Question for you military people

[Artha]

How do I make these boots I have uber shiny? Not just like 'Wow, that's a nice polish' shiny, but like 'OMG PLZ GET THOSE OUT OF DIRECT SUNLIGHT' shiny.

[Jonty]

What I do is dampen a piece of coton or tissue, rub it on the polish, spread it out to the areas I want to shine, then rub it in a circular motion for a while. I breath out on it to fog it up, and continue rubbing it in. Put more polish if I need to. It gets shiny very quickly, like a fucking mirror.

[Edited on 9-29-2004 by Jonty]

[Fallen]

You can cheat and use a chemical called leather luster. If done properly it can look terrific. However, it will eventually crack and you will have to strip the boots down to their base leather and re-apply.

As for the actual way of making them look kickass, some people swear by using heat guns to warm up the Kiwi either in the can or while on the boot. Others swear by panti-hose used as for the last buffing. There are many various other methods and techniques, but using water is almost always involved in them.

[HarmNone]

Here ya go, Artha!

http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/generalinfo/ht/spitshine.htm

[The Korean]

I cannot give my secrets out, or I'd have to kill you.

[Artha]

:(

And also thanks for people who didn't kill me but did tell me how to do ubershine.

[Slider]

Another good way is too put a really thick coat of polish on, then stick the boots in the oven and heat them up. It opens the pores of the leather and lets the polish soak in, also helps to waterproof 'em.

And who uses a heat gun? Just use a lighter to set the can of polish on fire. Wait till it melts, then put the cap back on...:up:

[Artha]

I think I'm using a different kind of polish. It's a few years old (but still good) and is called Guardsman's Gloss. It's English.

I just usually put polish on, and then make it a point to rub em in grass before I get to formation, but if you want em to shine just give it a real good brush shine, then dampen a cotton ball and get a little bit of polish on it, smear it on in a circular motion and work it in. From that point take a clean dampened cotton ball and then buff it out. You can use a heat gun for the base shine, but beyond that its worthless.

[Chemical Ali McBeal]

Polish them a bit with regular boot polish and then...here's the big secret...coat the tips with Mop-n-Glow.

edit: This is the lazy-fuck navy way. btw.

[Edited on 9-30-2004 by Chemical Ali McBeal]

[Axhinde]

I cheat and use a heat gun. Just spead a ton of kiwi on the boots evenly with a cotton ball, use the heat gun to melt the kiwi into the leather, wait for it to fog up, and use a damp cotton ball to shine it up! Takes about 10 minutes and you'll be blinding pedestrians like nothing else.

[Jack]

The hardest part is building up the polish on new boots. If you pile on big heavy coats it cracks, so I put on a whole lot of thin coats, and it eventually smooths out the leather. Use a clean t-shirt, black kiwi, and plenty of water to start out. For the final shine, use neutral kiwi, and a little less water, you want the cloth to be slightly damp, not sopping wet. Of course, my way takes a long ass time, but it worked well for me.

[Straight-up]

My method:

You need the following:

Water in a bowl
Kiwi black polish (not parade gloss)
an all cotton t-shirt (the old army brown ones work great)
a hairdryer


Start out by getting the towel wrapped around your first two fingers.

Then tighten it down by twisting it.

Then get it wet in the bowl and put a good bit of polish on it.

Apply a thick layer to your boots using a circular motion.

Apply heat with the hairdryer to dry the polish to a haze. Let that boot sit and do the other.

Now get a clean spot on the t-shirt and get it wet. Get a small amount of polish on the t-shirt.

Polish the boots lightly in a circular motion until they start to shine and make sure the shirt stays wet.

Repeat from the top with slightly less polish. (Ie put a thick coat on, dry it, then polish it off with a smaller amount). Keep doing this until you are barely using any polish on the t-shirt. This takes quite a long time to do. From scratch it takes me several hours to get a highly polished pair of boots done.

The theory behind this is that you are applying a layer of wax...letting it dry. Then putting a layer on top of it and so forth until you can finally no longer see the grain of the leather.

Make sure your boots are broken in before you do this. If you polish unbroken-in boots, the polish will flake off and crack where the boots bend.

I strongly suggest you not do this for "field boots" if you are planning on going into the woods. You don't want shiny boots in the field anyway, they reflect light. Just put on several thick coats of polish and remove it without polishing. (this waterproofs and conditions the leather).




Straight

Use a toothbrush. Like, for your shoes, I mean. I know this about boots and whatnots, but cleaning white sneakers with Shout and toothbrushes really puts the shine back in them. Plus I think my oakley S.I. assault shoes pwn any set of boots on the market, steel-toed or not.

[Kuyuk]

I may not be in the military, but I do need polished shoes everyday.


I usually use the heat method, it's fast and easy.


K,

[Hips]

Hahaha, my boyfriend in the AF thought this entire thread was a riot.

And he polishes my boots for me, so I have no contributions to this thread. :(

[Tsa`ah]

You can cheat like my brother does if there's already plenty of polishings on the boots already.

Someone mentioned mop and glow, my brother uses black magic car wax.

Using something other than shoe polish means you're going to have to strip the polish off the boots more often however.

[Edited on 9-30-2004 by Tsa`ah]

[Taernath]

I wouldn't use leather luster.

What I do is this:

- Spread kiwi/lincoln wax on the boot.

- Melt it with a lighter

- Dampen a cotton ball and rub the boot in circular motions

You might have to do this a couple times if it's a new boot. Corcoran and jungles usually shine up quite nicely, and depending on the type of boot it could take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.