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Munky

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Surely we all become 'vintage' at some point? I think that I am now beyond vintage. :cry:. Those are very good shoes and it is wonderful that they have stayed looking good for so long. Fraternal greetings, Munky.
 

Munky

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Re the preparation of British Army boots. There is a video clip, somewhere, that shows someone painting on molten beeswax, with a paint brush. For once, I am being serious and I suggest you don't try this at home. Yours, Munky.
 

Churchill W

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Shared video with a friend, his father was in the army, his response was:

They were nothing fancy, but He had me use a Zippo to do the same thing
I would use a zippo to heat the kiwi and melt it

Hmmm. Who's willing to flambé their finest?
I thought I read it's not a good idea to apply heat to wax as it changes its properties.
 

EnglishShoes

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Re the preparation of British Army boots. There is a video clip, somewhere, that shows someone painting on molten beeswax, with a paint brush. For once, I am being serious and I suggest you don't try this at home. Yours, Munky.

That's exactly what is shown in the Youtube vid a few posts up from yours. Boots were painted with a thick layer of bees wax after first being filled with some kind of builders sand(?!). Then blowtorched (yes, i Know) to remelt the wax. Check the video out, its only about 2 minutes long.
 

Munky

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That's exactly what is shown in the Youtube vid a few posts up from yours. Boots were painted with a thick layer of bees wax after first being filled with some kind of builders sand(?!). Then blowtorched (yes, i Know) to remelt the wax. Check the video out, its only about 2 minutes long.

Yes, sorry English. For some reason, I missed that in the first video. M
 

EnglishShoes

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No probs.

One of the worst things for me in that video is that a load of sand is clearly getting mixed with the wax as it was painted on, therefore trapping it on the leather surface. Great if you like that sand-papered look.
 

Munky

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Nothing to see here. Move on, please.
 
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EnglishShoes

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Nothing to see here. Move on, please.

If that was aimed at me, I would politely request that you come up with a new discussion point rather than just dictating what areas people can or can't continue discussing.
 

Munky

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If that was aimed at me, I would politely request that you come up with a new discussion point rather than just dictating what areas people can or can't continue discussing.
No, it certainly wasn't aimed at you at all and I apologise if it seemed that way. I made a mistake in a new post I was working on and it is very difficult to delete a whole post. Therefore I posted the 'move on' message. It has been used, before, in other threads.
Again, apologies if my post caused concern. Best wishes, Munky.
 

EnglishShoes

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Understood! :cheers:

I enjoy your posts and I did feel that the previous post was out of character. As you were...
 

lullemans72

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Gentlemen, I have some questions about the notorious mirror shine.
Just the other week, I decided I also wanted to slowly start experimenting with wax polish and mirror shines for my shoes, so I got myself a tin of Saphir neutral wax polish (the non-medaille d'or version, with the blue and gold). Given that this is my first time even using wax polish, I've been rather cautious when applying those coats. I read in a thread that if you've never applied wax on your shoe before, then you might have to count a good 10 coatings before you get anywhere close to a mirror shine.

What I did was as follows, based on reading threads on here and watching how to videos:
  • After light surface brushing, gave my two pairs of shoes a light coat of cream polish with my applicator
  • Let them sit for 5-10 mins, then buffed off with brush
  • Applied a thin coat of Saphir wax polish over both pairs of shoes using a rag and let it all soak in for 5-10 mins
  • Buffed off with brush
  • Now, I applied a new coat of wax polish only on the cap area of the shoes but with a few drops of water (for one pair, I simply let a few water droplets from the faucet touch my fingers and then applied on shoes, and for the second pair, I let a few droplets touch the rag, dipped that in my wax polish and then applied on cap areas).
  • Let it sit for a few minutes and then buffed off with a clean part of my rag, as seen on some of the videos by the hangerproject (buffing, not brushing)
  • I repeated this process two more times during which I also kept adding a few drops of water to my rag whenever I felt it wasn't running over the leather smoothly enough. So in total, I ended up giving the cap of both pairs of shoes a total of three wax coatings.
The end result I got was this:
20170625_000553.jpg


20170625_000922.jpg

I noticed the cap area of both shoes (especially the right pair) becoming a little bit shinier than before, although not by a whole lot. The cap of both pairs also feel a little smoother than the rest of the leather on the shoe.

Firstly, what I'm curious about here is if it's also necessary that I add as much as 10 layers of wax before I can achieve such a shine? Secondly, is the Saphir wax I'm using enough as is, or should I switch over to the medaille d'or series instead, and also get the Saphir mirror gloss? Lastly, how many layers of wax can one safely apply before the leather starts getting clogged up? The last thing I want is doing just that to my shoes, so I'm treading carefully. Hence why I stopped at three coats on the cap areas.
 
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Luigi_M

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Kudos to you Lullemans for experimenting.
I have read all the Thread and still haven't had the guts to give bulling a try.
Luigi
 

Luigi_M

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I must correct myself.
A few pages back I posted a photo of some old shoes I used dubbin on.
Today they look as follows
IMG_20170624_194900.jpg


I can only guess that they were corrected grain. As a matter of fact, when I bought them - more than fifteen years ago - I wasn't even aware of the existence of such a finish: I just said "hey, they are smooth" :blush:.
Anyway, my guess is that over the years in which I didn't use them, both the leather and the finish have dried, the latter maybe becoming somehow microcracked and porous. Since this has happened in years, leather and coat have shrunk very slowly so being able to follow each another.
Then the dubbin duly penetrated the finish and in a few days "plumped" the leather, making it swell and push from under against the coating that, being plasticy (pass me the generic term here), was unable to expand and so cracked.
This happened mostly on the vamp since this is the area mostly subject to bend and move. Toe and quarters are much more smooth and uncreased.
This is my poor opinion but I'd be glad to get more learned opinions from the experts, which I am not.
The only aim of this post is to show the simple facts - maybe someone will find it an useful caveat.
I still think that a little dubbin should not harm - but on genuine leather.

The road of the progress is paved with failures. :brick:
Best regards to all, Luigi

IMG_20170624_194923.jpg
 
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EnglishShoes

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I wonder if it might settle a bit if you just leave the leather to dry out a but more?

I wouldn't do much brushing while the surface is lifted like that.

I will follow your experience with interest - especially as I applied dubbin to a number of my vamps recently!
 

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