How do you polish leather boots to a mirror shine?

[Quality Leather]

Frito,
I get them from one of my OEM leather coating suppliers. I am not sure, but LRT might have a clear or patent leather top coat. You can give Jon a call at 267-228-5682 to find out.

Accumulator,
It isn't a miracle product, just a clear top coat. It is basically like painting a car except you are using products designed for leather. I don't remember how long it took me to remove the old kiwi and stuff on there, but it probably wasn't to long with some acetone.

[JasonC8301]

OMG, just had a sick thought about arguments surrounding depth and clarity of shoe polishes. Pictures can say alot but based upon the Quality Leather picture, the boot seems to lack smoothness and depth/clarity. It is shiny and dipped in glass type of look but the leather just isn't there in smoothness, more of an orange peel'd leather.

I'll get a closer pictures of my boots soon. They are in my basement somewhere.

[Accumulator]

Originally Posted by Quality Leather

Accumulator,
It isn't a miracle product, just a clear top coat. It is basically like painting a car except you are using products designed for leather..

Poor choice of words on my part I sometimes come across wrong...

Is the resulting finish something an old-school guy would like, or is it, uhm....really *different* from the military/etc. spit-shine look? Also, how do you think it'd hold up in real-world use? I'm always surprised at how well spit-shined footwear (usually)recovers from abusive experiences.

JasonC8301- "...in my basement somewhere"?!? Heh heh, you going all civilian on us?

[qwertydude]

I remember polishing shoes for inspection in the navy. I ended up just applying a lot of shoe polish to a shoe, usually with just a bare finger, then letting it completely dry and harden. Then using one of those torch lighters to melt it evenly. This let it soak into the pores of the leather so it doesn't flake off when you walk. Then to really shine it to a mirror gloss I used old school TW polishing compound. You can't use oil based compounds cause it ruins the wax. Then to give it just and added pop I'd layer a coat of zymol cleaner wax, again water based so as not to ruin the wax base. I'll post some before and after pics as soon as I get back.

[wrow]

I use Lincoln polish. Shoe trees are key, the best are the nice solid cedar ones.

1) Get a clean, plain white t-shirt and wrap it around one finger, really tight.

2) Suck on it, seriously get it wet with your spit enough for it to be see-through like a wet t-shirt contest.

3) Very lightly rub your finger on the Lincoln polish in a small circular motion. If you look at your t-shirt it should now have a very light coat of wax on it, you should still see some white from the t-shirt.

4) Spit lightly on the shoes/boots.

5) In increasingly smaller circles, LIGHTLY rub the polish onto the boot/shoe in small 1.5x1.5" sections at a time.

6) Rotate and use a cleaner part of the cloth when it gets dirty, until you've done the whole boot/shoe.

The result takes a very long time. Once you're done, you have a nice solid mirror shine with NO "Orange Peel" effect, like you get with quick shine products and when you melt the polish onto the shoe/boot.

The best part about doing it this way, is once its shined up, just a quick wipe down of the dust, and an even quicker light coat of polish will increase the shine of the leather, and only takes 5-10 minutes of upkeep per week.

I touch up my low quarters for about 2 minutes each day, as a result, I've been accused of wearing corfram/patent leather shoes. Personally I think well shined shoes look 10x better than the fake stuff.

[Quality Leather]

Originally Posted by Accumulator

Poor choice of words on my part I sometimes come across wrong...

Is the resulting finish something an old-school guy would like, or is it, uhm....really *different* from the military/etc. spit-shine look? Also, how do you think it'd hold up in real-world use? I'm always surprised at how well spit-shined footwear (usually)recovers from abusive experiences.

I am not sure if you would like it or not. It probably looked closer to the patent leather shoes than a pair of spit shined boots. It should hold up a lot better as this is a coating actually designed for leather. It will have greater durability and abrasion resistance than kiwi. The biggest problem with the coating is that it isn't designed to handle the amount of flexing behind the toe that would take place with boots. The coating could be modified with flex additives to do it, but it hasn't been done.

Originally Posted by JasonC8301

OMG, just had a sick thought about arguments surrounding depth and clarity of shoe polishes. Pictures can say alot but based upon the Quality Leather picture, the boot seems to lack smoothness and depth/clarity. It is shiny and dipped in glass type of look but the leather just isn't there in smoothness, more of an orange peel'd leather.

I'll get a closer pictures of my boots soon. They are in my basement somewhere.

