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Old April 8th, 2004, 05:45 PM   #23
A Harris
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: California, Central Coast
Posts: 4,520
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How exactly did you do that?
Here is a technique I have used to good effect:

1) As Tony said, most leather does not absorb much polish. You have to use polish that is MUCH darker than the color of the leather you are antiquing. For tan shoes I use a mixture of 60% black shoe cream, 30% red shoe cream and 10% tan shoe cream. I mix it up thoroughly on a paper plate, with a knife. Then I coat the shoes liberally with it. Not a consistent coat over the whole surface of the shoe though. Use your imagination. You will want to accent the high points of the shoe (toe cap, outer heel counter etc.) and put only a light coat over the area where the shoe flexes. If you go crazy there, you will have to do it over (when you wear the shoe for the first time, antiquing over the flex-points turns to ugly.) Let the shoe cream set for a few hours - I let it sit overnight.

2) Use a wax polish to strip the cream back off. I use brown Kiwi polish for tan shoes. Again, this has to be done strategically, as the solvent in the wax will take ALL the cream off very quickly if you are not careful. The idea is to use your imagination, creating a pleasing dark/light contrast. It is best if you study shoes that have already been professionally antiqued first - that way you have a good idea where they should be dark and where they should be light.

3) This is going to sound funny, but after I have coated/stripped the shoes with wax, I wrap them in plastic and pop them in the freezer for half an hour. This does something to the chemical composition of the wax I think. You can raise a much higher shine and it is a much more durable finish. And I've never had any ill effects from it.  Remove the shoes from the freezer, let them warm back up to room temperature, and then polish with an old silk tie. The results are comparable to Berluti. With tan shoes, I get wonderful and very subtle red and green highlights using this technique.  

A few more things. You are going to want to practice on an old pair of shoes first. If you go at a new pair of Edward Greens first thing, don't come crying to me if you mess them up :-) Altough it is hard to ruin shoes this way - you can always strip the finish back and start over. I haven't had the guts to take acetone to my shoes yet, but I'm guessing the results would be even more stunning if you could strip most of the existing polish off. Also, you can do great things with a buffing wheel - this basically burns the leather at the high points, giving it a very dark finish.

I did these Edward Green Montford's with the aforementioned process.

Before:

 

After:







The results were quite dramatic with these shoes, because, while never worn, they were probably originally made 3-4 years ago. The finish had become somewhat dull and the leather was pretty thirsty. If they were fresh from the Edward Green factory, the results would not have been the same unless I had stripped them down first.


Last edited by A Harris : August 17th, 2007 at 02:26 AM.
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