Transforming a Young Man’s Shoes for His First Job: Full JR resole and Shine Ft. Tim’s Shoe Repair

this is the elegant Oxford we specialize and offer premium shoeshines dyes and artisan patinas for quality men's brands and help others to learn the art of shoe-shining visit the elegant oxford comm for all of your shoe care needs hey everyone welcome back it feels really good to be making another video after a couple of weeks today's video is really unique because I received a note with this pair of shoes I'm restoring that really resonated with me personally the owner is a young working professional who was starting a new career in the information technology field in Washington DC and recently purchased this used pair to wear to work for the very first time as some of you may already know here at the elegant Oxford I also run a donation campaign where I restore and donate used shoes to individuals entering the workforce and starting new careers who perhaps can't afford a new pair of high-end men's shoes by themselves it's a small operation so far but I've had the opportunity to donate close to 20 pairs and to that end and as a surprise I'm gonna be paying for a full resole on this pair using junior soles and then I'm gonna fully restore and transform the uppers so that this young man has a great pair of shoes to take to work so as you can see this pair is in pretty rough shape it's very obvious the original owner did not use shoe trees or ever really take care of them in any way so they're very bent out of shape and the soles are almost worn completely through so this pair is getting a full restoration so if the new owner has a great pair to start his career with now before I get them to Tim's shoe repair these shoes need a good shoe tree so I can preliminary ly reshape the leather using acetone and I'm going to remove some of the old factory finish as well added [Music] now what I'm about to do might seem strange but pouring acetone over the leather will help reshape it properly around the shoe tree of course you can always use my original method and toss it in some water but since acetone evaporates very quickly and penetrates instantly it's another viable option it's just not as cheap as using a water bath now don't go pouring acetone on pears willy-nilly this is a technique that needs to be used judiciously and only in certain situations so I don't recommend you try it unless you really know what you're doing now I think it's probably obvious but do this in an area with good ventilation and don't just do this inside of a closet or an enclosed room and remember acetone evaporates in seconds so it'll get into the leather and if it gets anywhere like it on your table or workstation it'll just evaporate in a couple of seconds and it won't even be there anymore but you will need a hairdryer kind of just to speed up the process once it's in the leather but it shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes so it completely dries water we'll take a couple of hours so this is just a much quicker or method don't forget to stick to the end of the video where I'll be removing the shoe trees to show you how the shoe looks when it's all done so you can see that the leather actually does look a little bit better in shape [Music] alright now the shoes look a lot better the leather has reformed around the tree and even if you remove the shoe tree now the leather would be a lot stiffer and it really wouldn't go back to the way it used to look so it's a good method for really stiffening leather up and getting it to reshape around a shoe tree or something like that and this is especially good for pairs that were really bent out of shape or extremely warped so it's a good method but you can't use it all the time it's just for emergency pairs I'd say so now they're ready to go and let's head up to Tim's shoe repair so the shops about an hour away from my house but it's totally worth it and I love the drive I really liked visiting real cobblers and seeing good guys at work cobbling shoes so the first thing John's doing here is removing the old heel and then he's using a sharp knife to remove the old soul from the upper as well once that's done you remove the old cork and here's the entire shoe separated from the sole it's like you're seeing the shoe naked it's not something you see regularly now here's something really cool to see it's AJ Rendon box old with the old logo which I really like better than the new one but this one wasn't big enough to fit on the size 14 shoe which is pretty big so he went with a regular one I'm always amazed at how precise cobblers have to be and how meticulously they work to ensure everything comes out just right this was a good job and I'm really happy with the results it's just gonna bring the whole shoe back to tip-top shape the resole is so essential that entire process [Music] [Music] and don't worry I didn't forget to say hi to woody either I just absolutely love looking at fresh resold jobs everything looks perfect from the soul to the heel and then John used an airgun to add some color and some depth and everything looks absolutely perfect and here they are [Music] okay now that the shoes are back let's start the whole die process remember not to panic when the die is applied it will always appear much darker initially since it's wet it looks almost black here but once it's dry you'll see a rich mahogany red color come through you can use a pom-pom applicator to spread even coats throughout but as you'll see in a second a small paintbrush is a good idea to get into those nooks and crevices take your time and apply even layer so the shoes look uniform and let them dry before applying any more subsequent layers so you can actually gauge how they look once they are dry so just take your time and be patient aside from that when dyeing shoes I really recommend using gloves you really don't want any leather dye on your fingers it's really not good for you in fact most of them are actually really bad for you so I don't recommend you get any on your fingers and I'm using gloves will prevent that and even when you wash your hands I found that the dye doesn't really come off very easily it's really permanent and really powerful so just be careful and wear gloves and take your time use a brush or use an applicator and you're gonna be just fine and don't use too much remember it's gonna go on pretty dark but it's gonna dry and it's gonna look really great so just be patient dyeing can be a pretty stressful part of restoration because what you're just not sure how it's gonna look so even I still