You are correct that it isn't baby butt smooth, but that wasn't what I was trying to achieve. This was an experimental proof of concept. I was just trying to see what was possible. Now that I see what could be achieved, I could go back and put multiple coatings on the boots and sand it smooth. It would basically be like painting a car. At that point, it would probably have that depth and smoothness you are looking for.

Anyway, I had an idea to possibly sell coatings for this application. When I was in the Marines in the early nineties, I would have killed for something like this.

[Accumulator]

Quality Leather- Thanks for the additional info. From the sound of it, that isn't the product for me...my footwear undergoes a *LOT* of flexing and I need products that'll allow for that. Think I'll stick with what's been working for me for decades, when I try to fix stuff that isn't broken I usually regret it.

[qwertydude]

Here's a pictorial of my shoe polishing.


This is a before. I cleaned it up with a spray detailer.


Here's me layering wax on with a bare finger, let each thin coat dry before applying the next.


This is why you let it dry, you don't want wet polish lighting on fire. Use the torch to gently melt the wax, don't hold it in place or you'll burn the leather.


Use water to moisten a strip of t-shirt material and apply a small amount of the polishing compound to the strip and polish till it shines. Then use a fresh area and just use the water to further polish off the swirls the compounding left behind.


Look at that shine! You can see my bookshelf to the left and can tell my walls are blue.

Keep in mind these are 6 year old shoes that I used to stand watch in. There are gouges and scratches in the leather underneath. The reason I never clear coated my shoes, like other's did, is that once you do there's no going back. Damage the clear and you'll have to strip and repaint. Some people kept a cleared set of shoes or corfam but only for inspection. All I did was put on another coat of wax on my work shoes and they came out inspection ready. I can usually polish a shoe in about 10-15 minutes and they go from trashy to shiny. Yes sirree I use my engineering knowledge even when polishing boots, just because everyone else spends hours to get a shine like this doesn't mean I have to. I found a quicker easier way to achieve a mirror finish using real shoe polish.

[JasonC8301]

A toothbrush to get the dirt out of the soles/edges can make that shoe stand out even more than it already is. That shine is nuts by the way!

A lot of folks just did the tip of the boot where as I found doing the entire boot (well the front and the back, the rest of my jungle boots were cloth, made the stand out even more along with adding the Kiwi honor guard edge dressing.

[qwertydude]

Thanks I was just showing the shine, I also shine the rest of the shoe after, but not like the toe cause it will crack. I also take a nylon brush to get out the excess wax built up in the edges. But everyone else in a-school was always jealous of my shoes and on inspection day even the guys doing inspection wondered how I got my shoes that shiny, I even had one kneel down and touch my shoe juse to see if it was oily or paint and he scuffed the shine and apologized thinking it was fake. They thought I must've spent hours when in fact it only took about 5 minutes to touch up the wax that was currently on there.

[Frito Bandito]

Thanks again for all the tips! Sorry for the picture quality, they were taken with my phone but you still get the idea.





Those are my duty boots, they are only about 6 months old but see a lot of abuse daily. I concentrate on the toe and heel since they don't flex much and aren't as prone to cracking. My process was to apply the polish with a cloth diaper wrapped around one finger, using less and less as I went. After 5 or so coats I spritz water on the boot and buff it off using a microfiber. Rinse, lather and repeat as needed. The rest of the boot gets a light coat of polish to keep it looking good but not so much that it will flake off after 10 minutes. The sole of the boots get Griffin self shining creme, which work very well to keep them looking black and new. I also use the Griffin creme on my duty belt, including my holster, magazine case, handcuff cases, etc.

I've already had quite a few compliments from supervisors about my boots.

[JasonC8301]

Just a glance and the inspecting officer would move on during my days in service. I had the guys in my class during communications school say "oh there goes our sparkling boots guy to give away our position to the enemy." 6 months after school my spit shining days were over (as outlined above, in with the digital and roughed up boots, out with the analog.)

Originally Posted by qwertydude

Thanks I was just showing the shine, I also shine the rest of the shoe after, but not like the toe cause it will crack. I also take a nylon brush to get out the excess wax built up in the edges. But everyone else in a-school was always jealous of my shoes and on inspection day even the guys doing inspection wondered how I got my shoes that shiny, I even had one kneel down and touch my shoe juse to see if it was oily or paint and he scuffed the shine and apologized thinking it was fake. They thought I must've spent hours when in fact it only took about 5 minutes to touch up the wax that was currently on there.

Glad it worked out for you Frito Bandito. Now make your gun that shiny, LOL j/k.