suitforcourt
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2012
- Messages
- 8,242
- Reaction score
- 19,660
Thanks. I do think they're much improved.
I kind of fumbled my way to it: First I went at them with acetone and a towel to remove the dye that I applied, followed by acetone and a toothbrush to get the creases.
This wasn't the best way to go however, as I found what you really want to do is go at a very small part at a time quite vigorously with the toothbrush dipped in acetone, followed by a quick wipe of the "sludge" left behind with a rag. Keep working in very small sections as you go around the shoe, cleaning up as much as you can with the rag. You can't really get it all however - there is residue left behind no matter what you do. It's messy and time consuming, not gonna lie.
I let them rest a bit and then tried to clean them up with mineral spirits, but I found that it wouldn't touch the acetone/dye/gunk residue, so I did a last pass with acetone once more, which got them pretty clean.
So I think it would be best to do the hard toothbrush scrub first, followed by a final acetone wipe to get the last of the residue. You'd save a round of acetone this way - and you use a hell of a lot of acetone - which can't be good for the leather in the long term. (Or you, I guess)
I did give them the water droplet test, and I do think I'm down to bare leather now. I did 2 rounds of Bick 4, just out of pity for the leather.
For next steps, I have some of the lower end Saphir light brown cream, but I was thinking of getting a pig bristle brush from the Hanger Project during the current sale and adding in a Saphir Medaille d'or light brown (or cognac?) jar while I'm at it. I don't have any colored Collonil creme, just the neutral stuff.
Thoughts?
Thanks for sharing. Try the Collonil 1909 light brown. That's the one I use.