I glued a new sole onto the bottom of my shoe. Found some flat outsoles on ebay. I put the glued the sole on the shoe and put it in a vacuum sealer bag and sucked the air out to clamp the sole down evenly across the bottom of the shoe during the gluing process. The next day I cut the excess sole so that the new sole is flush with the old sole. It does add noticeable weight to the shoe (maybe just restoring it back to its original weight before wearing down the rubber?). The soles were $15/pair. I'll probably go back over the edge of the sole with shoe goo so that there is no lip whatsoever to catch on stuff and start causing a the sole to flap and detach, but I haven't yet. I'm actually only doing this to one foot to correct for a short right leg, in lieu of a shoe insert, and it's working well for that purpose. Seems like this method could be useful for just extending the life of shoes with worn out soles.
When I was a kid I was poor and didn't have money to buy new shoes for skateboarding so I went through all the usually tricks to extend life of shoes.
Used bike tyre inner tubes rubbers and all sort of stuff for ollie pads or to glue them on the bottom of shoe soles. Used all kind of glues I could find as well.
Sole repair is hardest one to tackle.
Did try to have sole repaired by professional cobbler and he did something similar. Glued new thin hard rubber undersole to existing worn out soles and he grinded away excess rubber on the sides so there is smooth transition from new undersole to existing sole, it looked very good.
It did last for some time but eventually it unglued on the sides that are in contact with griptape.
This was done on Airwals Velocity mids from early 90's, super durable shoe.
Topic: Shoes with the longest-lasting outsoles? (Read 3881 times)