Corn Husk Process (2nd Round)

Thick Fiber and Corn Hair

Today I cast another inner-sole with the ticker batch of fibers and the hair that you find when you peel off the husk.  In this cast I used half of the amount of Corn Husk by Weight making it 12g of fiber to 131g of rubber and Im using a 44grade stiffness of rubber (slightly more flexible then the last batches and a clearish yellow tint).
 Below are picture of the casting process.

Cover the plaster mold with Vacu-Formed PETG Plastic insert.

Weighed out the Rubber and the Corn Fiber (the hair is ground up inside)

Added the two together and mixed for 5 minutes.  

I distributed the mixture in the mold as well as I can to the final shape.

I add the precut leather piece on top of the uncured rubber mixture and tap it down lightly.

Then I add the second Vacu-Formed plate made from the upper portion of the Mold. (This presses the leather tight so there are no creases. 

Finally I add the top half of the plaster mold and stack a bunch of books on top and leave it for 24 hours.

Corn Husk Experiment

CORN HUSK Inner-Soles

I decided to explore other alternatives to Coco-fiber since I've got the sole casting down pretty well.

Today I bought a bunch of corn and shucked the husks and let them dry out (mostly by microwaving the hell out of them)

Then I put the husks into the blender to grind them up.  I originally did three different grades of husk fiber but the weight was pretty low so I combined the small and the medium grade into one.   Then I used the same weight ratio to cast the first Husk Sole.  Belowis a picture of the medium to fine grade husk fibers and a few pictures of the resulting cast.

Alexander's Shoe Repair

Today I spent several hours at Alexander's Shoe Repair with a cobbler named Nicholas.  The first thing he says is "I want to quit"

Nicholas has been working on shoes for over 30 years.   He is the only employee at his fathers shop and has "shoes piled on his head."

People come in constantly interrupting his work and helping him look for their own shoes piled up in the back of his shop.  Most of the jobs aren't finished when the customers arrive and he'll do them in 5 or 10 minutes.

He showed me around and told me about some of the machinery he uses and some prices on equipment.  A big sanding and polishing unit can be bought used for around 8k.

He has a nail gun machine for soles, an industrial singer with a rotational walking foot, and several industrial sewing machines for the thick stitching around the welt of a boot.

He also showed me the industrial contact cements that he uses for shoes called "Barge all purpose Cement"

Nicholas sanding away at a platform heel.

Sewing machine used for thick sole stitching.

Rotational Walking foot, Cool!

Industrial Strength contact cement for shoes.

Casting COCONUT soles

The last few days I have been casting several coconut fiber/rubber soles using the Uerethane Rubber compound.

I have been using a ratio of 131g of rubber to 25g of cocofiber.  This may sound like a lot more rubber but its not.  By the time they are mixed the rubber seems almost dry.

I have also been testing several materials that could go on the top of the sole and how they might be stuck to it.

It seems nothing wants to stick to the rubber after its set so glues and paints are out for now.  However if the rubber is allowed to set with a material on the surface it will bond to the material.  However, if the material is absorbent it will draw the rubber mixture all the way through the material. Therefore, leathers and plastics seem to work the best.

The one on the far left is straight out of the mold showing the flash on the edges. The sole to the right of it and in the middle has a canvas top, the white one was stuck on with glue and then sewed because the adhesive failed. On the other, the rubber soaked straight through.   Finally the soles on the right have leather tops and came out really nice. 

Meeting with Colin and Cleaning the Mold

Colin Suggested that I clean up the mold as best I can so I get the most amount of product out of them.

I used his suggestion of vacuforming over the mold with PETG plastic so if it were to get messed up I could just do another pull and continue to pour new casts.

Below is a picture of me vacuforming over my mold.

Grant Writer Visit

This weekend I went down to LA to visit a family friend who has done grant writing and consulting for non-profits for many years.
She suggested that I contact some private entity like the CCA grant department or some other non-profit that can offer tax deductions on donations from donors.

Plaster Mold

Today I went up to the shop and asked Marty if I could use some plaster to make a mold.  I took the innersole from the snow boarding boot Mike gave me as the basic form for my inner sole... it could have been any inner-sole at this point so this one was fine.

