How to PROPERLY Un-DS your shoes, and why, using Sneaker Shields.

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jz4dayz

jz4dayz

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First of all, as an enthusiast and collector, I feel like my shoes should be worn to be fully enjoyed. But theres a problem... I cant wear my "grails" or any other shoe I really care about without creasin em up. Some shoes look decent with some creasing... but who prefers a DS shoe look over a worn one? Anyways, I feel like i owe it to these shoes of mine, that are made in limited quantitys, and the ones that are left, are most likely being worn. So here is how I chose to adress the problem:

So, to conserve the DS shape of my shoes while wearing them. With some research into reviews for multiple wearable shoe trees, i found Sneaker Shields (can be bought from http://www.sneakershields.com/)  to work the best. Here is a quick write up with some pictures on what worked for me.

The sneaker shields, to my foot, cramped my toes up, and I chose to modify them (as suggested if they were uncomfortable). Here's what I did since I couldn't find a writeup on how to modify them, even though it seems fairly simple.

Tools: 1: Marking pencil 2: Decent scissors  3: Large Grit (or semi coarse) Hand file 4: Very extremely fine grit  accurate hand file. I chose to use metal files since the step sanding sandpaper made for wood/body work might leave residuals on the shields, might take longer, and would be harder to work with.

Here Is what I had to achieve. On the RIGHT is the unmodified UNIVERSAL sneaker shield. On the LEFT is the modified one to fit my feet. My big and pinky toe along with the sides of my feet (I have semi wide feet) felt cramped. I chose to trim the sides down along with the toe section, giving the cramped sections of my feet more room, trying not to take away from the integrity of the sneaker shield as much as i possibly could ( I have seen people modify their shields and they crack because they modified it structurally wrong):

Will update thread in an hour or so, if the mods approve it being here. It is DEFINITELY Jordan shoe related.
 
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Next, its easier if you have a shoe like the XIII where you can unlace and fully pull back the tongue. You will want a shoe like this so you can put the uncut sneaker shield inside, and be able pull it out and mark the sections of the shoe tree that need to be altered to fit properly:

Next you want to mark with a pencil (would rather not have any ink near my shoes) the approximate points where you will need to trim with scissors (3) to relieve the cramped area where your foot is having issues with the protector. I circled the spot i wanted to cut in red. You can make multiple spots if you like, or make a dotted line across the area you want to cut if you prefer. When you are cutting these, make sure you cut BELOW your marked spot, since you can always trim some more off for fine tuning:

After you make the necessary cuts (some of you may not have to cut at all, or only a small section) the shoe tree might have some jagged spots or rough spots on them. For me, I chose to even those spots out as much as i could to make it as flat as possible. I even took some extra measures to smooth out the roughness of the shoe tree (you can see the  dark spots where the shoe tree was once smooth, but after cutting it is now rough). I used a metal medium grit hand file to smooth it down, so it would fit more flush on top of the insole inside the shoe. This is probably an unnecessary precaution, but i dont like the idea of putting these into different shoes with parts of the shaved shoe tree having the possibility of scratching my leather/suede/etc.

You are going to want to take a random shoe liner you have, and mock up how the sneaker shield fits with the insole. This is how it will be inside the shoe. This determines the comfort of the protection the shields provide:

It should fit semi-flush on the end of the insole. Disreguard the cotton dingleberries:

Take the extra fine file, and smooth out the edges if you prefer (Right one is filed with the large grit file(3), left was "step sanded" with the finer grit small file (4). notice how much smoother it looks? This just gives me more piece of mind, but probably doesnt do anything:

To get any extra shavings off the shoe tree, you can use the edge of the file if its small enough, and just scrape it off instead of trying to file the plastic shavings off:

Put the altered shoe trees back in your shoes, walk with them, and make sure they are comfortable. If you find some spots still need trimming, repeat these steps until you get the fit you like. Try not to trim too much off or else the structure of the tree can possibly crack.

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The kind of crease you get while bending your toe while walking WITHOUT  shoe tree:

Bending my toe while walking WITH my modified shoe tree. Hope this helps someone that was wondering. Missed out on my grapes ticket raffle because I was doing this write-up SMH:
 
Awesome stuff! Thanks
smokin.gif
 
Man you got a good thing going, and that is something I may look into doing in the future. I respect your style, but for me personally this is why I double up at minimum on my "grails" and shoes that are very important to me. If it's something I want to conserve the DS look of, I'd rather just have a DS pair. Obviously it is impossible to have doubles on certain shoes without paying out the ***, or its impossible period, and this is where I may employ more extreme techniques like Sneaker Shields. But for me usually it's easier to just cop a double pair.
 
ninjahood said:
kicks crease...buy em true to your size and you wont have to worry about it.
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+1.

You spend good money for them. Wear them, and enjoy. When they're beat...replace them.

No need to walk like a duck to prevent creasing and preserve the stars on the sole.
 
MDkicks said:
Yeah or buy shoes with actual real leather. They don't crease like Jordans cardboard leather does.
Click to expand...
All shoes crease, this goes for upper tier dress shoes that costs $1k+ per pair as well that use superlative leather. They may not crease like pleather, but nonetheless they will crease.
 
Idk, I'm gonna have to agree with Jz4dayz. I have messed around with sneaker shields too and they are an amazing product. They don't fit all Jordan numbers like the 9 or the 14 for example, but if you customize them correctly to your fitting, they are a beautiful thing. I'm not for walking around like a duck, but believe me when I tell you that I wore my Royals to Disney World comfortably with the sneaker shields in them fitting just right, and they LITERALLY don't have one crease on them.
 
I have doubles of my favorites but still preffer to wear a shoe tree or force fields .I can't even feel the force fields anymore and if i could get a little extra life out my shoe why not.
 
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What a load. SMH
How to properly UN-DS your shoes: WEAR THE BLOODY THINGS. They're shoes they crease with wear
I just don't understand why people worry about this rubbish.

I got MORE RESPECT for cats when I see them wearing creased up kicks coz I know they been worn than I do for a
Cat i see walking all penguin like with these stupid shoe trees in to keep his kicks from creasing.

This practice is ludicrous.
 
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So you missed a sneaker releasing doing this thread, sorry but that is :rofl:

You have to work for sneaker shields to post this.
 
Whoa!  Lots of strong opinions about this topic.  I know this is an open forum, but some folks need a box of tissues. 
 
Way too much IMO for something that should and already be comfortable out the box. And by the time I need a new pair because of wear and tear the next retro should be on it's way out
 
This is all opinion and not really the PROPER way to start wearing shoes. Put this in the care and maintenance thread. Your effort is appreciated.

Please stop making a new thread every 2 days.
 
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