Hospitals 

If the heel is wobbly, then this is not a problem! How and with what to fill a hollow heel How to fill a hollow heel on men's shoes

Their wooden inserts last a long time. Therefore, although expensive, I had to fill them with epoxy with fillers. You cannot pour pure epoxy (with a hardener, of course) into something that you will then have to hammer nails into. Cured epoxy is very brittle and breaks like glass. And it’s best to use epoxy to make mixtures with plastic additives: rubber, wood sawdust, plastic crumbs. Some plastics (nylon, polyethylene) melt easily when heated and can also be used to fill voids. But this is due to harmful emissions when these plastics are melted. But even without this we breathe a toxic mixture of “synthetic” atmosphere. Therefore, you should not add our harmful additives to it.

In my case, I filled the voids with rubber crumbs, which I compacted and impregnated with epoxy. The “concrete” turned out to be quite durable and elastic. I applied three layers of waterproof glue to the cleaned surface of the heel, glued a rubber heel and

additionally strengthened it with nails.

One of the heels of the women's shoes was damaged. Moreover, along with the rebounded heel, part of the “body” of the heel itself crumbled, in which a metal tube-holder for the heel pin remained (in Fig. 5, this part is shaded). It would be good to apply a cement filling to the “hollow” formed in the heel, but this requires a solvent for the heel material. I didn’t have one, so the damaged part of the heel (height x) had to be amputated. I performed the same operation on a healthy heel. The damaged part is sawed off either together with the sole, or for ease of work it is temporarily separated from the heel, folded back (Fig. 5, b), and then, having been cut off, glued in place.

If there is still a metal clip in the heel, as in our case, there is no need to saw it off. After removing

To remove the damaged part of the heel, apply a hot soldering iron to the clip and, after heating it, press it flush into the heel. Drill out the plastic that has leaked inside the holder with a drill. When the clip cannot be pushed in or removed, carefully, without overheating the clip, grind off the protruding part of it using an emery wheel, remembering to cool the clip with a wet rag.

The metal heel was made from 5 mm steel, the pin was made from a nail, the head of which, when driven in, was sunk into the heel and soldered with it. I made another hole in the heel with a diameter of 0.5 mm and drove a smaller nail into it so that the heel would not rotate around the pin.

Elegant, warm women's boots in the color of overripe cherries received a very serious injury. Upon impact, the heel not only broke off the metal heel, but also fell off

Repair of a heel with small voids: a - heel without heel; b - heel

after renovation;

1 - SAWDUST+

epoxy;

2 - heel;

3 - nail;

In my blog, I have repeatedly raised topics related to problems that can arise with heels. This applies to both women's and men's shoes.

I advise you to pay attention to them.

But for some reason people still come to me with questions:

  • Why after a while in shoes heels start to wobble?
  • Why, immediately Are your heels wobbly after purchasing?
  • Is it possible to repair shoes that you started in? wobbly heels?

If people ask the same questions again and again, then there are reasons for this.

It’s one thing if a person doesn’t have the Internet and can’t find the information he needs. And it’s another thing when he’s too lazy to type the query “ Why does the heel wobble?».

Well, okay, since you have come to this article, I will try to explain in detail at least some of the main reasons why the heel in your shoes is wobbly.

1. The main reason for almost any “breakage” of shoes is not high-quality shoe production. If previously there was a so-called GOST, which was strictly controlled by the state, now we can rely on the “word of honor” of the manufacturer. Unfortunately, such decent and honest manufacturers are becoming fewer and fewer.

The material that is used to sew shoes is as cheap as possible, and I make the shoes themselves with many violations.

Of course, not many, or rather a few, when buying shoes can determine the quality of the product being purchased, and subsequently, when something happens to the shoes, they often blame themselves. Like, I walk in the wrong place, I step in the wrong way, my gait is bad... But you shouldn’t think like that.

The heel may start to wobble if:

  1. Manufacturers saved money and installed it from poor material and the nails that secured the heel simply broke through it and the heel began to wobble.
  2. The bracket that secures the heel was installed incorrectly. This is also the reason for incorrect installation of the bracket when shoes are produced using the conveyor method.
  3. , most often break because they are made of low-quality metal or are simply very thin.

Now you understand why it is difficult to determine what will happen to your shoes in the future, since all these details and minor improvements are hidden from the eyes of buyers.

2. Another reason that may cause the heel to start to wobble ahead of time is the wrong

Imagine, if poor quality production is combined with improper use of the shoes, then how long will you be able to walk in these shoes without problems?

