Check this out…this is an early version of an idea I had for sneaker preservation – I wanted to create custom molds out of plastic for each pair of shoes.
So my cousin and I built this wooden box and glued/taped the pegboard to the top. We sealed it up pretty good (we used plastic on the inside to make sure it was airtight), then drilled a hole on the side of the box big enough for an industrial strength vacuum cleaner.
After the box was completed, I bought a bunch of different (clear) plastic squares from tap plastics and turned my home oven up to about 500 degrees and put the plastic in. I waited until the plastic was almost melting, pulled out it as quickly as possible and laid it directly on top of the shoe on the box…I hit the switch on the vacuum and let the plastic ‘mold’ to the shoe as the vacuum sucked the plastic down. It didn’t come out as nice as I would have liked – that’s why I went the way of an engineered box – but an interesting experiment nonetheless.