Second Heart Warmer

[Birdhunter]

A friend has a daughter whose legs didn't fully develop. She uses leg braces and arm crutches. Her senior  prom is coming up soon and she wanted to be taller (she is under 5'). Her dad brought over some sandals she wears and some balsa wood. The goal was to add 6" to her height. The picture show the results. She loved the results and asked to do the same for a pair of tennis shoes. The other picture shows the results. The work was far trickier than I imagined , especially the tennis shoes as I had never done anything like this before.

 

[Mismarked]

That's really great.

 

[HarveyWildes]

Did you do any research on wooden shoe design for this one?  If so, can you share a few helpful URLs.

 

[Paul G]

Wow those are tall! Does she walk OK in them? Curious about your build process. A pair like that would make it much easier for me to work on 8' ceilings

 

[Svar]

Are they solid or hollow?

 

[Birdhunter]

The process was to first use a bandsaw to cut off the very bottom of the shoe's sole. This was easier on the sandal because it was pretty much a straight line cut. The tennis shoe cut was far more difficult due to the compound curves of the shoe. Cutting rubber stinks!

I glued 1" layers of balsa wood together to achieve the desired height, 6" on the sandals and 4" on the tennis shoes. I traced the outline of the sole on the balsa wood block and used a bandsaw to cut the profile. A stationary sander was used to fine tune the profile.

I then profiled the top of the balsa wood block to fit the shoe's curvature. The bottom of the block also had to be profiled to her specific walking pattern. Again, the tennis shoe profile was much more complicated than that of the sandals.

The top of the shoe was glued to the top of the block and the sole I had cut off was glued to the bottom of the block.

The balsa wood is so light that the shoes' weight changed very little. The girl needed longer arm crutches due to the added height.

The smile of the girl's face was ample reward for the work.

 

[Holmz]

With the floods of cyclone Debby, those balsa wood sandles could be handy in a Cricky or nearly Easter way.

That is some nice work [member=15289]Birdhunter[/member] ... Refreshing and uplifting.

Some fibreglass of c/f on the balsa would be long lasting, as well as a cobbler putting a non slip sole on the bottom. (But it seems moreover a one-off )

 

[Birdhunter]

Her dad and I  thought the sandals for her prom would be the only ones we would build. She was so thrilled with the sandals that she wanted the tennis shoes (runners I think in the U.K.).

If she wants others, I'll make them.

I won't post them, but the pictures of her in her prom gown wearing the high lift sandals were great.

 

[Blackberry]

Birdhunter that's absolutely awesome. I'm confident you made that young lady's day. I'm sure she was truly beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bigshaw929]

That's awesome!!!

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