If you have not yet read the articles I mentioned above, then you should pay attention to them. Because there is already information there that will help prevent trouble and it is quite possible that you will be able to walk for a long time in shoes in which The heel will NOT wobble.

And indeed, if you are so shoes got very wet, if you even get wet in the area of ​​the heels, then be prepared that the heel fastening may be damaged and soon the heels will begin to wobble.

3. The third significant reason why the heel begins to wobble or even falls off, or the arch support breaks, is the height of the heel.

You've probably already guessed what kind of shoes we'll be talking about.

Yes, these are women's high-heeled shoes.

In other words, the higher the heel of the shoe, the greater the likelihood of problems with the heel fastening or arch support.

To put it simply, with a high heel there is a greater load, both on the fastening itself and on the bending of the instep support, than with a low heel. And if you consider that the quality of shoes leaves much to be desired, then on shoes with high heels, heels start to wobble much faster and more often than with any other shoe.

So let's summarize:

The main thing is not to wear such shoes. Otherwise, instead of just replacing the instep support, you wouldn’t have to pay a good sum for restoring the sole of the shoe, which could simply crack in half.

If you find that the heel is wobbly, take such shoes to

Why did I emphasize to a good master. It’s just that not all shoemakers can secure the heel well enough or carry out complex repairs such as installing a new arch support.

By the way, if you wish, you can repair your shoes yourself, after the training that you will receive by watching,

High-quality wearable shoes are the key to a good mood. However, there are situations when a favorite pair of shoes breaks down and there is not enough money to buy a new one. The easiest way is to take your shoes to a specialized workshop for repairs. And if this service is not available, then you can repair shoes directly at home.

To carry out repair work you will need: nylon stocking, specialized glue, nails, hammer, soldering iron, electrical tape and strips of tin.

If you need to update a thin women's heel, then you need to take heated plastic or melted nylon, electrical tape and a strip of tin. The plastic will work with any pair of worn-out shoes. Wrap the heel with a strip of tin. Carefully insert hot plastic or melted nylon into the gaps that appear. Try to get the material into the inside of the heel. Treat the outer surface, the job is finished. After repair work, the service life of your shoes will increase.

Rubber and leather soles wear out very quickly. It’s quite expensive to visit a shoemaker’s shop every time. A nylon stocking will help you cope with this problem. The first thing to do is dry your shoes well. Apply sandpaper to the area of ​​wear. Then heat up the soldering iron and apply it to the cleaned area of ​​the shoe. The edges of the material should darken and become sticky.

Now the preparatory work has been completed, you can begin fusing. Cut a piece of a certain size from a nylon stocking and apply it to the repair area. Then press it with a hot soldering iron and rub the molten mass into the surface. Repeat the procedure until the surface of the heel is the desired size. The hot mass of nylon can be easily leveled using the base of a soldering iron. All manipulations will take less than 30 minutes of your time. And shoes with a repaired heel are guaranteed to last a month of intensive wear.

A small piece of rubber, a shoe knife, a hammer, nails and glue will help you fix a slight bevel in shoes with rubber heels. Using a knife, trim the size of the heel bevel. Then prepare a rubber blank according to its size and glue it. Next, the workpiece needs to be hammered in with small nails. You can adjust the thickness of the heel using a rubber heel. Cut the rubber heel to the required size, glue it and do not forget to secure it with nails.

A plastic heel can also be easily repaired at home. Use a screwdriver to remove the damaged heel. After removal, you will find the grooves with which it was attached. Insert wooden pegs rubbed with chalk into the holes. Then cut out the rubber blanks of the required size and attach them to the base of the heel so that chalk marks are visible on them. Using these marks, you can correctly drive the nails into the fastener holes. After gluing the heel, secure it with nails.

Shoes - we will repair and provide care (part 1)

To protect the heels from being quickly worn down, it is recommended to insert 1-2 bolts into them from below. Bolts are taken with a diameter of 5-6 mm with a head of 10-11 mm. In places where the heel wears out most quickly, shallow holes are drilled and bolts are inserted into them. When they wear out, they are easy to replace with new ones.

For the same purpose, you can press 2-3 balls with a diameter of 5-8 mm from the bearing into the heel, also having previously drilled recesses three-quarters of the ball diameter. The rubber will tightly cover the balls and they will not fall out. Heel wear slows down several times.

To repair thin heels of women's shoes, you can use this method: wrap the heel with insulating tape or a strip of tin and fill the resulting depression with heated plastic, cut from the sole of an old shoe (or melted nylon). The softened mass is compacted tightly so that it goes into the cavity of the heel, and the surface is smoothed. With such repairs, the heel will hold tightly.

