The Definitive Guide from Shoe Prototype to Sample Making
How to make shoes from shoe prototype if you’re a beginner? In shoemaking, the process looks complicated. So today, in this shoemaking article. I want to show you the entire process of making shoes, the full process of how to make shoes so you will decide if this craft is for you or not.
This is very important for me to show you that shoe making process is not hard and you as a total beginner can understand everything and then you can make your shoes and together with the shoe full to making process.
I’ll show you what tools to use in each step of shoemaking, and you will understand that you don’t need to have too many.
You need to have only a minimal set of basic tools, and now you will learn what tools you need to have.
So first, we will start with the shoemaking process, and I will divide this full process into five steps. I divided it into pattern making; it is one of the most important steps in shoe making, the first step you will need to learn. Then when you cut, assemble, and sew your patterns. It would help if you made soles, heels, insoles, and lasting. Okay? And you understand that I simplified the shoemaking process to show you the best way so that you will understand it.
There are much more details in each step.
But for you as a beginner, it’s enough to understand the full process, see all the steps together, and understand how shoes are made. And we’ll start from the first step, which is pattern making.
#1. Shoe Prototype Pattern Making
I love pattern making because this step will depend on all the other steps.
First, we need to cover our last with masking tape. This is the first step in shoemaking.
To cover your last with masking tape, you need to have the last, obviously, masking tape. I use simple masking tape that you can buy in your local store.
The next step is to apply your shoe design to the last, and here you need to know how to apply your shoe design correctly because there are different rules you need to follow.
And to apply it correctly on your last, you need to measure certain things and measure them with measurement tape.
So in this step, you need to have measurement tape.
Next, after you apply your design on the last, you need to cut out this masking tape to make a basic pattern, and after you will cut the masking tape pattern, you need to attach it to the cardboard, and that’s why this step you need to have cardboard.
I use a duplex. It’s 120 grams. It’s very comfortable cardboard to work with, but if you don’t have this cardboard, you can use any other cardboard. It must be flexible enough but thick enough as well. And to make these patterns, for example, to add lasting allowance to your basic pattern, you need to have compasses, ordinary compasses that you also can buy in your local store.
So after you make this basic pattern, this is the pattern that includes all lines of your shoe design. It’s a very important pattern because, from this pattern, you will develop all other parts of your shoes, but before you will develop it, you need to check your pattern.
I also work in this way. I check my partner’s paper. It is the best way to check your partners because if you check it from leather, you will not see the mistake if you have them. After all, leather stretches.
And even if you have a mistake, you will not see it. But we’re working with ordinary paper. You will see if you have made any mistake because if there was a mistake, the paper pattern will not fit your last perfectly. You’ll see that your paper pattern does not lay well on the last.
And in this step of work, you need to have ordinary paper A4, and you may also use nails. The length of these nails is about one millimeter.
But if you don’t have nails, you can work with masking tape to attach your paper pattern to the bottom of the last.
After you check your pattern, next is to make other parts of your pattern, lining and upper. And here, you also need to work with cardboard and compasses; in pattern making, you also need to have the cutting board.
Because if you do not have something to protect your table, you will scratch the surface of your table. So if you don’t have a special cutting board, you can use some piece of plastic to work with. The main reason to have it is to protect your table from scratching.
So we’re finished with the pattern making.
#2. Cutting, Assembling, and Sewing.
2-1. Cutting
After you make a pattern of your upper lining, we need to move on to the next step: cutting, assembling, and sewing.
Here you need to cut your leather:
Now, you will understand why we need that cardboard for patents: we need to use them to cut leather.
So you see, this is the moccasin’s vamp, and you will cut leather using this cardboard.
And to cut leather, you don’t need to have a special knife; you can work with an ordinary utility knife. What you need to have here is a good blade. I used blade BD 100; also, here in this step, you need to use a pen and a silver pen.
This is a special erasable pen to mark certain points and marks according to those marks; you will assemble different parts of your pattern. This is the erasable pen for leather.
After you finish your work, you will erase those marks.
2-2. Assembling
Next is to assemble all parts. Before you assemble all parts, you need to skive certain places on your pattern.
For example, to fold the top line, you need to skive. If you don’t skive the leather, you’ll have a very thick edge, and it won’t be easy to sew together the upper and lining because of this thick edge or skive places where you need to attach parts.
So in assembling, you need to skive; that’s why you need to have a shoemaking knife to skive edges.
Then you need to have a hammer because before you sew those parts, you need to attach them using contact glue and hit with the hammer to touch them well. Also, it would help if you reinforced certain seams.
And for this reason, you need to have two reinforcement tapes: the wide allowance tape with a width of 16 or 15 millimeters and the narrow reinforcement tape with a width of 4 millimeters.
Using this narrow reinforcement tape, you will see the folding is easy and beautiful. And also reinforces the top line, for example, using this reinforcement tape.
After you assemble all parts or during assembling, you will need to sew different parts.
2-3. Sewing
You know, there are footwear types where you need to assemble one part and then sew it, or there are footwear types where you assemble all parts and only when you need to sew all parts together.
