Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: roo_ster on February 15, 2009, 09:30:10 PM
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Howdy:
Spent a fine afternoon polishing boots. I enjoy the task and it gets done too infrequently, these days. Luckily, I have a few pair to choose from, so that when a particular pairs' shine is no longer satisfactory, I can rotate in a new pair.
Nothing too fancy, just Kiwi, a cotton rag, and a quality horse hair brush to finish off the brush polish, my daily wear boot/shoe shine. I can do a fine spit shine, but reserve that for special occasions. I can not recall ever going to work without a shined pair of boots or shoes since I left the Army.
You might notice a pattern, trend, or commonality in the image below. Yes, I prefer black leather boots & shoes. All my clothing accessories are black leather, too. I also prefer my CCW leather to be--wait for it--black. I do not have the patience to drum up whole sets of accessories & gear in different colors. I also don't want to be the guy who mixes brown & black leather gear. Not having any brown (or cordovan, gray, etc.) makes it easy to avoid that faux pas.
Here is my stable, less one pair of GI leg boots that are presently in no shape to be shined (still wet from cleaning off lots of muck and debris from yard work).
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2F3242%2F3282614109_62a835c6d8_o.jpg&hash=96acd3a831befaeb44a061a2a4edd445edff41ce)
Going from left to right:
Nocona western boots
Hippo lower, bull hide upper, walking heel, resoled with a thin rubber sole that looks like leather (not so good for dancing, but great for walking). 16 years old. Tough as nails.
Redwing Ropers
Steel toe & shank. IMNHO, the most comfortable western-style pull-on work boot on the planet. 3 years old.
Redwing 6" Work Boots, Newer
Steel toe & shank. Second pair of this particular boot. No longer made by RW, but the same thing in another color is here:
http://www.redwingshoes.com/productdetails.aspx?prodid=1159
This is a great everyday boot/shoe that can be polished to a fare-the-well. 5 years old.
Redwing 6" Work Boots, Re-soled
Just like above, but older and have been resoled. Primary work foot gear for 5 years until I got them resoled and bought the pair above to help out. 9 years old.
Redwing Logger Boots, 9"
Steel toe, steel shank, Vibram lug sole from hades. Redwings in general are built very well. These are built like a tank: quality materials, quality execution, and lots of it. They outweigh all the boots to their right, combined. If these boots were a truck, they'd be a 1-ton Ford F350 dually 4x4 crew cab with the turbo diesel and goose neck hitch. Thye came with brown laces and I will replace them with black speed laces. More detail here:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=16342.0
4 months old.
GI Jungle Boots, Resoled
Got these courtesy of Uncle Sam. I hurriedly had them resoled with the near-flat heel-less Vibram lug sole. They wear like athletic shoes and were my favorite boots in the field where frostbite was not an issue. They were the boots I broke m leg/ankle in on my last jump. Medic gave me the choice: cut them off or pull them off. Really, there was no choice as far as I was concerned. These have had many, many miles put on them through rough conditions. The cracked leather shows it. They are on their last legs and I have been agonizing over a suitable replacement for about a year. I think my boot purchase detailed here:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=17617.0
will do the trick, once they are worn in. 12 years old.
GI Jungle Boots, Issue Sole
Not as nice as the resoled pups above, but nearly so. Also at the end of their useful lives. The pups above were re-soled early in life, these have had the lugs worn flat. 12 years old.
Son's Western Boots
My FIL (AKA, "Pop-pop") bought these for my son. They are a nice distressed leather and have a darn good rubber sole. We get western boots for the kids a size or size & a half large to last the year. They love their boots, as they are pretty much the first foot gear they could easily put on. I make my son wear them whenever he helps me in the yard, as a bit of his safety kit. These get nothing but a cleaning and a leather conditioner to keep them water repellent.
Daughter's Western Boots
Another gift from my FIL. I about had a coronary when my daughter chose these. Not because they are pink, but because they are vinyl. WTH, over? They just didn't have any pink boots made out of what God and John Wayne intended boots to be made out of. No persuasion was effective, in my efforts to steer her to boots made from steer. The girl knows what she wants.
