Blog Post 2 :Lasts

What is a last ?

A shoe last is a three-dimensional mechanical form that shoemakers use to make or repair shoes. It's shaped like a human foot and holds the shoe in place while the shoemaker works. The last is a crucial part of the shoemaking process because it determines the final product's shape and fit. 

Lasts come in many styles and sizes, depending on the type of shoe being made. For example, boot lasts are designed to hug the instep for a close fit, while sandal lasts are closer to the dimensions of a foot. Pump lasts are longer than a foot and have a toe allowance of at least 8 mm. Lasts can also be designed for specific heel heights and toe shapes. 

Lasts are typically made from materials like hardwoods, cast iron, and high-density plastics, but modern lasts are often designed using CAD software. 

Most of the lasts you see me use are made of the high density plastic, these are most likely the ones you’ll end up buying and that i recommend the main reason is the longevity of use. As you get to the final stage of forming your upper you’ll be nailing it down your upper to shape and form to your desired shape, the reason the high dense plastic is great is for the pure fact that it handles all the nail holes left behind really well and almost acts as a self healing plastic as your able to hammer down the holes left to a smooth surface again.

Now a wooden last is great as your able to sand these down to a shape you need unlike a metal last is better used for mass production for a shoe model that has various sizes or can be used to repair shoes as a place holder as you remove the old soles for replacement.

Although you can sand a high dense plastic last the wooden last is better suited for this.

As you grow your pattern collection which we talked about in out first blog, you’ll also grow your last collection for every size which can start as small as a size 1 for an infant all the way up to a size 20 men of course this can go up further in size but those are outliers that you have to account for.

For the lasts themselves they’ll have a hinge built into them which open up to release the upper or as a shoemaker will say “crack” the last to remove the finished shoe. These hinges will have three types, a cone, a alpha, as well as a tendo hinge.

A cone is an upper piece that will pop off to relieve presuure to easily slide out the upper.

The Tendo hinge is a sliding hinge that pulls up on the form to crack open

As for the alpha hinge which goes in the opposite direction and pushes down to crack the form.

All these hinges have great uses for shoe making but mainly are all decided on the model you’ll make, the cone is great for heels and uppers that have a very open tongue build, the tendo is great for a tighter form shoe that have a more secured upper, lastly the alpha that’s an even middle ground that dosent put too much pressure on the upper as you crack the form.

Do all lasts have hinges ?

Short answer is no, these hinges are mainly used for sandals that have an opening in the back or have a really low hell which can let the last be easily removed.

Blog Post 1 :Patterns

It all begins with an idea, when you first start your journey making shoes you’ll notice that theirs so much to learn and digest but that’s why i’m here to help out

Don’t worry ill keep things simple but go into enough detail that you’ll have a better understanding of shoe making from the basics such as tools and leathers, and the more complex parts such as machinery and designing

When hunting for a pattern the thing you want to look out for is what material it's made out of and does it have clear markers as to how the pattern is put together, Now the material you should look out for is cardstock and acrylic plastic an average cost for cardstock patterns should roughly estimate to $60- $100 versus the acrylic which will be a little bit more expensive from anywhere around the $200 to $400 range.

The reason you want to look out for a high quality pattern is because you're going to use it over and over again you want something that will last a long time and that you can take care of easily I personally like to go with cardstock patterns because I know I'm going to need multiple sizes and investing in a full acrylic pattern set will be too costly for me so I go with the alternative which is a full set run of cardstock patterns now the counterpart to why I would go with acrylic is because I'm making a specific pair over and over again in the same size and I know that pattern is going to get worn down faster and I possibly could lose a piece so having a acrylic pattern is more beneficial to keep around because it's more durable.

A lasting allowance or a Strobel pattern now you're going to have two types of patterns and depending on the style you decide to go a strobel board is how most shoes are built nowadays where it's to save as much material cost as possible and avoid an extra step . A strobel board is a base that's sewn on at the very end of the cutoff of your pieces wear your souls meet . There's benefits to both of these a shovel board will help reduce waste in the long run but if you're starting out a little bit of waste is going to be helpful for you to learn how to form and get the right shape you want with the shoe 

Now the opposite is the lasting allowance a lasting allowance has excess material on your pattern that way when you go to form you'll use lasting pliers and Pinchers as well as nails to hold down the leather before gluing down and cutting off excess. 

As for a markers, markers are small indentations in the pattern that show a direction as to where the outer part of the cut line is and where to layer your pieces. Depending on the model you have you're always going to have some type of indentation that will show you the pieces are either a medial or lateral panel as for what a medial and lateral are on a shoe the medial would be the inner part of your shoe or where your feet touch as for the lateral panel which is the outer part of your foot furthest from the middle why is this important you might ask? This is important so you know which one is left versus right.