The same problem can be solved in a “cold” way. To do this, fill the recess for the heel with epoxy glue, to which steel filings are added for strength.

The gait of many people is such that when they walk on a wet road, splashes from under the heel get on their trousers and stockings. To avoid this, you canglue corrugated rubber onto the heels, such as, for example, from which ski pads are made. For the same purposes, you can make a slot in the heel about 4 mm wide and deep.

It is not easy to nail heels to plastic heels: nails are very difficult to get in. We recommend drilling holes in the heels, hammering wooden plugs into them, and then nailing heels to them. They hold up well.

You can do it even simpler. It is necessary to drill holes with a diameter of 1 mm in the heel, and then drive thicker nails into them to secure the heels.

It is known that heels on stiletto heels wear out very quickly. There is a way to reliably repair the “stud”.


Remove the heel, drill out the wooden filling in the heel tube at a depth of 20 mm and, by lightly tapping the rod made from a screw or bolt with a hammer, knock it into the socket. The edges of the rod will deform the tube (it is thin-walled) and securely secure the rod in the heel. Replacing a worn-out rod with a new one is a matter of minutes.

If the tongue of your boot does not stay in one place, say, moves to the side, make two small holes in it. A lace passed through these holes will allow you to secure the tongue of the boot in the desired position.

Nylon or silk laces on shoes often come undone. When tying such laces into a bow, you should thread the loop through the point one more time. The knot turns out to be reliable, and it can be untied as easily as a regular bow, you just have to pull the ends of the lace.


Here's some advice on restoring sandals. Cracked, faded light paint on sandals can be refreshed by wiping it with nail polish solvent. The top layer of paint will dissolve and remain on the cotton wool, the cracks will be covered. Just don’t overdo it, otherwise you can wipe it “to holes.”

If rubber is glued onto a leather sole when repairing shoes, we recommend cutting off the edge at an angle of 45°. The rubber sticker will last longer, and the repair will become completely invisible.


It is not easy to glue a new rubber sole to a worn out nylon or polyurethane sole. You can use a kind of adapter for this: weld a piece of cotton fabric to the old sole with an iron, and then “Moment” glue a new rubber sole to it.

Gluing the soles of boots is not an easy task. It is very difficult to press them tightly together before the glue dries completely. A kind of press for this can be the chamber of a volleyball ball placed in a polyethylene (or fabric) bag. The toes of the shoes should be stuffed with soft paper, and then, placing the shoes in the bag, inflate the ball chamber to the desired volume.


A worn-out shoe will not fall off the foot if a strip of foam rubber 5-6 mm thick is glued to the inner surface of the heel. Moment glue or any synthetic glue is suitable for this.

Sometimes it is not so easy to open a jar of shoe polish. Place it on its edge and, pressing lightly with your foot, roll it back and forth on the floor. A “stubborn” can will open easily.

Repairing seams on leather shoes is greatly simplified if you use a flexible needle made from steel string. The string is bent into a loop as shown in the figure. This needle-loop is passed through the pinned hole, and a thread is inserted into it from inside the shoe. Then pull the needle and thread out and tighten the seam.


When repairing shoes, we recommend using a large medical needle fixed in a wooden handle instead of an awl. A hole in the shoe is pierced from the outside, and then a regular needle and thread is pressed from the inside into the tip of a medical needle-awl. When the awl is removed, a needle and thread easily follows it.

You can make warm insoles yourself. To make them, they use old drape, cloth, and felt. Using the pattern, blanks are cut out of paper and folded into two or three layers. The edges are coated with BF-6 glue and placed under the load. Due to the rigidity of the adhesive seam, the insoles do not bunch up under the foot. This type of glue allows frequent washing (wash carefully, without kinking). Only clean insoles warm well.

The insole material sometimes comes off. Turn the boiled potatoes into a gelatinous mass (lightly tap with a hammer). This mass will firmly glue the canvas to the cardboard.

An old but working iron can make an excellent vulcanizer - you just have to make a design like the one shown in the figure. The iron is secured in a vise, and the rubber is placed between the hot sole of the iron and a homemade screw press.

If the rubber boot allows water to pass through and you cannot find the defective area, flatten the boot, twist it (like twisting a tube of toothpaste) and lower the bottom of the boot into the water. Bubbles of air escaping from the boot will help locate a puncture or crack.

We put on a rubber boot with a narrow top: put an old nylon stocking into it from the back. The smooth, slippery surface of the stocking inside the boot will help the foot pass through the boot without much difficulty. After this, the stocking can be easily pulled out.