Not shown are the two pair of Wellco combat boots I recently bought. I haven't the slightest idea how to care for them. I think black Kiwi is probably not called for.
I guess if I have a clothing Achilles Heel, it is my desire for quality foot gear. I'll compromise many other bits of the wardrobe, but I want quality foot gear on my dogs. I also favor boots, due to the career-ending injury I sustained on my last jump. That bit of leg bone where they put the bones back together and then went back in and scoured out the (operation-induced) bone infection is a wee bit tender. I like to keep it covered and the ankle supported.
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Hard to beat a pair of well-broken-in plain ol' combat boots for comfort. The only thing I can think of that's on a par is a well-broken-in pair of Western boots.
Being a FNG around here I don't know much about your history except the Airborne you've mentioned. Were you a grunt, or attached to a unit that did grunt-type service? That would explain the affinity and desire for quality footwear. It does in my case. Even though I got stuck in a mechanized unit, a grunt is a grunt and does a helluva lot of walking. I learned not to give my feet short shrift back then and it has served me well all my life. Most of the work I've done involved standing up and moving around. Good shoes have been a lifesaver, or at least a footsaver.
I'm the same about leather shoes, too. If I've got 'em, they get regular polishing. The Magnums I wore for years while doing Security work always had a shine when I clocked in. Besides just wanting to do it I figured there were so many shitbags in the business that somebody oughta make an effort to look professional.
I do it for my wife, too. I talked her into getting a pair of combat boots when she first got into the business she's in and made a believer out of her. She rotates them with her sneakers but prefers them to the rest of her shoes. I keep them polished for her so they''ll look nice since she's the boss and sets the tone for the place, and to help with waterproofing.
Here's a little tale you might find interesting. When one of my older daughter's friends came over last weekend for the co-birthday party she brought her boyfriend along. He's a decent kid, a senior in high school and in his third year of AFJROTC. They were going to his unit's Military Ball after the party and he wore his uniform to our place. I was busy with party stuff and didn't have much time to visit with anybody but towards evening I was talking to him about the Ball and happened to look at his low quarters. Then I asked him the eternal question, "What'd you shine those shoes with, a brick?" They were dull as dirt. He hadn't been doing anything but standing or sitting around so I knew he hadn't knocked any shine off them whie he was there.
He said "the Colonel", his senior instructor, had them all use a "...shoe-shiner thing..." on their uniform shoes. A couple of questions revealed that said Colonel was touting quick-shine sponges that have lemon and mink oils in them. I couldn't have the kid go to his Ball looking like that so I took him aside, got out my shine kit, and went to work. Didn't have time to spit-shine them but did get a good brush shine on them in the short time I had before he had to go. While I was shining I was telling him the whys and hows behind the exercise. Things like "get polish on the welt, sole edge, and heel; if it wasn't meant to be polished it wouldn't be part of the shoe", and other stuff like the shine from those quick-shine sponges is only good for a few minutes because all the dust around sticks to the oil and dulls the shine, also that those things only work really well (for those few minutes) if there's already a shine on the shoes.
He watched and listened intently and told me that no one had ever shown them how to shine their shoes. Three school years, Summer staff meetings, Color Guards, etc., and nobody'd taught them how to turn out properly?! I was appalled. I was in AFJROTC many moons ago, in this same county but a different school to his. How to show up with our uniforms looking sharp, and how to get them that way, was one of the first lessons our senior enlisted instructor gave us. (SMSGT Rod Coryell, known to all as Sarge, was a helluva guy and beloved by the many kids he dealt with in several assignments with AFJROTC. I miss him. May he rest in peace.)
.............
Wordy sometimes, ain't I? =D
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Dude. Black leather is for the military, and fetishists. You're a civilian, now. Get boots that are brown, as God intended.
Course, maybe you wear suits, in which case you get a dispensation, and my sympathies. =)
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Dude. Black leather is for the military, and fetishists. You're a civilian, now. Get boots that are brown, as God intended.
Course, maybe you wear suits, in which case you get a dispensation, and my sympathies. =)
Here's a little something from you favorite actor:
[wesley_snipes]Always bet on black.[/wesley_snipes]
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I tend to polish mine about 6AM Fridays and Mondays, since the office staff start showing up about 7AM those days. The rest of my workweek is over the weekend, so I don't bother.