I was trying to make this on a tight budget so all of my material was found.  I used some 8th inch plex to build a box for the mold.  If I were doing this like a pro I would have used a stronger material like wood, thicker plex, or both wood and plex.

In any case the 8th" bowed a little but worked ok.

So I poured the plaster into the box, then pushed the inner sole into the plaster before it stiffened up too much.  Then, once the lower half of the mold was hardened, I added a coat of oil to top of the mold, leaving the inner sole in the mold, and poured  the top half of the mold.

At this point I was running out of plaster and out of time in the shops so the top of the mold is broken and thin.  Again, not an ideal situation but it works for the purpose of making inner-sole samples.

Coconut Rubber Samples

I was sleeping over at a friends house last night and talking to my buddy about having to go rip up some coconuts.  However, he told me that his friend (who grows lots of marijuana) uses a coconut fiber mix that he buys locally.  SURE ENOUGH, they sell it by the brick over at Plant It Earth on Divisidaro.  Picked up to bricks for testing.

I also went over to Douglas and Stourgess (a mold making store on Bryant) today to look at some different rubber samples and buy some for making inner shoe soles.

They suggested not using latex rubber as it is supposed to be brushed on layer by layer.  It takes a long time to dry because it is water based (which Gabriel said would be true) but it also tends to discolor, smell funny, and clump up with the coconut.

I got both latex and Urethane rubber just to test them out.

I tested the materials for strength and flexibility by creating a series of samples on a weight ratio- Rubber to CocoFiber.
More Cocofiber and less rubber seems to be the answer which is good because rubber is really expensive.  Also, the denser, less flexible rubber seems to be better.

Colin the male dominatrix

Today me and Jerry were ripped apart by Colin during a early morning grump-fest.  This was a typical colin thrashing, nothing to get all hurt about.  Unfortunately, my slide deck was set up somewhere in the middle of a ligit presentation and the required "up to date outline of your progess" hitting neither on the head and receiving criticism on a lot of useless points.  Never the less Got a few good snippets of infomation.

Then thank god, we left early to go over to North Face with Mike Caroselli to meet Gabriel Phillips- a CCA alum and designer in the shoe department at Northface.

Talking to Gabriel was most helpful.  It was great to see the behind the scenes design work at Northface and to get a sense of his process.  

Gabriel has a real passion for sustainable design (although limited to its application) and suggested I look into some shoes that have been produced in Portugal using coconut fiber.   These shoes supposedly use natural Latex or water-based rubber that comes straight from a "rubber tree."

More research suggests that rubber trees can be found going in tropical climates like western africa.  It is unknown as to whether rubber is exported to eastern Kenya but I think Ill try some experiments with coconut rubber soles anyways.

Budget Development for WAZO

Today me and James finished the final Budget scenario for WAZO.  This template was sent to me by Think Impact and revised by me and James to fit the parameters of the WAZO Institute.

Timeline WAZO

Developed a timeline for the WAZO project based off of the same graphical elements as the overall system graphics.

WAZO structure

Worked with Konina and the rest of the team on what the overall process of WAZO will be like.  We created a infographic showing the virtuous cycle of design thinking and production expected from WAZO.

All of the previous iterations and ideation around the overall structure of the WAZO project were evaluated and refined so we could get a simple graphic for the application on the 11th.

Konina drafted up this graphic in Illustrator and sent it around for thoughts and revisions.  

WAZO Brand

Working with Konina on creating a Brand for the WAZO Design Institute.  The Brand is based off of the earlier ideas with Ben Ilka on creating a visual language based off of the Swahili village.

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Nikki, Mike, and I sat down and tried to write out certain design criteria for which we would make decisions later down the road.  I mapped out several different attributes found in a variety of shoe types and linked that information with criteria that I found compelling from my trip to Kenya.
As I pull different aspects of shoe types and learned experiences from Kenya I think that some interesting results may occur.

It's at this point that Colin has instructed me to move forward with "making" but I wanted to at least attempt to clarify why I am making what I am making.

IMPACT APPLICATION Proposal

Been working with our advisor Amina Horozic, the team, and Nathan Shedroff on the overall narrative and proposal for the IMPACT application.  
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime"