Yuya Hasegawa's ardent shoeshine dojo

This is the "Yuya Hasegawa's Ardent Shoeshine Dojo" series. In the 12th installment, Yuya Hasegawa talks about the "11th process" of shoeshine. Yuya Hasegawa talks passionately about it.

This time, he talks about the 11th process, "wrapping the nerf fabric around your finger. After creating a base film of mirror polish with your fingers, wrap the cloth around your fingers and put water on it to make it shine. At Brift H, we use flannel cloth for polishing because it shines the most beautifully.

In the old days, when shoe polishing techniques had not yet been established, we went to fabric stores and bought various kinds of fabrics to try them out to see what would shine the best. I wondered why it did not glow well when there were chemical fibers in it.

Among them, it was the flannel fabrics that gave a glistening and highly precise mirror finish at the end.

The most important point is to wrap the nerf cloth around your finger and polish it. Wrap it tightly around your finger so that it becomes one with your finger.

If there is a wrinkle in the process, it will cause a scratch-like line to appear on the mirror surface, and it will not be finished cleanly. Therefore, wrap the cloth around the finger so that the skin is taut as if it were made of flannel. I will now explain how to wrap the cloth with pictures.

First, grasp the edge of the cloth deeply with the belly of the thumb, and then pluck it with the opposite hand so that it is taut over the index and middle fingers.

Keep the plucked hand in place and wrap the cloth around the finger of the person who is going to wrap the cloth. The cloth will be squeezed at the fingernail side of the finger.

Continue to squeeze the cloth in a circular motion and wrap it completely around the back of the fingers like a twisted hachimaki. From here, wrap the cloth around the base of the finger.

Wrap the cloth around the base of the finger and pull it through like a necktie. From there, pull the excess cloth around the back of the fingers in a reverse rotation to complete the process.

See how it looks? The cloth is completely held in place on the fingers and fits as if it were one with the skin. In this state, delicate hand touch becomes possible. Also, it will not become difficult to polish because of shifting during polishing.

If you find it hard to understand from the pictures, please refer to the video on Youtube.

If you are not able to do this, it will be very difficult to polish the mirror surface with water for a long time. If you can achieve the highest quality in wrapping the cloth, which is the most basic of basics, the subsequent polishing will also be of the highest quality.

This is something you can do right now, so please learn it.

That's all for this issue! In the next article, I will explain the process of "making a film while dipping in water," which is rather difficult to convey in a text that is not suitable for a blog. Since wax tends to melt easily in the hot summer, let's learn how to polish mirror polish that will not be defeated by the summer heat. Thank you again. Thank you again!