I guess it's only me who will know. I just take a certain amount of pride in anything I do and I hate to do anything halfa**ed, and that includes using crappy material.

 

[NickW]

Was hoping to get these done this morning and go for a quick test run in them but ran out of time. Halfway done with one sandal, sandals both are cut out, got the holes all punched, and some of the first one laced up (I'm really slow with sewing as I do it by hand). I have last minute cramming to do for my pre-calc final this evening. Almost done for the term yay! Now let's just hope I do well enough that I do not have to retake this class in the fall.

 

[NickW]

Well, I got them done today and went to go on a short run. Made it all of a 100 ft before I took them off and just ran barefoot. They look great but unfortunately are just to floppy with this sort of strapping. I will have to order a chunk of neoprene or nubby from Ted I guess. At least I have all the hard work done and can just swap the lacing over to the better soling material. Kind of frustrating when you put that much time and effort into it though. Oh well, at least I can cut these back a little and be able to just use them as a regular huarache and they will be just fine.

 

[Bare Lee]

You got talent Nick!

 

[NickW]

Nah, but I will upload a pic of the finished product even though it was a failure just so you can see what it looked like. Pretty bummed it didn't work out as I had hoped.

 

[NickW]

Here's one that I have that is downloaded already. It is prior to me smoothing out the rough edges .

 

[Bare Lee]

Nah, but I will upload a pic of the finished product even though it was a failure just so you can see what it looked like. Pretty bummed it didn't work out as I had hoped.

Well, I have a three-tries rule in cooking. The first attempt at a new dish you're allowed failure. The second attempt should render something edible. By the third attempt, it had better be pretty good or you give up on it.