Hey All,

I was ridin (4 wheels not 2) behind 2 Ultra's on th E-Way yesterday.
When we got off on the same exit I saw one of them was a tricked out Road King Classic. The reason I thought it was an Ultra was the bags.
Same Leather bags as I have, but they were sooooo shiny black, from a distance I thought they were hard bags.
I couldn't get next to him to find out what he used to get that shine.
I've seen a lot of RKC bags, but nothing like that.
Anybody got any ideas how he got em like that?

 

maybe he was ex-military and shined them with boot polish like the old military use to have to shine our boots. (I say old military but it really wasn't that long ago that the service swiched from black leather boots to tan boots.)

 

Just a blind guess...

"tricked out Road King Classic" might = newer bike including the bags and bags probably don't have too many logged miles on them.
If you use the a black shoe polish, and buff it afterwards as well, it will shine up newer bags.
I've used black shoe polish on weathered leather bags before, but I just rub it in and don't buff shine it, just leave it on as is for a natural dark black leather look.

 

When I had my RK classic I used boot polish on my bags. Several coats and really puts a shine on them.

Mark

 

I used a UV protector on my leather and it made it shine like nothing else. Had to be careful to cover it all or you could really tell the spots that were missed.

 

Another old military trick is after you shine leather put a think layer of Mop 'N Glo on it to seal the shine and make it last for a couple days.

Lincoln Wax (way better than Kiwi) and a heat gun work wonders for a spit shine. The heat gun will liquify the wax and allow it to fill the pores of the leather.

 

+1 on the Mop 'N Glo - use to do that on car tires when I was detailing them. They'd look wet for weeks. The first time it would take a couple of coats. Didn't know that would work on leather though.

 

Being one of those "old military" guys, I used to use liquid patent leather stuff on the tips of my boots. I could see using that on bags to make them look painted...

 

Ahhh the good old days. Well not that long ago for me. 99% sure you used this on your boots.



A lot of the guys (who couldn't shine boots ) used to use it on their boots.

Achieving "spit shine" on any leather requires filling the pores then polishing the hardened wax. I'm a pro at getting leather boots to shine. Every pair of boots that had a spit shine didn't last for $hit. When you fill (clog) the pores of the leather it can't breath, dries out, and starts to crack. Polishing leather bags like that would cut the life in more than half...but hey, they'd look good.