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Rookie darkens shoes with common household objects

bleachboy

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I ordered a bunch of Saphir stuff the other day. It came in the mail this afternoon, and of course I had to bust it out and try it out.

A few years ago, Brooks Brothers unloaded a bunch of Crockett and Jones Weymouths (Peal & Co) for really cheap. So I bought a pair. Unfortunately, I never really liked the color too much as I considered it too pale, plus an incompetent cobbler Topy'd them then used black sole edge dressing on it. Ugh.

I applied one coat of Saphir Medium Brown shoe cream to these guys, and I was like "Hey, they're a little darker!" So I proceeded to cream and buff the shoes about six times, trying to be a little creative with some antiquing effects. Finally, I applied Saphir medium brown wax polish.

I think I could do something even nicer with some Dark Brown Saphir.

The original shoes:

Ant-1.jpg



The finished product:

Ant-7.jpg



The tools:

Ant-tools.jpg
 

deveandepot1

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Originally Posted by Achilles_
I like the new color better.

+1. Though the older color was fine too.
 

chrisb0109

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Work on the areas where dark cream has settle into the creases, and I think they'll look nice.
 

MrGimpy

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Add my vote to the new colour column.

The toes still look quite light, though. Perhaps a little more dark polish around the medallion would be appropriate?
 

bbhewee

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Hard to say how much darker they are. The white balance on your camera must be set to automatic (notice the difference in color on the hardwood floor, which I doubt you've stained in the process
laugh.gif
).
 

Doc4

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I actually have a pair of those Peals, and really like the original colour.

The new version has some merit, but looks too mottled right now. But following this advice ...

Originally Posted by chrisb0109
Work on the areas where dark cream has settle into the creases, and I think they'll look nice.

... should help.
 

voxsartoria

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It looks like a pair of lighter shade shoes shined with a darker shade of shoe polish. The overall effect says, "I ran out of the right shoe polish," or "blind shoe shine boy shined my shoes."

If you really don't like the shade, send it to someone who knows how to refinish them properly, like a local shoe guy or an expert like RIDER.


- B
 

Usul

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I cleaned a pair of shoes with OxyClean once and was not pleased to find that it turned them from a chestnut to mid-brown with hints of eggplant. I suppose the technical term for this is "oxidation".
 

Jack2000

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They look dirty. Read the shoe antiquing thread that Ron Rider wrote. You need to strip them and use some dye, then polish.
 

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