caring for your boots: salt water damage?

[crazystriker]

The condura nylon fabric on my desert boots don't resist water anymore, or resist as much as my other boots, it just absorbs it. I think it might because the boots encoutered a lot of salt water lately. Does anyone know how to fix this, or what I should do about this? The boots are Belleville 550ST http://www.bellevilleshoe.com/bootseries/550stpub.htm

[JoaMei]

Wash them with sweetwater, dry them and use impregnation Spray. I dont know how it is called in the US, its a spray for shoes that makes them water resistant.

[HoboWithAK]

Usually if you just rinse cordura and similar fabrics a few times in clean water, they regain their water repellency.

Just go get some silicon spray designed for boots and spray it on lightly if that doesn't work.

[crazystriker]

yea, thats what I been told by a lot of people, just rinse the fabric a few times with water, but I also noticed a new problem, the boots take a longer time to dry than before.

[Para]

The sweat from your feet can cause your boots to get white lines all over them were your sweat dries.

[dafonz]

The only real trick is to wash them with lots of freshwater
I actually have put some very crusty desert boots in a top loading washing machine and ran the machine on a medium cycle,i 1st removed the insoles and the laces and the boots came up a treat.
Airdry room temperature and they look as good as new.
These were mil spec boots not the civvy type

[Roaming East]

Kiwi makes an excellent solution called mink oil. It adds a great deal of water resistance and protection to boots. its applied the same way other wax based polishes are and can be applied over pre-shined boots without damaging the polished look (if thats important to you)

[GrimReaper]

Kiwi makes an excellent solution called mink oil. It adds a great deal of water resistance and protection to boots. its applied the same way other wax based polishes are and can be applied over pre-shined boots without damaging the polished look (if thats important to you)
Second that. Great stuff, been using it the last few years on my mil and civi shoes and boots.

[Asheren]

Had same problem with my boots after winter. (many peoples use salt to prevent streets from covering with ice) Some clean fresh water and proper impregnation liquid or spray shoud do the job. You should see what kind of impregnation chemicals your shoemaker propose.

[b33f]

Usually if you just rinse cordura and similar fabrics a few times in clean water, they regain their water repellency.

Just go get some silicon spray designed for boots and spray it on lightly if that doesn't work.

How to generally take care of mixed-fabric boots (like leather + cordura for example) ? Do you apply shoe paste to the whole boot or do you aim at the leather parts only? And if so how to treat the artificial fabric parts?

Why i'm asking:
In the Austrian Army, there are only pure-leather boots issued (for field use) and i know how to take care of them; but now i thought about buying some private ones and i planned to acquire something more modern but wanted to check out how to maintain those first.

bump