High Heel Shoe Repair – DIY Rubber Tip Replacement

One of the biggest faults of high heels is an easily broken rubber heel tip. These rubber heel tips are compressed into the end of the heel by using a metal dowel. At times either the rubber tip falls off or the whole metal dowel falls out. When this happens, you need to replace the heel tip before wearing them.

If a rubber heel tip does fall off when you are out, sometimes you have no choice but to keep walking around therefore damaging the structure of the high heel tip. When this happens, the simple repair of replacing the rubber heel tip is then transformed into cutting, sanding, and leveling the bottom of the heel out before you can replace the rubber heel tip. We will show you step-by-step how to fix a pair of broken high heels below including detailed illustrations…

High Heel Shoe Repair_0High heel rubber tip has fallen out of the heel – The shown tools are used to repair.

High Heel Shoe Repair_001For reference, these are BEBE KYLE style high heel shoes – Gold/Silver color.

High Heel Shoe Repair_01Lay down a large towel before you begin repairing your heels so you do not damage them further.

High Heel Shoe Repair_002You will need to purchase “High Heel Rubber Tip Replacement Dowels” before fixing your heels.
(Here are some Replacement Rubber Heel Tips kits and here are QUICK TIPS)

high heel rubber tip replacementsThere are many different sizes and lengths of heel rubber tip replacements available.
(See chart below for exact size when ordering)

High heel tip replacement chartHIGH HEEL RUBBER TIP REPLACEMENT MEASUREMENT SIZE CHART:
To help you to determine the high heel rubber tip replacement size you need in mm (height and width).

High Heel Shoe Repair_03This particular heel has been walked on after the rubber tip has fallen out.

High Heel Shoe Repair_05You will need to repair the damaged heel tip before replacing the rubber tip.
(If this is not fixed, the rubber tip will NOT be level and will eventually fall out again)

High Heel Shoe Repair_06You can first try to fix the damaged heel tip by removing some of the material with a blade.

High Heel Shoe Repair_07Once you have managed to remove or smooth out the damaged heel
tip area, the dowel holder in the heel may be sticking out just a bit.
(You can file it down or use a Dremel tool to make it level with the shoe)

High Heel Shoe Repair_09We used a Dremel tool to grind down the dowel holder to be level with the bottom of the heel.
(This WILL make the shoe a bit shorter, but can be fixed by using a thicker rubber tip)

High Heel Shoe Repair_10Once the heel tip is level, smooth, & clean, you can slide or hammer the new
heel tip replacement into place. (Be sure it is facing the correct direction)

(We recommend adding one drop of superglue to the metal dowel before inserting it into shoe)


DIY – High Heel Shoe Repair

If you know of a better way to repair a pair of high heels, please leave a comment below to help our other readers who need DIY tips.

7 thoughts on “High Heel Shoe Repair – DIY Rubber Tip Replacement”

  1. I am looking for replacement caps for woman’s shoe. It has two pegs and is about 2 inches by 7/8 inches. Do you have any suggestions on where to find something like that — most sites only show stiletto caps with one peg.

  2. DIY Project Help Tips

    Stacy Newman,
    What type or brand of dress boots do you have?
    This will be needed for what type of replacement caps or dowels you will need.
    We understand you need large square or rectangle dowels for your dress boots, so with the exact shoe or boot known, we can direct you in the right direction.
    -RR

  3. I have a few pairs of dress boots with different size caps that have fallen off and am having trouble finding replacement caps for them… some have a square type and others have more of a rectangle type…I think I have typed just about everything in to Google to find supplies to fix these and the only thing there seems to be plenty of are the caps for high heels like shown in your tutorial…I would appreciate any help in finding these!…website links if possible too….Thank you in advance!…

  4. DIY Project Help Tips

    Arielle,
    Grinding down a small amount of the high heel shoes to get the tip smooth and level only removes a few mm. Once the rubber tip is in place, the heels are even if you use the correct rubber tips. It could be shorter by a few mm but you or anyone else would never notice.
    -RR

  5. Wouldn’t grinding down the one side just make them uneven since you didn’t grind down the other side?

  6. Tob Armstrong

    My wife’s high heels are always breaking, and up to now, we’ve just said that we’ll get them fixed eventually. This was a great showcase of how to fix one of the problems that she’s dealt a lot with. I’m excited to go and figure out if this will work with some of her broken heels.

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