Anyone else clean and polish their work boots?

   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #41  
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #42  
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots?
  • Thread Starter
#43  
Annual cleaning time. Saddle soap, wax and polish and black stuff on the edges. New laces too and they were freebies from the boot dealer. One pair of boots is in its fourth year and the other the second year. They get worn daily with dry weather light farm duty eight months and severe duty four months. No salt exposure.

The photos look better than the boots but I have to believe the care they get has dramatically extended their life. :)

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   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #44  
I have two kind of work boots. When its really icky out - its Mucks. You just hose them off. Otherwise, it my Redwings. I oil them twice a year and have to clean off the mud almost every time I go out.
 
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #45  
I oil mine every six months as well, I work on concrete so the tread is gone at 12 to 18 months.
 
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #46  
In my forties I would go through three to four pairs of HyTest metatarsal protection industrial boots a year. Winter time they got Snow Seal if they were lucky. Fifties i went to two pair a year with a little more care. Yesterday I Snow Seal'd the boots six months old. They will probably last me till the summer, maybe a little longer since it looks like I will be in India for a couple of months this winter.

Some of us are just harder on boots than others. My dad for instance could wear Redwings for a couple of years. When I worked telco I wore the lineman Redwings and never could get more than six months out of a pair. Telco isn't real work, at least it wasn't in the seventies. I tried Redwings twice in the real world and were really disappointed both times.

The best thing to come down the pike is they now have the metatarsal protection inside so we don't have that double doggone big flapping laces cover catching and tripping us all the time.

How many out there that wore the lineman boots still remember how to single hand speed lace them puppies up?
 
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #47  
I don't do anything to my work boots but then I rarely wear them in wet conditions. They're somewhere around 10 - 15years old. At the rate I go, they'll last me a loooong time yet! When I first started as a Lineman, I used to regularly give my boots a cleaning and Dubin treatment to repel water. I paid $131 for my first Pierre Paris Lineman boots back in 1974 when I grossed $609/month, still have them too but I haven't worn them in decades. Heavy as he!! and much too clumsy when most of my work got shifted from pole work to bucket work.
 
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #48  
Never! It's probably from those Navy Seabee years of polishing boots for inspection. I now put Shoe Goo on the toes of new work boots. Makes the toes area hold up better from kicking/bumping stuff at work.
 
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #49  
I only wear boots during the winter. Treat them with Neat's Foot Oil before the season and at the end. Mostly working wood and snow. Get a lot of wet and mud. I get a lot of years out of a pair.
 
   / Anyone else clean and polish their work boots? #50  
I typically bake mine in the oven and treat with Chelsea leather food when new, maybe 3-5 coats, 150, and crack the door to let moisture escape, , After that once a year or more, I'll treat them again if they get soaked, and once in a while during the winter. I always remove mud, as it will quickly dry leather.

Pretty much the same on all leather goods.. belts, holsters, gloves, chaps, jackets, slings and the like.. More often than not its by the woodstove watching a ball game.
 
 
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