We LOVE that your demand has us out of stock in any of our lines! It’s getting to the edge of spring, and we sure encourage you try any of the 7 (3 Suede and 4 Athletic) size 7 Sandals we have available, especially the all-black Panther Athletics. Stay tuned for our announcement on the new OESH, in the next several business days…we’re busy, and delighted to be so. Thanks so much!

and soft Suede Sandals

have been in great demand, especially since the beginning of March.

Each of the styles deploy the robust cantilever midsole of our sold out Classics and still available Lizards, but the consistency of your buying OESH Sandals has been another gratifying business development for us. For sure we knew the shoes were going to be our bread and butter sellers. But the Sandals–especially since we had to become expert cobblers to make them properly–were a really fun way for us to expand the range of OESH in a complementary manner. And there is no doubt that you have a clear choice between them–the Athletics are able to take a rugged session of extreme activity and keep on ticking, whereas the Suedes have been especially enjoyable for casual wear and around the home.

Now in the second year of placing these onto your feet, we couldn’t be happier that we invested the energy and resources on building them for you!

But now it’s back to the grindstone…gotta get the new OESH ready for primetime!

They had to give their presentation in front of the rest of the professors and students in the department. It was the first time this year that we met not at the OESH factory but in one of their classrooms at UVa where I got to just sit and listen.

Boiling down a year’s worth of work into one hour was challenging but they did it beautifully. They had to first present all the problems with current shoe manufacturing that is largely being outsourced to China – e.g. toxic foams, adhesives, wasteful tooling, etc. Then they had to systematically review all the things we do at OESH that solve these problems – e.g., sustainable design and tooling (where even the metal molds are recycled in a local foundry) and of course, the complete absence of toxic materials.

They talked about our using FEA (Finite Element Analysis), a mathematical model, to help dictate the design of not only the OESH sole, but all the tooling and machinery used to make the sole. They discussed our using both additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques (e.g., 3D printing and CNC milling) to make all the foundation tooling as well as prototypes and final molds. They described how they determined the optimal amount and size of the cooling plates and lines needed to cool the hot injected (and recyclable) material. And they explained how they actually constructed all the foundation tooling and molds using the CNC (computerized-numeric-controlled) machinery in the factory. For example, they described how they made the cooling plates, drilling deep-bore holes into aluminum using the CNC milling machine outfitted with a specialized parabolic drill.

They did a lot. They learned a lot. As did I. At the end of the presentation they were challenged by one of the professors with the question “what was the single-most important thing that you learned at OESH this year?”

Their answer: “Machining is not trivial.” A respectful response but it conveyed all the many times that things went wrong, before they were right. There was not enough time to list the mistakes and lessons learned. E.g. the time that they hit the wrong button on the milling machine or the time that the injection-molding machine refused to work because of an inadvertently turned-on limit switch. Or the time that static electricity interfered with an otherwise perfect machine design.

At the beginning of the year, I told them a number of things that needed to be done so that we could make the entire OESH sole in the factory here. In their reviewing that list, I realized how daunting it actually was. I had forgotten that we hadn’t yet even had sufficient power to run all the new machinery. I was reminded of the trials, tribulations, and city approvals it took in our getting a whole new utility pole necessary to run the 3-phase machinery.

Their work at OESH serves as the basis for their graduating thesis. Fortunately, their presentation was very well received. In fact, if standing ovations were ever given in an academic forum, they would have gotten one.

Which means, graduation is just around the corner.

As is… the new line of OESH shoes!

That “whooshing” sound you hear is the breeze now circulating through the factory shelves, awaiting the imminent NEW OESH!!! Stay tuned, as these will be announced shortly–and we can hardly wait to show them to you. Questions about the new line? We’ve got the Answer–”YES”, they are going to deliver an extraordinary footwear experience…all their own.

Onward!

Even better…we have photos(!!!) of two remarkable OESHers, taken about 850 miles apart on the A.T. Both Kathy Duff

and Ann Mallek snapped these images of their well-enjoyed Classics on equally remarkable hikes, showcasing the best of OESH–enabling each of you the finest natural experience enabled by the world’s healthiest footwear. Knowing these two women, they’ll probably keep hiking in those Classics until they meet one another at their halfway point, somewhere near the Maryland & Pennsylvania border.

