Members rick99601 Posted November 12, 2024 Members Report Posted November 12, 2024 I accidentally got some paint over spray on my shoe and instinctively wiped it off with xylene. I went to polish and now the leather appears saturated, not taking a shine. Am I correct to assume I need to wait for the leather to dry (or help it along with a heat gun) then apply a saddle lacquer before attempting to polish again? Richard Quote
Northmount Posted November 12, 2024 Report Posted November 12, 2024 5 hours ago, rick99601 said: I accidentally got some paint over spray on my shoe and instinctively wiped it off with xylene. I went to polish and now the leather appears saturated, not taking a shine. Am I correct to assume I need to wait for the leather to dry (or help it along with a heat gun) then apply a saddle lacquer before attempting to polish again? Richard Sounds like you used way too much xylene. It has to dry out before you can do anything with it. It also removed the natural oils and any waxes from the leather. So you will have to try to carefully replace them. Look up conditioning leather. If you add too much oil, it will be soggy and a mess. Waxes pretty much stay on the surface and you buff off the excess. You can't buff off excess oil. My guess is that maybe after it dries out, you should apply a neutral shoe polish (wax), warm it up some, let it soak in for several hours, then buff it. After that, you could use a coloured shoe polish that might help restore the original colour, or close to it. As I say, it's my GUESS! Quote
Members rick99601 Posted November 13, 2024 Author Members Report Posted November 13, 2024 19 hours ago, Northmount said: Sounds like you used way too much xylene. It has to dry out before you can do anything with it. It also removed the natural oils and any waxes from the leather. So you will have to try to carefully replace them. Look up conditioning leather. If you add too much oil, it will be soggy and a mess. Waxes pretty much stay on the surface and you buff off the excess. You can't buff off excess oil. My guess is that maybe after it dries out, you should apply a neutral shoe polish (wax), warm it up some, let it soak in for several hours, then buff it. After that, you could use a coloured shoe polish that might help restore the original colour, or close to it. As I say, it's my GUESS! Color is more or less good, it's just the sheen that is gone. I will let it dry out for a week or so and go from there. Thank you! Quote
Members rick99601 Posted November 26, 2024 Author Members Report Posted November 26, 2024 Follow up - I was able to get the shoe to take a shine once it had a chance to dry out. Turns out that using cheap polish wasn't helping either. Quote
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