How To - Jordan 1 TD x Vapor Sole Swap

Great work!!

Nice job

This is awesome and thank you for posting this!!

Honestly looks great aside from the area on the heal that you addresses. Can't wait to see the left

LOL. Idle minds think alike. Great job, especially for your first time. I've seen quite a few sole swap's on instragram and started to get the itch. I think that the Jordan 1 or 10 low cleats would be the best bet to use as an upper for it. I like the idea of using the TWFF as your sole. another cheap option may also be the Roshe Tour G as they seem to have quite a few of those on ebay, especially in the olive green color.

Props, looks good. Appreciate all the detail you went into.

That is incredible work!

What motivated you to do this?

And what size do you wear, just in case... ?

I don’t know if I have the patience to do all that, but it’s something I’d wanna try someday.

??????

Awesome job! Wow!

Looks really good. How many hours you have in this project. It’s gotta be better than binge watching television.

Thank you everyone for the kind words. I'm happy with how the first one turned out and devastated about the heel. That being said, I cant even really see it when I look down, so there's that.I bought a used pair of LCs because the sole looked to be in great condition. I thought they might separate easier too. I'm done buying used shoes. LOL. A) They stunk. B) They stunk even more when I poured acetone in them. C) Even though they were in good shape, they were still more beat up than I would have liked. I'd rather just spend the extra $25-30 and get new shoes. I did think about the Roshe G Tour as well. It's gonna come down to what I can find and what's cheapest. I saw a pair of XI cleats in blue that piqued my interest. They would look great on the Roshe G Tour blue sole.
Thank you for the kind words. I got motivated by @mission_scratch . His custom paint thread is awesome. I'm not artistic or creative so I thought about what else I could do with shoes. Lo and behold I fell down this rabbit hole. I'm a 9.5. :)It's tough to say how much time I put in. I did a little here and there. I never really sat down for hours to accomplish it. I did 15-30 minutes here and there. If I had to guess I'd say it took maybe... 4 hours so far? I could cut that time down significantly on subsequent attempts. I also think I could go faster if I was focused on this instead of doing it when I had time.

Great write up! Thanks for the info.

Hmmm, not sure I need to go down this rabbit hole. Decisions decisions.

Great write up! Ive done this a few times over the past year. One big tip i will add for you on removed the sole of the jordan football cleat. Use a hair dryer around the edges. Let it get really hot not burning hot but hot to touch. A heat gun will get to hot so use a hair dryer. Then paint acetone along the edge of the sole and the upper. If the sole is hot enough the lower will start to peal away when the acetone hits it. Heat plus acetone will kill the bond of the glue. After many hours and methods ive found this works the best and you can remove a sole in like 10-15 minutes and you will have no need for a Dremmel. You wont have the extra rubber left over. It will come out looking like your donor golf shoe upper. Again heat plus the acetone is the key to success.

here are three I did this year.

Jordan 9 olive upper Nike TW 14 lower

Jordan 11 football upper and Nike lunar vapour lower.

Jordan 2 low with Nike lunar Golf lower.

Awesome idea. Thanks! The heat doesnt hurt the leather at all on the upper? After my first oops with the acetone I've been hesitant to use acetone at all on my uppers.

acetone is not great for leather it will dry it out a bit so best to keep the heat from the hair dryer only on the soles and aimed at the sidewall of the sole. Once its hot you can create a small separation of sidewall of the sole and the upper. Then use the acetone and it legit just peels away. You'll have to continue to heat and acetone but it will allow you to remove the whole sole in one piece. Go slow but you'll see how easy it starts to separate.

I rushed it a couple times cause like you i was time poor to dedicate to this with having young kids at home. Then i had a day home alone and was able to take my time and it made all the difference in the world. Feel free to PM me with any other questions. The only other thing i did differently then you is when i was gluing them together i used a proper shoe making sole press to use pressure to glue the golf lower to the upper. You'll need to find a shoe maker to do this which might be hard in the Corona times we are in. That what Govrn uses and why he has such good results. I happen to work in the shoe industry so i had one to use. Your doing amazing though so far especially since your doing it all your self and from home. I just didn't want to go thru all the work of getting the upper and donor lower separate only to have the glue fail down the track so i went the proper shoe maker way.

I have a new pair of indoor moccasins! ROFL. Started the heat acetone method and it really works well. No damage to the sole or upper.

The bubbling on that upper already noticeable, acetone will do that on a leather. I would not use acetone on a leather.

It's under the sole line and these were for donor soles, I just thought it was funny. What do you use to separate the leather upper from the sole?

just in experience have ruin 11s cleaning them with acetone, when trying to remove excess glued.

This is awesome, I love to tinker with stuff I will definitely be trying a swap like this in the near future.

Well done!

Thanks! I have been lazy. I have been ripping shoes apart, but not putting anymore back together. I have 2 donor soles ready to go. 1 is offwhite and wont look great with the uppers I have. The other is ready to go. Then I have 2 pairs of uppers ready to go. Ripping them down has become quite a bit easier thanks to the heat gun / acetone method. My new concern is that these will de-sole mid round. I'm not sure how to fix that other than getting a professional cobbler to glue these. I'm looking into a DIY sole machine. Who knows.

Same size upper and lower?

In this case I used the same size upper and lower. I have heard that on some models Govrn requests the lower to be 0.5 size smaller. I have run into some of this. It varies from model to model. Now I'm afraid I might have spikes that are 0.5 too big for what I have. Oh well. It's all in fun.

Looks great! Would love the Jordan 1s in a low!

Thanks for this. I emailed govrn to get some info and they said for the Jordan 1 MCS they use the same size donor sole. I want to do a Jordan 4 as well and they said go .5 size down.

So he has you buy both pairs, ship them to him and he does the work? That's it? I'd think that limits in what he can charge since he's only charging for his labor.

Govrn just gave you the info? Thats pretty cool. I should have called, but I figured that it was going to be proprietary or something.

I have no idea what he charges, but its the cost of knowing you won't de-sole mid round. I'm always gonna be walking around wondering if the soles are gonna rip off my upper. Lol.

It's $200 a pair for labor through Govrn

I'm planning to do these two pairs in white. Will post pictures to show progress. https://www.nike.com/t/jordan-1-retro-mcs-low-mens-baseball-cleat-bM8M6j/CJ8524-100https://www.nike.com/t/jordan-1-retro-mcs-mens-baseball-cleat-9DFk2J/AV5354-100