The Ultimate Shoe Shining Technique

You all know I like to keep my shoes  well polished.  I do like to spit shine them, but sometimes I don't have time even for just brush shining my shoes.  What to do then?  Actually, there is another technique that puts a beautiful shine on your shoes, and that shine is more durable than spit shine.  Its called fire shine, though you don't actually use fire.  Shoe polish is flammable, and you don't want to burn up your expensive shoes.

The only piece of equipment you will need in addition to your shoe shine kit is a heat gun, or a hair dyer blower.  You don't want to do more that soften the polish on your shoes. The hair blower will be a bit slower, but polish melts at a fairly low temperature.  So, here goes:

The first step is to polish your shoes as usual, swirling the polish on with a dauber brush.  You do not need to use a cloth since you will spread the polish out with the heat.  Don't forget to get the outsides of the sole, and put some polish between the sole and the uppers.

Next, turn on the heat gun and point it at your shoe until the polish begins melting.  At this point, move the heat gun over the shoe fairly rapidly.  You want to melt the polish all over the shoe, but then rapidly move on to another part of the shoe to avoid overdoing it.  This should take less than a minute per shoe.  The polish will immediately re solidify, but will be smoother.

Nest step is to buff the shoe with your buffing brush.   You will be amazed.  As an added benefit, the fire shine is longer lasting.  Another benefit is that you can polish other leather goods such as holsters, belts, even leather jackets and the polish won't rub off on your clothing.  Summer temperatures in North Carolina can get up over 100 degrees with humidity.  Leather goods are exposed to a lot of sweat with its attendant moisture and salt.  Polishing you leather goods will extend their life, and leave you with more money for ammunition, and fire shining puts a hard shell polish on your leather goods.