Responses: Hispanic footshell coloring

Rick

Description

Title:

Responses: Hispanic footshell coloring

Creator:

Rick

Date:

3/26/2013

Text:

Original post:
I am working with a 40-something Hispanic male with a transtibial amputation.  He has chosen to have a flat black socket color & likes the look of the endoskeletal components, but he hates the Caucasian footshell, & is too light colored for the brown footshell.  He has requested information about having his footshell airbrushed to better match his skin tone as he likes to wear sandals in the summer.
 
Any info on this matter is greatly appreciated.
 
Responses summorized:
College Park offers a jet black foot shell
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The only thing I have found to stick to the foot shells is Gorilla glue super glue .Which will be stiff till it breaks under stress then you may be able to color over the glue. Anything else won't last. Freedom has a new shell that is between negroid and causcasian, works for most Latinos.
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Call a anaplastologist and have your patient go to him for coloring
the footshell.  Or, you can take a reliable color digitial picture to capture his true foot color and other particularities. The lighting has to be right. Another option is to buy a 3/4 hieght sock or silicone slipper that slides over the foot.  Calling Mr.Graves in Florida is also worth a try
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I'm pretty sure that freedom Inovations offers a flat black foot shell.   Our tech wears the black foot shell  to match his carbon fiber socket.  
 
Also, we have had luck dying the foot shells using clear pvc cleaner and plastic dyes 
 
It's done similarly to the technique used in this YouTube video
 
<URL Redacted>
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We can make you a footshell in medium brown, or paint it with
New Skin colored how ever you want it.

.  Kingsley Mfg Co
800-854-3479
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Wrap it with black leather
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Rick, I run a C-Fab in Michigan and can possibly be some help. I can spray your foot shell to a color your patient chooses with New Skin. Send me a color swatch and  foot shell and I will paint/spray as close as I can to the swatch. Cost would be $125.00. My contact info: Pro Fab Technology, Leslie, MI  Ph-517.589.5160, The spray skin will hold up well if using sandals, barefoot use out side will wear of at heel & toe. Let me know if I can help. Larry Malec CTP
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Hmmm...that is a good question.  Painting the shell might work if you lightly sand it first to get some teeth on the material. 
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I do not think the airbrushed paint will hold up but you could cover the foot only with a Skinergy cover and paint to match.
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We recently covered a foot shell in black cream cow leather to get the same effect. 
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Everything you try to paint it with WILL rub off sooner than later. The only way to go is find out who makes the shell (Kingsley in Costa Mesa, Ca makes a lot of them for the different feet manufacturers) for his foot and ask them if they will pour up a black or super dark brown.  But the shell is going to have to be the color wanted all the way thru or it will rub off from the friction of the shoe even if it has a sock on it.
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We spray our own custom skins with PRS colors. It sticks well to foot shells.
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Ronnie Graves at PRS in Bushnell FL.  He makes the uflate? Skins in 30 different colors/shades.  He might be able to help. 
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SEM paints make rubber paint which is advertised as vinyl paint.  They make a ton of colors and you can paint these on metal and barely scrape them off.  Mostly you have to file them off metal so be very careful about overspray.  They smell pretty bad, which is good because the solvents leave fast resulting in faster drying.  Heating the part to be painted first in an oven helps for a quick stick and cure.
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THANK YOU ALL for your time & suggestions.
 pt has yet to decide whether he wants to go jet black or have on emade in a more suitable skin color.

Rick Milen, CPO, PTA
NEXSTEP, Inc.
Prosthetic Specialists
West Lawn, PA

                          

Citation

Rick, “Responses: Hispanic footshell coloring,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 7, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/234890.