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- 312
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2013
Hi -so I'm sure there will be people who hate this and people who love it, but before all this I just wanna say... If you don't have something nice to say, then just move along. I wouldn't post this here if I didn't want people's opinions (both like and dislike), but posting 'they suck' or 'those look so fake' is kinda worthless to me. Say what you'd change or what you would have done different if you don't like something. K cool
Note1: Pictures are going to speak more than I need to so I'll just list the materials I used and I'll answer questions if people have em.
Note2: Obviously you can use whatever Lebron X's you want -I just liked the red liner & black midsole.
Cork Fabric (<$20 shipped): https://www.inventables.com/technologies/natural-cork-fabric-large-grain-pattern
----Customer service at this site is awesome.
----I bought a quantity of (1), which is ~3ft. It was enough for both shoes and I have enough leftover to do a set of matching Air Lebron 2 slides too.
Fabric glue: Amazon product ASIN B00178MNFO
----This stuff is good bc it takes ~5 minutes to set (gives you time to maneuver things)
----It's also good bc it is stretchy and flexible. It doesn't "crack" and will easily bend with shoe leather.
----Also, I used it and I can guarantee it works to glue fabric onto the outside of leather shoes
Adhesive printer paper / Label sticker paper: Amazon product ASIN B001EQ669S
----I used this to print out the Nike swooshes and the Lebron logo.
----Then I cut them out, got rid of the part I cut out, and used the 'negative' part as a stencil for painting.
Total cost to me: Used Lebron X Homes off eBay ($120) + Cork fabric ($13 bc I had a coupon) + time.
Pictures.
Base Lebron X Home
This stuff is literally fabric with cork glued onto the outside. It is very smooth to the touch, is not stiff at all, and is very nice to work with. Highly recommended. I don't own actual Corks, but based on photos I've seen I'd say that this shade of 'Cork' is *just slightly* darker.
Made a stencil from computer paper by wrapping it around the shoe and marking/cutting the shape of Cork fabric I needed.
VERY IMPORTANT: It's not a straight line around the base of the shoe. It's sort of 'curved' as you can see. If you don't account for this, the fabric will bunch up in areas when you try to glue it down. This happened to me (didn't get the curve right) and if you look closely you can see a seam in the back (later) where I had to cut the piece in half, take a sliver out, and then reattach together. Lemme know if this doesn't make sense.
Test wrapped to make sure the contour was right. Note the extra fabric by the lace holes -did that so I could wrap it down the inside of the shoe. Gives a nicer look in the end like the cork is more 'continuous' and doesn't just stop at the edge.
Glued down one area at a time. You can see where I had to cut in half here because it was bunching up too much.
Got one all glued down and done. You can see I cut a little too much off the top there (it's hard to measure AND cut while it's already glued to the shoe actually). This isnt a problem tho, the texture of the cork lets you get away with just patching it (seen later).
All done wrapping & gluing. I didn't like the seams in the front so I made 'toe caps'...
NOTE: For the lace holes, I grabbed a pointy soldering gun and burnt holes through the fabric. Came out really cool -goes well with the texture.
Laced up with the Lebron X Home laces.
Stencils...
Paper template for the toe cap.
Test fitting. Modeled after my South beach IDs
Toe caps glued on. You can see the flywire work I was in the middle of. The Homes have orange flywire which I wasn't really a fan of.
SOLUTION: black sharpie. Apparently black sharpie + orange flywire = brown flywire. Again, works nice with the cork.
TO GET THE FLYWIRE BACK THROUGH: Have to cut little slits in the cork fabric obviously where it pops out. To pull it through, you'll need a little small hook you can push through, hook the wire, and then pull back out. I happened to have a little tool like this (seen sorta on the right of the picture), but a crochet hook or something similar will work.
Realized that the laces from my Prisms look much nicer. Also a better shot of the difference between orange and brown flywire.
Wrapped the lace tips in fabric too.
Testing out my paper cut out stencils to make sure they weren't too thin and didn't bleed through. Literally just googled a Nike check, used a photo editing program to scale two sized checks (one for front & back), and printed out on adhesive label-making printer paper. In this shot, I had only used printer paper, but later I gave up on the printer paper & used the label paper.
Done, only thing left is paint (& the other lace tips).
Adhesive logos attached. Also made a lebron logo for the tongue.
Put each shoe in a grocery bag, tied it / sealed it off, then cut holes by the areas I needed to paint. Tape around the edges to keep everything else clean.
AND.......... FINISHED PRODUCT.
They're my favorite Lebrons to date, and that's saying something bc I love my South beach IDs too.
Future plans:
---Add some more detailing.
---Gold lace locks from some Lebron X Elites or USAs.