So here, you need to have a sewing machine and sometimes fold hammers.
But here I placed not folding hammer. I placed a shoemaking hammer. Why? Because you don’t need to have a special folding knife. And also, here in assembling, I showed you the simple shoemaking hammer, not the folding hammer, because you can work with this hammer the same way you will work with a special one. It’s good enough to make this assembling and to flat the seams after you will sew all parts together.
So here you need to have some machine, and you can work with shoemaking hammer to flat seams to attach well, different parts also in assembly.
After you sew all the parts together, you need to make insoles because this is the inner part on which you will attach all parts of your shoes. You will attach the edges of the upper to the insole; you will attach the sole to the insole and heels. So this part is very important. You can make your insoles from different materials.
#3. Insole Making
What is important here is to make a pattern.
First, you need to make a pattern of the shoe bottom and then make buttons for different parts of the insoles.
If you will make insoles from cardboards.
There are two cards: the shank board and the taxon board; the taxon board is more flexible and thinner than the shank board. Shank board is harder than taxon board for a reason, because here we need to have good support for the arch zone, and that’s why between those two materials in the arch the area we need to attach steel shank.
So in this step of insole making, you need to have these tools, you need to have a hammer to attach cardboards to create insoles, and also you need to use your hammer to make a curve in the steel shank according to the core of the shoe’s last bottom.
And to attach all the parts, you need to work with contract glue and after you attach all parts is time to finish the edge of the insole. Cardboard made from cardboard, for that reason, you need to have Dremel finish the edges, sand the edges, or rasp until the next step lasts.
#4. Lasting
This is the process where you will place your leather upper on the last, and we’ll pull the edges of the upper to attach them to the insole.
In this process, you need to have this tool, so you’d have pincers, you’d have nails, you have two types of nails, the small one that you will use to attach the back part of your upper and long nails.
To attach the front part of the upper, you need to have a hammer to hit well edges of lasting allowance, create a beautiful shape on the hill, and attach all this data, the edges to the insole unit to work with contacts.
During the last thing, you also need to work with two materials, one of them is chemical nobleman material.
You need to use this material to create stiffness, or if you don’t have this material,
you can work with vegetable tan leather. We need to attach these parts to this one on the top and the back of your shoes.
This part will keep the shape of your shoes.
And also, to finish the edges after you last your upper, you need to work with a rasp to sand the edges and create the beautiful bottom of your shoes before you move on to the next step: the sole making.
#5. Sole & Heel Making
Here I’m showing how to make soles from leather.
I love to work with vegetable tan leather. And to make these soles, you need to have a pattern.
So first, you need to prepare a pattern for the sole, cut it from vegetable tan leather, and attach it to the bottom of your last shoes.
To create a bottom, to make the flat bottom, to have beautiful and comfortable soles, you need to work on the bottom using cork. Cork here is one of the materials that you need to use.
Also, to make the soles, you need to have vegetable tan leather, to have shoemaking knife to skive edges of leather, because vegetable tan leather is too thick for women’s shoes.
And to have the beautiful, thin edge of the soles, you need to skive the edge using the shoemaking knife.
Then after you attach the sole, you need to attach it well using shoe-making hammer. Here you will use the hammer’s handle to attach these soles well to the shoes.
You don’t need special tools, only a hammer, and you will make beautiful soles. You will attach them well. To attach the soles to the bottom of your shoes, you need to have contact glue. And also, to finish the edge of the soles, you can work with a rasp or a drill Dremel.
After you attach the soles, it’s time to build heels.
Actually, there are different types of heels you can build before you attach the soles, but this is one of the most common heels you need to build after you attach the soles to the finished shoes.
There are different materials to build heels. Here I show you how to build heels using vegetable tan leather.
So, here in this step of heel making you need to work with vegetable tanned leather, to cut this leather and to skive leather in different places to have beautiful and flat heels, it would help if you worked with a shoe-making knife, the same shoemaking knife you saw in other steps shoemaking process.
You need to have some shoemaking knife to attach well all layers of our leather stacked heels because this type of heel we need to build using a few layers of leather to get leather stacked heels.
So to attach layers of leather, you need to work with contact glue, and after you attach all these layers, you need to finish your heels. And to finish your heels, you can work with a Dremel drill or rasp.
I have to say that to build beautiful heels and to have identical heels on both halves of our shoes because we have a pair of shoes, it’s better to prepare a pattern for each layer of your leather stacked heels and attach them layer by layer. Only in this way will you have identical heels first, and only in this way will you need to work on the finishing not too much.
So, pattern making is one of the most important things to have well-done heels.
So after you finish your heels, this is your final step in shoemaking. I mean, this is the main final step in shoemaking. You need to use these minimum tools in all steps of making.
Of course, later, after you will get some experience in shoemaking, you will find some new tools that you need to use, but to start making your shoes, it’s enough to use those shoemaking tools.
Need help with your SHOE PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT? We can help you bring your designs to life with Softlux Shoe Factory’s Prototyping services for private labels.
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