A very easy guide on repairing high heel shoes for a few dollars.
The damaged high heel shoe culprit, notice the lack of any heel and the exposed dangerous metal pin.
The first task is to remove the old metal pin, depending on how worn the heel is depends on the ease of doing so. If there is a little rubber still visible or about 1mm of the pin showing it will be quite easy. I like to use a vice to squeeze the protruding head and then pull the shoe while rotating left and right, it should be easy enough with pliers, only a little more fiddling around.
If there is very little of the metal pin protruding and you are finding it very difficult to get a good grip on it, I sometimes cut about 1mm of the white plastic heel around the pin with a knife to expose more of the pin.
Once the pin is removed, give the heel a file to make everything nice and flat. Notice quite a bit of wear on the heel, depending on how fussy the owner is, you can remove any hanging leather and give the heel a nice coat of black paint. Personally, I don’t think it matters as it is quite hidden when worn.
After a double spray of flat black paint.
Now, I purchased 10 pairs of 10.5mm (7/16″) replacement heel tips for £7.50 (roughly $15 Australian, including shipping to Australia) on eBay. I have found that the majority of heels are around 10mm, there was one instance I had a stiletto of roughly 8mm and all that was required was some grinding/filing to obtain the required size. The shoes pictured are 10.5mm.
In some cases the size of the pin hole may be too large for the regular 2.9mm (7/64″) pin, so some convertors to 3.1mm (or what they call Flexitubes) may be required. I purchased 8 pairs for £2.85 (roughly $5.7 Australian, including shipping to Australia) from Stiletto Heel Tips Online.
To fix the new heel to the shoe, first make a very basic shoehorn. Notice the wood is at an angle, as the sole of the shoe as actually at an angle to the heel. A slightly thicker piece of wood would have been better.
Hammer the new heel all the way down till the plastic heel is touching the shoe’s heel. Make sure it is facing the right direction, the curved size facing back, and the flat side facing front.
The completely repaired high heel shoes for the cost of less than $2.50 Australian.
