shoes 4 u - part two

So I'm doing it.. and I've realized tracing my foot is stupid because that's not how shoes are made.. So I instead traced one of my sneakers for the shape, and it looked far more normal.  I've also opted to only make a 3" wedge heel to save material.  I'm also printing in sections (bottom chunk, top thin piece).  It's not that different from real shoes.  They have the bottom chunk, the straps get glued to that, then a thin piece is glued on top keeping everything clean.

Because I still don't have a 3d printer big enough to print the entire shoe shape in one shot, I've also had to split it in half (but good enough for proof of concept).  I'll have 1/4-20 bolts going through a chunky center to join the 2 halves.  I don't know how well I'll be able walk in them, but I'm mostly building them to work out all the assembly issues:

So this is what it will look like when printed.  In the base will be brass threaded inserts that get heat-staked into the base, and then screws on top attach the thin top to the bottom:

 This is my strap layout.. one going over at the toes, and then a criss-cross pattern for the rest.  I'd really like a back strap to really lock it in, but again at this point I'm just seeing if this is even feasible.

So last night I printed my first chunk in the front, and I'm using some 3/4" elastic as the straps for now.. I don't want to have to deal with leather right now.  I have to say, even with minimal ribbed walls in the base it feels strong (I was able to walk on it just fine).  There's slight creaking, but I also weigh 300lbs.  Once I have something that works, I would probably opt to add more walls, or possibly fill in all the gaps with that foam you use to seal up cracks in walls.  This should give better support and make it more squishy.  I placed the quarter next to it just to show the scale of how big size 17 womens feet are.

crossdress custom wedge shoes large feet size 16 size 17 size 18

No shoes for you!

So early on in my crossdressing life which was somewhere around 16-17 years old, it became very clear I was going to be stuck wearing womens dress shoes.  I wear a size 14-15 mens, which is 16-17 womens.  Let me tell you there are no manufacturers that make female sneakers in those sizes, nor do they make wedge sandals in that size.  As if fitting in wasn't hard enough, it's even harder when you can't dress casual to fit in.

So I finally said "that's it, I'm going to figure out a way to buy womens casual shoes if it kills me".  I searched aliexpress to see if there's some chinese factory that might cater to this, nope.  Etsy! of course, lots of homemade items on there including shoes.  I contact the 4 sellers on there that seem to cater to such a thing, all of them pretty much say the same thing.  A size 49 Euro doesn't exist as a pattern, and therefore they can't produce in that size.  Now I realize that might be true, but if you're truly a shoemaker wouldn't you try to cater to the customer?  I even offered extra money for the additional material and headache, they still said no.

At this point I'm beyond frustration.  Not being able to buy clothing is like making being transgender illegal.  I got really depressed because while I was pretty sure I was stuck, confirming it makes it much more real.  Then it hit me, I'm an engineer.  I'll make my own dam shoes if it kills me!

Now there are certainly a lot of challenges and uphill battles, the first being that my foot barely fits on a standard sheet of paper.  Size 17 womens means my foot is just over 12 inches long, or 300mm.  However, if I rotate my foot diagonally on the sheet of paper, it JUST fits.  So after I have my foot traced out, I scanned it in, and then I can trace that in a vector program to clean it up.  Once I had my 2D vector file, I imported it into solidworks and started figuring out the best way to turn a flat vector into a heel.  I found that converting it to sheet metal I could add a bend, then I can extrude the chunky underneath.  I cut out a chunk in the center to reduce printing time (because I was sure I wasn't getting it right on the first try), and managed to squeeze it down to a 10 hour print job.  I also had to print at 90% scale since it still doesn't quite fit on my bed (8.5" x 8.5") but figured that was close enough.  This morning I woke up to a finished part on my printer bed

I put my foot over it, and while it's a tad small, it felt like a shoe.  I now realize that the foot has an arch when you extend it, so the flat I modeled is incorrect

I've updated the model this morning, and it's starting to look much closer to a real heel bottom.  Not only is the arch correct, but I also tapered the sides so the bottom is a slightly smaller footprint.