get really nervous every time I touch a shoe I don't think I've gotten to the point yet where I just feel completely confident every shoe will react differently every time you're working on a shoe there's just no way to guarantee results but the best you can do is just to do your best and not keep up so just be patient and take your time don't rush it this is a really important part of the process now a really great thing about leather dyes that once it's dry you can use a cotton cloth or a chamois and buff it and it'll actually shine pretty pretty well you won't look super shiny but it'll just look and you know good enough so you can get an idea of what its gonna look like when it's complete so don't forget to do that it's kind of just preliminary step and the shoes just gonna look a lot better so as you can see I'm brushing it and the shoe you're kinda already kind of getting an idea of what its gonna look like when it's done and I'm pretty happy with it okay now I'm gonna be adding a little toe burnish using black for some character remember to shade the area correctly and avoid stark lines you want a gradual progression from dark to light so shade it like you're shading using a pencil just be careful and take your time so when it comes to burnishing or adding some depth always recommend using a darker color but not too dark so if your shoe is light brown do not use black use the next step darker and brown but since these are pretty dark I'm going to be using black and I think it's appropriate so just make sure to use the right shade [Music] now this time around I'm going to be using severe leather lotion the shoes looking a lot better now so it's a great all-purpose leather conditioner and I really love it so it's a good choice for this pair add just a little bit since it's runny ER than run of a tour and spread evenly with your fingers then wait five minutes and then brush away with the horsehair brush for a really nice shine alright now it's time to add some pigment using some mahogany Saphir choux cream and that'll bring out those brown and red tones evenly so it's a good choice but Hermes red would work just fine if that's all you had and if you really wanted to bring out more red tones than brown a lot of people keep asking me why I wear gloves when I work on shoes sometimes and why I don't in other videos and it's just because since I have a baby and sometimes I have to rush and grab her I don't want to have to have any polish on my fingers and I don't want to keep washing my hands so just using black nitrile gloves is just a really good and easy way to do that and you can get black nitrile gloves anywhere you know from Walmart Home Depot or wherever you want so they're not hard to find and I find found that they're just really great overall at keeping your hands clean throughout the day and when it's time to take them off you just take them off and your hands are completely clean underneath even though you could do this part barehanded you know using gloves for me right now is just a lot easier [Music] okay now it's time for the mirror shine I know you've all probably seen this process a million times already so I hope you're not bored but if you need help with a mirror shine check out my in-depth and comprehensive tutorial for some help getting a guaranteed shine I'll leave a link in the description of this video if you need some help remember to be really patient when doing your mirror shine I can't tell you how many emails and messages I receive from people who are just frustrated because they can't get to see they just really can't get that shine to come through but remember it just takes a very long time add multiple layers and then just use wax and water to buff that mirror shine to perfection I know that's easier said than done but it really just takes practice and it really takes it really takes a lot of screw-ups so I'm gonna be honest it's going to take a lot of frustrating moments and a lot of a lot of pairs that just look terrible and you know I've learned to perfect my mirror shines over time so it's not something I learned overnight so just be really patient and keep doing your best and eventually you'll get it I promise you will it's just going to take some time and like anything worth doing it's going to take practice and it's gonna take work so don't give up [Music] alright here's the before pretty bent out of shape the souls just needed well the shoot needed to be resold and here's the after so the shoes are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I think that they are ready to be worn again they're right there restored and ready to be put to good use so the shoes obviously didn't come out the way I wanted you know some of the leather was just really wrinkled there's some loose grain and using the shoe trees and the acetone really really helped and as you can see here I'm going to remove the shoe tree so you can see what the shoe looks like and as I removed the tree you'll notice that even though the wrinkles are kind of still there on the surface because of the loose grain overall this shoe is back to its normal shape you can see there it was really bent and now even without the shoe tree it's straight and the leather is stiff like if it were brand new and the left shoe actually came out really really great that paired that that shoe didn't in the pair didn't have loose grain so it looks really great and overall I am extremely satisfied and I hope you think so too I'm really happy with them ok so I really hope the owner likes these it wasn't the easiest project and the leather was a little too wrinkled in some places but all in all I'm pleased with the results I hope you liked how they turned out as well remember you can purchase anything you saw me use in this video at my online store at the elegant Oxford comm we carry everything from Saphir from the Medaille day or lion and the beauty cure line as well as long with a bunch of other accessories and items that I'm sure you you could probably use so make sure to stop on by and to support my website it really helps and if you need a 5 percent discount code I'll leave it in the description at the bottom and I really appreciate everything you guys do for me it really helps the elegant Oxford grow so I can keep making videos thanks again for watching and I will see you next time you

Channel: The Elegant Oxford

Views: 2,679,412

Keywords: shoerestoration, resole, shoeshine, mirrorshine, saphir, spitshine, jrsoles, allenedmonds, cobbler, leatherwork

Id: l7h6KBhU6Fk

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020