Go Kathy!

Go Ann!

As such, QUESTION: Where is Friesland and Who is the famous Emo of Friesland?

HINT:

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH:

ANSWER: From the University of Oxford website (www.ox.ac.uk)…Holland, once the home of innovative footwear (top photo), produced the first international student attending Oxford–the vaunted abbot, Emo–in 1190. In the inimitable Oxonian way, it’s also noted that this “was centuries before most of today’s leading universities existed”.

Though we’re surely delighted Emo matriculated, we’re even more thrilled that we’ve bested his native land when it comes to a superior footwear idea (below photo).

Onward!

But before saying hello to spring, we MUST post this note & tremendous photo from one of our great, creative OESHers living in western Canada.

Lisbeth–bottom view

Lisbeth–top view

Are OESHers not the coolest?

In the course of building and maintaining the OESH factory, I’ve had ample opportunity to loosen up all sorts of frozen-tight nuts, bolts, screws, and pipe connections. Many of those stubborn connections have required more than just knowing which way to turn the wrench (almost always counter-clockwise to loosen it).

Maybe one of the first things I learned is what is a “cheater bar.” I couldn’t get the threaded nozzle off the end of the water jet saw with the big fitted wrench that I bought specially for the purpose. I didn’t want to just whack the wrench with a hammer as that annoying-wandering-in-delivery-guy suggested I do. The water jet saw is after all, a precision robotically controlled device that wouldn’t respond too well to whacking. Instead I called tech support. They suggested I get a “cheater bar” so I set off to the hardware store looking for one with no clue what that actually was. Embarrassed to ask the salesperson where the “cheater bars” were (since, who knows, he might be related to that delivery guy), I kind of figured it out myself…

This was a case where my appreciation for physics, specifically, the relationship between torque, force and lever arm came in handy. I’ve appreciated that relationship for years – in fact it was that appreciation that led to my discovering a link between different types of footwear and increased knee joint torques believed to be relevant to the development and progression of knee osteoarthritis.

Now all I had to do was apply that appreciation to that stubborn nozzle.

So… a cheater bar is just a long piece of pipe (or electrical conduit) that you fit over the end of a wrench to give it more leverage, which in turn, amplifies the force at the end of the wrench. Just go to your local Home Depot (or plumbing or electrical store) to find a piece of pipe that will fit over your wrench. The longer and stronger it is, the less man (or woman) power you’ll need. I now have several nice sized cheater bars. I’ve even made some special wrenches like the one below (with the aforementioned water jet saw) to fit inside the cheater bars that I have.

The other thing I do, especially if I think the threads are rusted, is douse everything first with a lubricant like PB Blaster, which is kind of like WD-40 but, according to my friend Bill at Specialty Fasteners, is better. At least it doesn’t smell as bad as WD-40. Like soaking beans, I try to plan ahead for the next day and let the lubricant sit over night. When I apply the wrench, I do give it a (slight) whack with the hammer, to hopefully break the seal and get more PB Blaster in there.

Occasionally, I’ve had to heat up a stubborn connection with a torch (for now, I just have a propane torch… an acetylene one gets hotter) before trying again with the cheater bar and some more PB Blaster.

Even when it looks like nothing will work, don’t give up. Just seek an even bigger wrench / cheater bar and more heat. Today, the engineering students and I were trying to get a two-inch threaded pipe out of a badly rusted but salvageable steel manifold (below) that I’ve wanted to re-build (to be part of a new cooling system for the injection molding process).

The students had already tried the PB Blaster/heat/cheater bar combination with one of the students literally hanging on the end of a cheater bar… to no avail. In need of a hotter (acetylene) torch and some long pieces of steel (to make a really long wrench), I hauled the 100 pound (ish) manifold hunk over to my friends at Quality Welding. There, Jason not only fashioned up a six foot long wrench but welded the manifold to a table to anchor it. It took a number of tries back and forth but then… the impossible happened… the pipe actually started turning. We all must have muttered at the same time,”Miracle.”

The to-be re-furbished bottom half of the manifold needed a name anyways.

“Miracle,” she is.