Why do you need to know what left and right is well obviously unless you have two left feet you're going to need to be able to know this to make a proper pair you'll need to mirror your pattern for every shoe that you make you're going to cut out your pieces on one side of your pattern and then you'll flip that pattern over to have a mirrored piece.

Another question you might be asking is that something I have to do with every piece? short answer is no, not depending on the model you're making. if you have a pair most of the time the only thing you'll need to flip is the toe area so you have a distinction between left and right and your medial and lateral panel which is kind of important when it gives the overall shape of the shoe, a good example is the Air Jordan 1 now I only flip the mudguard the toe Vamp and the middle and lateral side the collar the heel the heel tab the swooshes and even the tongue are going to be exact mirror pieces left and right that don't have any alterations on the overall look and construction of the build

Now let's go over terms so you probably read a couple words that you've never seen before or don't know exactly what they are, so a vamp is the center toe box area of a shoe, the mud guard is the outer layer of the toe box, you're also going to have a collar which is the main cushioning behind any shoe as well as eyestays. Eyestays are where the lace holes go, there's a lot of variations for eyestay you could have a lower a middle and an upper eyestay

A good quality pattern should have these marked and as you grow and your craft you'll remember these names overtime. I've talked about the good patterns so what about the bad patterns something you want to watch out for bad patterns is sometimes a PDF file now a PDF file doesn't mean that the pattern itself is bad that you're just going to have to do a little bit more work but if the trade off there is the cost the term you pay what you get for applies very much so to patterns.

So for PDF files, something you want to watch out for is stolen patterns which maybe didn't transfer over very well and when you go to print them the scaling will be wrong, the last thing you want to do is build a whole shoe and get to the very last part where you start forming and then the sizing is off because sometimes it's hard to tell if a half size is really a full size or the scaling was wrong when you printed it off or whoever you bought it from took it for somebody else and didn't keep it correctly scaled.

Now not every PDF file is stolen or bad you’ll just have to have some extra steps included with your work, so let's say you got the PDF file you've printed it out and you're 100% sure it's right, what other steps do you have to do now you're most likely going to print it out on A4 paper which is flimsy and can easily tear and that's not something you want for something you're going to use more than once if you're testing the waters in this craft then by all means its perfect, another thing that you're going to have to do is actually cut out your sew lines as well, since its printed out you'll have to cut out all your pieces by hand and if you're not accurate with this part some of your sizing’s for your pieces could be off and that's going to cause the entire shoe to be either somewhat off or have inconsistencies. You'll have sew lines that you'll have to cut out that are thin and are about the thickness of a pen which sometimes are crooked and that alone will mess up a build, what can you do to avoid this well before you cut out your pieces you apply all your patterns onto a thicker paper like cardstock before cutting out that way you have something a little bit more sturdy and you can take your time cutting out

And a small detail that you might even miss is that the pattern can fit a pen specifically a heat pen which when you make shoes you're going to be using a lot of. its a heat sensitive pen that goes away with a little bit of heat from a heat gun or an oven, the small indentations within the pattern are what need to be traced out with a heat pen so you want to make sure your actual pin fits in that it's a small detail but this saves you a big headache in the long run when you're cutting out all 20 plus pieces of your pattern and you realize your pen doesn't fit

Of course a pattern is not going to make everything you do easier but it's a great Foundation to start, a pattern will help you understand how a shoe is put together before wasting your time on cutting leather and your money and then messing up

Another complexity of a pattern can be very basic or very extreme a basic pattern will give you the pieces the liner but will almost always avoid excess pieces such as backing stiffeners and foam a complex pattern should have pieces for your main build a liner Foams internal parts backing pieces which gives you options to understand the shoe build better

Now the last thing I'll offer you is also how the pattern is printed out you can have a 2d pattern which means all your pieces will lay flat when you sew and the shape comes from you forming or you have a 3D pattern which when you sew it’ll already have some built-in shape. personally I like 3D to have a little bit of shape in your pre-built upper which in turn helps with forming a shoe a little bit better but a 2d pattern is great if you only have access to a certain type of sewing machine most likely when you first start out you're going to have a flatbed sewing machine but if you're a little bit more on the intermediate side of 3D pattern will be great for a post bed, a post bed is a big machine that has this big old shaft head in the middle that gives you a lot of excess space to work around versus a flatbed which you kind of have to be a little bit smarter with your build process, 

I hope this lengthy blog kind of puts more perspective on patterns and if you have any questions I'll go over more in detail over time on this blog so subscribe with the email link below and every time there's an update you should get an email saying hey we're here with another blog about X subject which could be almost anything related to sneaker making from the patterns to the machines to the last to the leathers and threads as well as designing

-Bakashi 06/16/2024 3:52AM