Upcycle Bike Tires

A very worthy endeavor and worth wild mention is Upcycling of old bike tires. I didn’t realize just how many old tires Eric had accumulated over the years. Until one day we decided to start straightening up the basement and he brought out a trailer full of old tires.

My first project involved saving our favorite pairs of Telic flip flops!

Supplies

My one tire was enough to re sole 1 pair of my flip flops and 1 pair of my husbands flip flops.

  • Small hand clamps
  • (Optional) *pieces of wood
  • **E6000 or Shoe goo
  • Electric Dremel
  • old tire
  • Utility knife
  • Utility scissors
    • *I didn’t end up using the wood to clamp down on the shoes because it didn’t work in this situation due to the rounded footbed of the flip flops.
    • ** I used both shoe goo and E600 adhesive and they each have their pros and cons.
    • The E6000 was both easier and more difficult to use. It was harder to use because the fine tip keeps squirting out adhesive long after you are done using it but the fine tip also better controlled the amount of adhesive being applied. I feel like the E6000 dried faster and better than the shoe goo.
    • The shoe goo was straight forward and easy to use except that excessive amounts of adhesive all came out at once without any way to control it. the shoe good might have taken 15 minutes to dry vs 10 minutes for the E6000

Instructions

  1. Wash and degrease the sole of the shoes. I used a dab of dawn dish soap and pulled out all small rocks and slivers.
  2. Cut the tire
    • There is a metal wire bead on both sides of the outside edge of the tire.scissors will not be able to cut through this.
      • Use the utility knife to cut a slit on the inside of the head.
    • Use the scissors to then cut the circumference of the tire until the bead wire is removed.
    • Repeat for other side.
  3. Now cut the tire side walls away.
  4. Now only the tire tread remains
    • My tire tread was 4” wide
  5. Measure the length and widest part of the shoe sole.
    • For me this was 4.25” x 11”
    • So I cut 2 pieces to 4.25” and 3 pieces to 4”
  6. If the tires have leak seal solvent then now is the time to scrape that out.
  7. Using the Dremel sand down the inside of the tire tread until the fine threaded hair is exposed.
  8. (Optional) for some people it is advisable to use the Dremel to roughen the surface of the sole of the shoe. For my silicone flip flops that were heavily worn down this wasn’t necessary.
  9. Apply painters tape/ masking tape around the outside side sole to protect it from the adhesive.
  10. Starting at the top of the shoe apply adhesive directly to the bottom of the shoe. Only apply enough to adhere a single piece of tread at a time
    • Hold the piece on for a minute and then apply a clamp directly to the center of the tread and to any rounded or raised areas.
      • Optional: if your shoes are completely flat then now is a good time to sand which the finished shoe between the two pieces of wood and clamps it.
    • After applying all pieces I simply placed my feet on top of the shoes and used my body weight to help secure the adhesive contact to the bottom of the shoe.
  11. After 20-30 minutes you can use the scissors to cut away the excess tread.
  12. Allow them to sit for a few days before wearing.