Historians claim that the first shoes appeared in Eurasia more than 30 thousand years ago. Shoes were made from animal skins and woven from plant leaves. Since then, shoe manufacturing technology has stepped far forward; artificial materials are often used for their manufacture, which are not inferior to, and even superior to, leather in wear resistance.

But even the best quality shoes wear out over time, especially in women's boots and shoes with stiletto heels. Usually, not the entire surface of the heels wears out, but only the back part. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that wear does not touch the base of the heel. If the base is worn out, it will have to be ground down to make the entire supporting surface flat, which is extra work and reduces the height of the heel.

Factory heels, as a rule, are made of plastic and they are fixed to the base of the heel of the shoes using glue and pins, tightly inserted into the holes provided for them in the heel.

How to remove the heel

In order to change worn heels, you must first remove the factory ones from them. The contact line of the heels with the base of the heel is usually clearly visible. There is a light stripe in the photo above.

To remove a worn heel, you need to place the shoes on their side on a hard surface and apply forceful pressure with a shoe knife, rocking it in the plane of the blade, to the border between the base of the heel and the heel. You can also use a simple knife or even a flat-blade screwdriver. In this case, it is better to remove the heel from the side of the sole so that possible minor damage to the heel is not visible from the outside.

The heel has been torn off from the base of the heel of the shoes, and now removing it is not difficult. In the same way, the heel is removed from the second shoe.

The photo shows a view of the removed factory-made heel from the installation side on the base of the heel of the shoes. Some factories include spare heels with shoes. Check to see if there are spare heels lying around in the box from these shoes. Then all repairs to replace heels will come down to spreading the factory heel with glue, for example “Moment”, and installing it on the heel of the shoes.

If there are no sapas heels, then you can look in stores. Ready-made heels are available in plastic and metal. In the photo there is a metal powder heel for shoes with stiletto heels.

After removing the heels, you will see the heel of the shoes approximately the same as in the photo. Depending on the heel area, there can be two, three or even four holes for pins for factory heels. But the repair technology is the same for all cases.

Material for heels

The best material for new heels is sheet polyurethane with a thickness of 5-6 mm of medium elasticity. It can be purchased at junk dealers. When choosing, you need to check the rigidity of the polyurethane. When you apply strong pressure with your fingernail, it should bend slightly.

If polyurethane is not available, then rubber from car tires will work well. It also has high abrasion resistance. But to get a piece of flat rubber out of a round tire you will have to tinker.

Preparing the heel for installation on the heel

To make a heel, you need to apply its outline onto a polyurethane or rubber plate. To do this, you need to attach the heel of the shoe to the workpiece and circle it around the perimeter with a marker or ballpoint pen.

The shape of the heels for the right and left shoes, as a rule, is different and this must not be forgotten when cutting the workpiece. You can also trace a worn out heel with a pen, but I prefer to trace the heel.

After applying the markings, it is necessary to cut out the heels. You can cut polyurethane with a sharp knife, wetting its blade in water to improve sliding. But polyurethane is very difficult to cut with a knife, and I prefer to cut it using a jigsaw with a wood saw installed. Polyurethane is easily cut with a jigsaw.

For cutting, the plate with the applied markings is clamped in a vice. As soon as a few millimeters have been sawn, the plate is pulled back by hand so that the jigsaw file does not get pinched. Then the heel can be cut out quite quickly. You need to cut along the outside of the line so that there is a margin. The protruding part of the heel due to the level of the heel of the shoes can then be ground off using an emery board or cut off with a knife.

The new heels are ready and you can start installing them on the heels of your shoes. But before that, the heels themselves need to be prepared for installing heels.

Preparing the heels of shoes or boots for installing heels

Probably, looking at the photo above, you noticed the appearance of the heels after removing the heels. The plane is almost entirely filled with holes and the question arises, how to attach new heels?

The answer is simple, you need to install wooden plugs in the holes for attaching standard plastic heels. The holes for the pins usually have a diameter of 5 mm and a depth of 10-15 mm. First, measure the depth. If it is less than 10 mm, then using a hammer, you need to drill out the base of the heel to a depth of 15-20 mm.

If you drill with an electric drill, you need to take into account that the drill can “pull” the soft material of the heel and the depth of the hole will be greater than necessary. I usually perform this operation manually, holding the drill in a special handle.

Plugs in heels for installing heels can be made from any piece of wood by sawing off the required piece to length and pricking with a knife of the required diameter. You can also use ready-made ones, for example, wooden Japanese chopsticks fit well in diameter.

It is enough to cut them into pieces of the required length. If the stick is a bit thick, then trim it a little with a knife. After making the plugs, they can be driven into the holes of the heels. The diameter of the plugs should ensure a tight fit, but you should not make plugs that are much larger in diameter than the holes in the heel, since driving in the plugs may cause the heel to crack. The plugs should not protrude beyond the surface of the heel; it is better to let them be slightly recessed.

