YouTube video by Ken Hishinuma recording a discussion taking shoes to be shined by Yuta Sugimura
Notes
- discusses differences between Shinki-Hikaku and Horween shell cordovan
- Shinki softer, easier to last
- Horween harder to remove wrinkles
- but Shinki easily scratched in wear
- Sugimura doesn’t take requests to repair scratches
- doesn’t like to do it
- costly
- may have to damage nearby undamaged areas
- unrepaired, will blend in over time
- look cooler used
- Ken: can buy new shoes, but not time it takes to age
- Yuta: scratches unique to the person
- when Yuta was at college, he made a notebook for shining
- memorized everything, burned the notebook
- both studied architecture and worked in construction
- uses burnishing stick polishing many cordovan shoes
- depending on condition
- often after cleaning, before cream
- cordovan tends to pill
- “Abbey stick” of buffalo horn to rub down pilling
- deer bone
- ebony
- glass ivory
- some use flexible iron
- discussion of customer wishes versus his own interpretation of what is appropriate to the shoe style and its condition
- levels of mirror finish
- Yuta sees more than customers, so he tries to close the gap by talking with them
- leather absorbs cream immediately, so applies cream with cloth
- Horween doesn’t
- cloth itself absorbs cream, so can apply it thinly
- when using fingers, feel you need to rub it all in
- “I choose my tools so that I will never fail.”
- wax cordovan many times during process
- mirror and high gloss finishes usually only to parts with a hard core, but can do whole shoe of cordovan
- no need to create contrasting shine levels on the shoe
- more beautiful to graduate levels than have stark gaps
- too much wax feels greasy
- use as little wax as possible
- also easier to maintain
- uses mirror gloss and regular soft wax
- use mirror to block some absorption
- mirror gloss alone wouldn’t work well
- brushes after mirror wax
- doesn’t use mirror on Horween cordovan
- pig hair brush leaves polishing marks
- goat hair brushes too weak, don’t adhere wax to leather
- uses horsehair brush
- applying wax with fingers causes hand oil to mix in, becomes cloudy
- body heat loosens the wax
- now applies wax with fingers
- in colder regions, wax gets hard, can use mirror
- season also affects
- puts cream in fridge in the summer
- can separate if left out in heat
- old creams dry out
- had a Saphir cream get hard enough, tried to mirror polish with it and it worked
- oil-based creams not emulsified
- can repair scratches in cordovan by polishing
- adds water to tip of brush to reduce friction, remove cloudiness
- switches to flannel cloth around finger
- remove marks from bristles
- allows mirror polish with little wax
- at this stage, looks shiny, but wax very thin
- polishing Shin cordovan feels like polishing calf
-
Brift Wax quite sticky, better for building up
- just lightly touching
- not pressing in
- cloudiness shows the wax has hardened
- also adds soft wax to avoid it feeling greasy
- large rolls in cordovan can lead soft wax to peel off
- Brift wax flexible
- shine more impressive outdoors
- polish with pads of fingertips
- can reuse a piece of flannel across pairs, but uses a new cloth when the customer is at the counter watching
- blends the waxes with finger flannel, removing haze
- wets flannel, then beats in opposite palm to flatten down fuzz
- switches to goat hair brush with wetted bristles
- imagine tapping with the tips of the bristles
- no need to rinse cordovan off with water
- “water sanding”
- body temp high, so fingers warm
- must work quickly
- quickly release finger