Any questions or comments feel free to post up. Compliments & criticism welcome, just keep any hate to yourselves. I took the time to do this, document it, and share my experiences so anybody else who liked them could do this too.
Note1: Pictures are going to speak more than I need to so I'll just list the materials I used and I'll answer questions if people have em.
Note2: Obviously you can use whatever Lebron X's you want -I just liked the red liner & black midsole.
Cork Fabric (<$20 shipped): https://www.inventables.com/technologies/natural-cork-fabric-large-grain-pattern
----Customer service at this site is awesome.
----I bought a quantity of (1), which is ~3ft. It was enough for both shoes and I have enough leftover to do a set of matching Air Lebron 2 slides too.
Fabric glue: Amazon product ASIN B00178MNFO
----This stuff is good bc it takes ~5 minutes to set (gives you time to maneuver things)
----It's also good bc it is stretchy and flexible. It doesn't "crack" and will easily bend with shoe leather.
----Also, I used it and I can guarantee it works to glue fabric onto the outside of leather shoes
Adhesive printer paper / Label sticker paper: Amazon product ASIN B001EQ669S
----I used this to print out the Nike swooshes and the Lebron logo.
----Then I cut them out, got rid of the part I cut out, and used the 'negative' part as a stencil for painting.
Total cost to me: Used Lebron X Homes off eBay ($120) + Cork fabric ($13 bc I had a coupon) + time.
Pictures.
Base Lebron X Home
This stuff is literally fabric with cork glued onto the outside. It is very smooth to the touch, is not stiff at all, and is very nice to work with. Highly recommended. I don't own actual Corks, but based on photos I've seen I'd say that this shade of 'Cork' is *just slightly* darker.
Made a stencil from computer paper by wrapping it around the shoe and marking/cutting the shape of Cork fabric I needed.
VERY IMPORTANT: It's not a straight line around the base of the shoe. It's sort of 'curved' as you can see. If you don't account for this, the fabric will bunch up in areas when you try to glue it down. This happened to me (didn't get the curve right) and if you look closely you can see a seam in the back (later) where I had to cut the piece in half, take a sliver out, and then reattach together. Lemme know if this doesn't make sense.
Test wrapped to make sure the contour was right. Note the extra fabric by the lace holes -did that so I could wrap it down the inside of the shoe. Gives a nicer look in the end like the cork is more 'continuous' and doesn't just stop at the edge.
Glued down one area at a time. You can see where I had to cut in half here because it was bunching up too much.
Got one all glued down and done. You can see I cut a little too much off the top there (it's hard to measure AND cut while it's already glued to the shoe actually). This isnt a problem tho, the texture of the cork lets you get away with just patching it (seen later).
All done wrapping & gluing. I didn't like the seams in the front so I made 'toe caps'...
NOTE: For the lace holes, I grabbed a pointy soldering gun and burnt holes through the fabric. Came out really cool -goes well with the texture.
Laced up with the Lebron X Home laces.
Stencils...
Paper template for the toe cap.
Test fitting. Modeled after my South beach IDs
Toe caps glued on. You can see the flywire work I was in the middle of. The Homes have orange flywire which I wasn't really a fan of.
SOLUTION: black sharpie. Apparently black sharpie + orange flywire = brown flywire. Again, works nice with the cork.
TO GET THE FLYWIRE BACK THROUGH: Have to cut little slits in the cork fabric obviously where it pops out. To pull it through, you'll need a little small hook you can push through, hook the wire, and then pull back out. I happened to have a little tool like this (seen sorta on the right of the picture), but a crochet hook or something similar will work.
Realized that the laces from my Prisms look much nicer. Also a better shot of the difference between orange and brown flywire.
Wrapped the lace tips in fabric too.
Testing out my paper cut out stencils to make sure they weren't too thin and didn't bleed through. Literally just googled a Nike check, used a photo editing program to scale two sized checks (one for front & back), and printed out on adhesive label-making printer paper. In this shot, I had only used printer paper, but later I gave up on the printer paper & used the label paper.
Done, only thing left is paint (& the other lace tips).
Adhesive logos attached. Also made a lebron logo for the tongue.
Put each shoe in a grocery bag, tied it / sealed it off, then cut holes by the areas I needed to paint. Tape around the edges to keep everything else clean.
AND.......... FINISHED PRODUCT.
They're my favorite Lebrons to date, and that's saying something bc I love my South beach IDs too.
Future plans:
---Add some more detailing.
---Gold lace locks from some Lebron X Elites or USAs.
Any questions or comments feel free to post up. Compliments & criticism welcome, just keep any hate to yourselves. I took the time to do this, document it, and share my experiences so anybody else who liked them could do this too.
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