Installing heels

The heels are prepared for installation, wooden plugs are driven into the heels, and it’s time to install the heels on the shoes.

To securely fasten heels on heels, I use a combined fastening, gluing, followed by nailing with long shoe nails, which experts call Tex type TR. Shoe nails differ from ordinary nails in that they have flat edges, a diameter of 1-2 mm and a length of about 15 mm. The head of shoe nails is also of a special shape, small in diameter, but thick. The flat edges on the nail shaft prevent it from twisting when walking, and the shape of the head acts as a heel section and increases its service life.

If there are no shoe nails, then to attach the heel you can use simple finishing nails, shortening them and giving the rod a shoe shape, grinding it off with a file or on an emery column. Finishing nails are usually used to attach trim to doors.

To accurately hit the nails into the plugs driven into the heels, before gluing the heels, it is advisable to first mark the driving points on them. To do this, the heel is applied to the heel, the polyurethane is slightly transparent and the plugs are visible. All you need to do is put dots with a marker where the plugs are visible.


If the plugs are not transparent, if the heels are made of rubber, then you can attach the heel to the heel, move it toward you and make one mark at the level of the plugs, then move the heel to the side and apply a second line. You will get a cross into which you will need to hammer a nail. Since the diameters of the plugs are 5 mm, this method will provide sufficient accuracy.

You can nail the heel by placing the heel directly on the heel, but this is inconvenient, since the heel may move and not be installed accurately. Therefore, I prefer to first hammer all the nails into the heels so that the sharp ends appear on the opposite side of the heel. You need to drive the nails by placing the heel on the board so that the sharp ends of the nails do not flatten and become blunt.


For more reliable fastening of the heel, before nailing, the mating surfaces of the heel and heel are generously lubricated with waterproof “Moment” glue. After waiting for 5 minutes recommended by the rules of use, the heel is applied to the heel and pressed firmly.

There are special paws for repairing shoes using nails. But I make do with a large file with a wooden handle. I rest the file on a massive piece of metal, and rest the heel of my shoe on the handle.

As you can see in the photo above, the nails are hammered in, the heel is firmly installed on the heel, but the edges of the heel protrude somewhat beyond the contour of the heel. The protruding part of the heel must be removed by cutting it with a knife or using an emery column.


Shoes with new heels installed by yourself look no worse than new. If desired, the heels on the end side can be painted with a waterproof marker or paint.

Installing spare heels on shoes

If, when purchasing women's shoes, you found a spare set of heels in the box, then the first repair to replace worn heels will not be difficult. It is enough to remove the old ones and smear the surface of the heel and the pins of the new heel with glue and hammer it into the heel with a hammer.


But sometimes a difficulty arises in that when removing worn heels, one of the pins breaks off and remains in the heel. It is impossible to remove the pin using pliers, since there is nothing to grab onto. The pins can be drilled out with a drill, having previously sunk them into the heel. But in this case, the walls of the hole will most likely be ground off, and the new heels will not hold securely.

To remove a pin from a shoe heel without damaging the walls of the holes, you must first drill a hole with a diameter of 2.5 mm in the center of the pin. If you have a self-tapping screw with a diameter of 3 mm, you can screw it into the drilled hole and remove the pin. It would seem that instead of drilling a hole in the pin, you can immediately screw a small-diameter self-tapping screw into it, and grab it with pliers to remove the pin. But in this case, the self-tapping screw will spread the pin to the sides, and it will hold even tighter in the heel and it will be impossible to remove the pin.

If you don’t have a self-tapping screw with an outer diameter of 3 mm, but you have an M3 tap, then you need to cut a thread in the drilled hole using it.

Now you can place a stop on the heel, for example the shaft of a screwdriver, and grasp the head of the screw with side cutters and easily remove the stuck pin from the heel.

The pin was safely removed from the heel of the shoe without damaging the holes, and now you can begin installing the replacement heels.

It is not necessary to lubricate the pins of the heels and the surface of their contact with the heel of the shoes with glue, but to securely fix the heels and prevent dirt and water from getting into the gap, glue will not be superfluous. Moment waterproof glue is well suited for this purpose.

After covering with a layer of glue, the heel is inserted with pins into the holes of the heel and, even without support, hammered in with a hammer. Any residual glue that appears is smeared over the joint with your finger.


Replacement heels are installed on women's shoes, and now they look like new. The heels are enough to wear your shoes without repairs for another summer season.