Article#200320: What is a Sneaker Tooling Mockup? And How is It Made?
Mock up is very much like sculpting. In many design industries, mock ups are done by experienced craftsman, such as automobile design. In sneaker design, mock ups are made utilizing CNC machines due to many intricate design details a sneaker bottom requires.
Generally there are 4 stages of making a mock up bottom, rough shaping, blocking, detailing and fine touch. These 4 stages are not official terms but my observation at factory where mockups are made.
What is a Mockup…
In industrial design a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a designed object, used for demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup is a prototype that provides at least part of the functionality of a system and enables testing of a design.
What is a mockup made of…
There are many types of mock-up materials, such as cardboard, clay, Plaster of Paris, wood, foam, etc. In sneaker design mock ups are made in a type low fidelity PU compound which can be easily carved, sanded, shaped and polished. It is a squarish block of light pink colored wood alike solid board made of epoxy called Epoxy Tooling Board. This epoxy board is made with two parts of compound that once mixed is hardened in room temperature which has the characteristics of clay or wood to be carved and shaped.
Rough Shaping…
During this stage a “fat” needle is used to rough out the overall shape of the designed bottom. Once the excess materials are removed the general shape of a sneaker bottom is revealed. Simply put rough shaping is to shape a rectangle piece of epoxy into the basic shape of specific shoe bottom.
Blocking…
In this stage a smaller needle is used to carve out areas of a sole, such as forefoot, heel area, mid foot arch, etc. based on the design. First the overall shape/ silhouette of a bottom is designed, which is the rough shaping part of the CNC process. Then how the outsole (the surface that touch the ground) is break into forefoot; press areas; heel; mid-foot; heel; toe; side wall; etc. which is essentially the blocking part of the CNC process.
Detailing…
Design informations are started to show in detailing. Various sizes of fine needles (depends on outsole design) are implemented since the blocked areas are much smaller. The speed the needle moving is significantly slower as well. Take a look at the very fine sidewall design details in the picture below. These are very intricate CNC machine work indeed.
Fine Touch…
Final touch is done by skilled technicians, which is to exam any missing areas or hard to reach areas by a needle operated during a CNC process. CNC machine needle can only be operated in a vertical fashion yet a shoe bottom is designed in 360 degree fashion. Even though most CNC machine has a moving axis arm that spins while needle is in operating there are always areas that a needle is missing a spot or two.
After Thought…
Until today manual work is still an essential part of footwear manufacturing process. This can only mean machines still don’t have the flexibility of a pair of hands, and human hands have the versatility doing multiple task yet machines in manufacturing can only operate a single operation. However, the amount of details a designer can put into a bottom design certainly is achievable because of machine assistant.