Herman Survivors from Wally World. The air-travel model. (no metal, plastic toe insert that meets the ANSI "steel toe" requirement) Picked them up on the way to work when some more expensive boots started failing, expecting to have to replace them within a couple months. That was July, and they're still fine. Even survived three trips through Carlsbad Caverns, including Left Hand Tunnel, King's Palace and Lower Cave tours. (Couldn't get a spot on the Hall of the White Giant tour the week we were there.)
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I gotta be honest, I hate polishing shoes with a passion. I no longer own any shoes that would take a shine and I'm cool with it...
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I gotta be honest, I hate polishing shoes with a passion. I no longer own any shoes that would take a shine and I'm cool with it...
Me too. My dad was a spit and shiner. As kids, we all had our own kits. Long live Sketcher and Rocky.
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41 & Lee:
Get thee behind me, Satan*!
* Not only the Lord of Lies, but responsible for the abomination of plastic/patent leather tuxedo rental shoes.
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Nice collection. None of them are really polished, but it's a good start. :angel:
(A real polish is a brand new boot. Rub off factory coat, apply 30-40 layers of kiwi, no fire, only cotton/silk and water. Buff with silk. Then apply 10 coats of clear. Rap in sealed plastic. Wear only for presentations, immediately repair buff and place back into plastic.)
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I polish all my hard-leather footwear (my wife doesn't like it) to USMC standards. For comfort, though, ya just can't beat the older (Gulf War I-about 2002 or so) desert boots. Like slippers.
BTW, anyone know how to get the "shiny" coating off of a new pair of shoes so I can polish 'em right?
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I polish all my hard-leather footwear (my wife doesn't like it) to USMC standards. For comfort, though, ya just can't beat the older (Gulf War I-about 2002 or so) desert boots. Like slippers.
BTW, anyone know how to get the "shiny" coating off of a new pair of shoes so I can polish 'em right?
Use rubbing alcohol and a cotton cloth to remove the factory finish. Let the shoe dry thoroughly, wipe it down with a damp cloth, dry thoroughly again and voila!, ready to polish.
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41 & Lee:
Get thee behind me, Satan*!
* Not only the Lord of Lies, but responsible for the abomination of plastic/patent leather tuxedo rental shoes.
Is he responsible for Keens and hiking boots too? :) If so Hail Satan! Hail him I say!
*note: I realized I lied a bit, I do have a singular pair of nice shoes that every few years an occasion comes around where I need them and I dig out the Kiwi.
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I really need to do my corcorans... Second most comfy boots I've owned. I can't find my Vasques - they're somewhere in the damn garage.
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Use rubbing alcohol and a cotton cloth to remove the factory finish.
Thanks - I'll let you know how it goes.
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Thanks - I'll let you know how it goes.
You're welcome and please do, doc.
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My oldest daughter wanted a pair of boots "...like Mommy wears." so I took her to the big Army-Navy Surplus a few miles away over the weekend. From the limited choices available in her size she picked out a pair of standard (green over black) jungle boots with hefty aftermarket soles, used but with very little wear.
I got them out tonight to strip and polish so she can wear them to school tomorrow. From the look of them I was thinking that the previous owner had used liquid floor wax for the shine but after a half-hour of wiping with an alcohol-soaked rag I became convinced that he or she used silicone tire shine. The damn stuff did not want to come off. It took two large pieces of an old cotton towel and nearly an hour to strip the boots down to where I could put a halfway decent shine on them. I might have to get out my Dremel and the stiff brush tip and burr them down to the leather to be able to shine them properly.
I've been away from Uncle's troops and their shortcuts field-expedient methods =D a long time. Has anyone with more recent service heard of or seen tire shine being used on boots or shoes?
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I've been away from Uncle's troops and their shortcuts field-expedient methods =D a long time. Has anyone with more recent service heard of or seen tire shine being used on boots or shoes?
Uh, no? BTW, steel wool didn't work?
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Uh, no? BTW, steel wool didn't work?
Don't have any, Rev. Thanks for reminding me of it. I'll get some next Wally World trip and give it a go.
