Thursday, October 8, 2015

WHOOP! Boot Experiment In Progress!


When they say blue, they mean blue.

This is the gallon of liquid rubber I found on my front porch when I got home from my shift tonight. I won't be able to do anything with it for a while - between my job shifts, Duck Fest, and gathering winter wood my hours are pretty well spoken for - but it's here!

I'm having a tough time right now, restraining myself from getting those flip-flop soles cut down to size and shaped, and am eyeing the foam pads I've got ready to use for patterns ... thinking about putting them into the liners and giving them a dip ... but no I'm not going to do it. This stuff has an adhesive quality; it would without a doubt permanently glue my foam soles to the wool outers (which is kind of the point, after all) - and there go my patterns.

So ... 

I'm going to wait until I've got time to cut myself another set of foam soles before I go wrecking my pattern soles. 

The foam soled boots are still experimental, using the old worn out boot tubes. They'll be fine themselves, but not as great as the boots that will have the thick soles of the flip-flops. Those are the ones I'm going to want to be not experimental so I'll hold of on making them until I've got the new sets of tubes that my friend is making for me.

Meanwhile, I've got these two old sets of boots to work with, foam to cut into soles, and liquid rubber to dip them in or paint onto them for the outer water-proof soles and sides. I've also got those sweaters coming, remember. They'll be experimental as well since I'm not sure exactly how they're going to felt up.

Being as it's already been a long day and I'm tired, I'm seriously reining myself in here and not going to try anything tonight ... much as I want to, it would end up keeping me busy and awake all night - not smart when I've got a very long and busy day tomorrow already. I'll wait until I've got the time to devote to it before seeing how the felted wool will absorb the liquid rubber, whether it will adhere to the foam soles, and how many coats it will take to make these boots the way I want them to be.

Thankfully tomorrow is supposed to be dry so I can wear my experimental pair (without the water-proofing, the untreated felted wool gets soggy when it gets wet) for my shift. I've had a couple of days without them due to it being wet out - my feet aren't happy with me about that.

As soon as possible, it's on with the experiment!


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