COMPLETE - Bootblacking Badge

Bootblacking Badge

Scout Name: Paul - Meronym

Date: _______10/9/17_____________

Costs: ___Leathercare Materials___________     Patch - $1.69_______________

Directions: Listed below are 10 steps to complete. After each one get Miss Anarcadia, or Beta-Pup to mark them off. At the end, turn in the sheet and patch fee to receive your patch (to be ordered). You may wish to take pictures or add notes to the worksheet to show that each step was completed. Plus who doesn’t want to show off their hard work? 

1. Explore - Learn about taking care of leather. What kinds of things can be taken care of by a bootblack?

- Two guys in our community, Jason (_marxxx_) and River (---River---), taught me some bootblacking. I’ve done some care on oil-tanned boots, polish boots, regular shoes, vests, and leather coats. Oil-tanned boots get cleaned and greased, as do the garments. Polish boots then also have to be shined by wiping them quickly and with some pressure until they shine. This is a lot harder to get even, though you can cheat a little by using a heat gun. I’m not confident in my skills on polish boots, so I’m sticking to oil-tanned boots for now.


2. Self - Why do you want to do bootblacking? Write a Scout's journal entry about it.

- Most of my system is interested in doing kink-play and I’m not really. But I wanted to find a way to still be part of the community, even though I’m really pretty shy. Bootblacking is a way to participate but still be off to the side and not have to hurt someone or be hurt. When I do Boss's boots and he thanks me, or when somebody compliments how nice something I worked on looks, or just when I touch something I worked on and it feels really good to touch, I feel a lot of pride in myself.

3. Create - Put together a bootblacking kit. What do you need in it?

- I put together a rolling case to hold my kit. I have a squirt bottle to hold water to spray the leather with, saddle soap and a dauber for it, Huberds and Black Gold (which is Huberds with some black dye), a can key to open them both, a bunch of cloths for wiping with, a towel to put down first to protect my table/surface, a lighter for cleaning laces, a bone folder for rubbing away burrs in the leather, q-tips and rubbing alcohol for cleaning off bad deposits, a couple of old toothbrushes for getting into nooks and crannies, edge dressing for black soles. I have some other things, but that’s the important stuff.


4. Advocate - How do you show that you are proud of the bootblacking you do? How can you tell others why you think bootblacking is important.

- I have a tee-shirt that says Bootblacks do it with SOLE! (https://fetlife.com/users/51089/pictures/27143466) The creator sent it to me as a thank-you for making suggestions to improve his design. When I’m working, I sometimes wear a skullcap to make it obvious I’m out and on the job. And of course, Boss and I both wear our vests (and his boots) almost every day. If someone comments on them, we're happy to tell them about taking care of them.

5. World (because recycling is good for our world.) - ‘Rescue’ an old piece of leather. Find something made of leather that is in bad shape, and see how much you can improve it.

- I found a leather vest several years ago in a thrift shop. It was very stiff and felt like cardboard. We assumed it was just gonna be trash. I took it home, cleaned it, covered it in dyed grease, and repeated that several more times, and it’s now the vest I’ve been wearing almost daily since.







6. Diligence - Take care of some leather over time. How does taking care of it change?

- We bought Boss a pair of boots almost 3 years ago, and I’m the only person that’s taken care of them. I clean and grease them every few months, and they are super soft. After he wore them almost every day for a year, the soles wore through and started coming loose. So we had them resoled, which made them a little taller and made the balance of the shoes a bit different. The metal pieces have gone from a clean silver to a pretty burnished color. It’s almost time for a new pair, though, as the second set of soles is starting to wear through.

7. Benevolence/Selflessness - Do some leather care for someone in your community.

- Esteban brought me a jacket his dad had worn. It was a camel-colored jacket with many years of coal dust embedded in it. I couldn’t clean the coal off it, but I cleaned it thoroughly and used a dyed grease on it. That darkened the leather a bit and smoothed out the color so it was sort of bronze in color, and because of the grease it was a lot more supple.

8. Community - Learn about resources in your area. Locate and visit three of the following businesses/organizations:
- bootblacking club/organization
- leather kink group
- shoe repair shop
- boot store
- leather supply store
What supplies and/or resources are available here to help you to learn about caring for leather?

Tandy Leather - Nashville

- Tandy Leather is my favorite place for buying leather and leather care supplies. The manager at the local store is a friend (and a member of our community), so we get a big hug and some fun conversation as well! I love going in and picking out things to get for leather projects that Boss is working on, and I recently bought my first whole hide for my troop sash.

Billy's Shoe Repair

- Billy's Shoe Repair - this is the place I took Boss's boots to be resoled a couple of years ago. It's a little hole-in-the-wall place, but is recommended by lots of people for shoe repair. They also sell bootblacking supplies, like dye and brushes and such. When I took Boss's boots there, he talked to me about different options for dealing with the sole that was coming off, and how a different sole would feel for wearing the boots. Boss liked the new soles better than the original!

- Johnson & Murphy - We used to work for Genesco, so we sometimes visited the Johnson & Murphy factory store next door. In fact, that's where we bought our first bootblacking supplies - a tin of mink oil to care for new leather toys we got. They sell high-end shoes that should be well taken-care of, and they even have a series of shoe shine videos on their website! They also sell a basic shoe care kit with a cedar shoe-stand that would be a good gift for a new bootblack.

9. Mentorship - Do any of your fellow scouts have an interest in bootblacking? Offer an afternoon or evening workshop of basic techniques for your troop.

- I tried to schedule an afternoon of bootblacking with my troop, but scheduling conflicts kept that from happening. So instead, I had an afternoon of teaching my friend Sarah about bootblacking. We cleaned & greased two pair of boots, a pair of shoes, and a bracelet together!

10. Acquire something brand-new that is leather. How do you plan to take care of it? Journal about your plan.

- Boss just bought me a new leather vest (and a matching one for him, too). It’s already pre-treated and in great shape, so I shouldn’t need to do any care of it for several months. But I will always do the care of these vests, like I have his boots. I’m considering if I want to put some patches on the vest. We are planning to immediately replace the laces on the side with braided ones that are color-specific to us.










__Paul__ has completed all 10 steps and given payment to receive this patch

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