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I never learned how to polish shoes, or floors, despite trying both quite a bit. Don't the uniform regs say to apply polish, and buff, no "polish"?
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In my entire time in the Corps I was never issued a pair of footwear that could be polished like that. About damn time, should you ask me.
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I never learned how to polish shoes, or floors, despite trying both quite a bit. Don't the uniform regs say to apply polish, and buff, no "polish"?
Using liquid floor wax was considered a no-no because while it made for a high shine on the toe and heel caps of a pair of jump boots it scratched easily and made re-shining them a cast-iron SOB because you had to strip it all off and reapply. If you put it on any part of the boot that flexes it'll crackle as soon as you walk around in them so it isn't worth a tinker's dam to use on combat boots, not that some guys didn't try to get away with it.
The only thing I can remember about the regs pertaining to boots and shining same is hearing my Platoon Sergeant quote a part of them, to wit: "The regs say 'highly-shined black boots', and that's all they say."
It had to do with one of our guys, in 2nd Platoon, getting grief from the 1st Platoon Sergeant - SFC Paul Blue, I'll never forget his sorry ass - for wearing Bundeswehr-issue boots (Blue was known and reviled in the battalion for ignoring the chain of command and jumping on anyone he felt like messing with, but got his panties in a wad if anyone not in 1st Platoon called down one of his soldiers for anything). Blue said the boots my squadmate was wearing weren't authorized and demanded that he remove them on the spot. Our Platoon Sergeant was nearby and heard Blue ranting, intervened and quoted the regs, and told Blue to go screw himself into a wall. SFC Jimmy D. Schlee was a damn fine soldier and a damn good NCO- I'll never forget him, either, but for the right reasons.
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Ah, the feeling of telling a senior NCO to get stuffed; a wonderful thing. =D
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Using liquid floor wax was considered a no-no because while it made for a high shine on the toe and heel caps of a pair of jump boots it scratched easily and made re-shining them a cast-iron SOB because you had to strip it all off and reapply. If you put it on any part of the boot that flexes it'll crackle as soon as you walk around in them so it isn't worth a tinker's dam to use on combat boots, not that some guys didn't try to get away with it.
Alot of us in the Corps would have a set of uniform items bought specifically for locker inspections. I had a pair of leathers that were shined with floor polish and never worn. You literally could shave off the reflection on those bad boys. I also had a full issue set of skivvies and socks that had been ironed and starched so much they could stand up on their own. They were folded perfectly. Kept 'em in a shoe box only for inspections. Had a set of matching hangers, too and full set of perfectly ironed dress pants that weren't even my size :laugh:. By having everything for inspections look perfect, you could pass with flying colors without really being "inspected". No measurements would be taken, no checking for lint under the collar, etc. Never got less than an outstanding on one.
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Using liquid floor wax was considered a no-no because while it made for a high shine on the toe and heel caps of a pair of jump boots it scratched easily and made re-shining them a cast-iron SOB because you had to strip it all off and reapply. If you put it on any part of the boot that flexes it'll crackle as soon as you walk around in them so it isn't worth a tinker's dam to use on combat boots, not that some guys didn't try to get away with it.
Oh. I was talking about actually polishing floors. =)
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I never learned how to polish shoes, or floors, despite trying both quite a bit. Don't the uniform regs say to apply polish, and buff, no "polish"?
In my entire time in the Corps I was never issued a pair of footwear that could be polished like that. About damn time, should you ask me.
Army regs were a high brush shine.
Individual units had variations. For instance, my unit had two levels for BDUs:
1. Fluff & Buff: For use when expecting to do manual labor or something more vigorous than desk-jockeying. Involved freshly laundered BDUs, straight outta the dryer and brush shined boots.
2. Starch & Spits: For when in garrison and no heavy lifting expected or if expecting contact with those outside the compound. Heavily starched BDUs and spit shined boots.
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I shine my shoes and my girlfriend's shoes as well. I can't stand to see scuffed up dress shoes with nicer attire. I see that a lot with the younger guys. Nice shirt, nice tie, nice suit, but the shoes look like they've been shined with a brick. It's just wrong.
Shining shoes with Kiwi polish help protect them from the snow, ice, salt, water, etc. Properly shined shoes last longer and look better.
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Oh. I was talking about actually polishing floors. =)
I don't know if using liquid shine on the floor was against regs but it was certainly verboten. At Infantry School at Benning and The Zoo in Bamberg we used Johnson's Paste Floor Wax and a buffer. Both places it was a PITA to do, too. I don't know which barracks was older, the wooden ones on Harmony Church or the concrete block ones on Warner Barracks Kaserne, but the gods only know how many coats of wax had been applied to those floors. In Bamberg at least we could get drunk and ride the buffer while we were working on the floors. At Benning it was just recruit drudgery.
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Army regs were a high brush shine.
Individual units had variations. For instance, my unit had two levels for BDUs:
1. Fluff & Buff: For use when expecting to do manual labor or something more vigorous than desk-jockeying. Involved freshly laundered BDUs, straight outta the dryer and brush shined boots.
2. Starch & Spits: For when in garrison and no heavy lifting expected or if expecting contact with those outside the compound. Heavily starched BDUs and spit shined boots.
Starching BDUs and using an iron hot enough to press them with all that starch in them being against regulations notwithstanding, eh? ;)
"Fluff and Buff", while I didn't call it that, was pretty much my everyday uniform. I did press the uniform, but did it by taking the uniforms out of the dryer before they were fully dry and placing them between the two sheets of three-eighths-inch plywood I had between mattress and bunk. They looked good at morning formation and I didn't have to stress about having to redo a starch job on them after wallowing in dirt/mud/snow (depending on the season) and grease all day. And I was obeying the regs, which haired off several NCOs who wanted everyone dolled up every day.
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I don't know if using liquid shine on the floor was against regs but it was certainly verboten.
Huh? Don't know what you're talkin' about, Fred. :lol: Whatever we used, I was never very good at it.
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Huh? Don't know what you're talkin' about, Fred. :lol: Whatever we used, I was never very good at it.
Some of Uncle's more-senior minions would rather that you worked on your floor-polishing than the less-important stuff like weapons handling, marksmanship, map-reading, etc., right? I got some of that, too.
"My gear and weapons are clean and ready, Sergeant! Looking forward to the scheduled MOUT training today!"
"Yeah, but the floor's not shiny enough, Private. Get to work on it. We'll do MOUT some other time" ;/
*edit*
That one was made up, this one isn't. Not exactly on point but in the same vein.
Midway through REFORGER in '82, on the third day of sitting on a hillside, most of us doing nothing but sitting while the NCOs played high-stakes Hearts, one of my squadmates complained to our buck sergeant squad leader, "I'm tired of just sittin' here, Sarge. When're we gonna do some training?" The response, to raucous laughter from the other NCOs, was, "How 'bout I make you you low crawl up and down this hill for a while? That's training."
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That's my objection to all the obsessive compulsive folding/starching/waxing/polishing so beloved of the "old Corps." I'm sure it's traditional and what not, but when I was kicking in doors in Iraq I was glad they chose to invest my training time more into "how to kill people" and less into "how to look pretty for the general".
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Some of Uncle's more-senior minions would rather that you worked on your floor-polishing than the less-important stuff like weapons handling, marksmanship, map-reading, etc., right? I got some of that, too.
Midway through REFORGER in '82, on the third day of sitting on a hillside, most of us doing nothing but sitting while the NCOs played high-stakes Hearts, one of my squadmates complained to our buck sergeant squad leader, "I'm tired of just sittin' here, Sarge. When're we gonna do some training?" The response, to raucous laughter from the other NCOs, was, "How 'bout I make you you low crawl up and down this hill for a while? That's training."
Ever want to do so many push ups your arms completely fail and you literally can't raise them above shoulder level for three days? Remember those little bars you hung from your weapon qual level badge? Rifle, pistol, etc? Yea. Locate or fabricate one that says "Buffer" and hang it off your expert marksman badge. Above rifle.
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Ever want to do so many push ups your arms completely fail and you literally can't raise them above shoulder level for three days? Remember those little bars you hung from your weapon qual level badge? Rifle, pistol, etc? Yea. Locate or fabricate one that says "Buffer" and hang it off your expert marksman badge. Above rifle.
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