Can anyone, perhaps an ex-serviceman/woman or even a serving one, tell me if it is possible to either remove or at least reduce a blemish caused by a stone on a high gloss spit and polish boot. The said blemish is like a roughened dent on the toe cap and is in the area that has to be high gloss. I have heard of something to do with a spoon but am not sure how this is done or if it works. Can anyone out there help? Any tips would be very welcome!

Did you do a spit shine on these shoes yourself, or are they the kind with a "fake" spit shine (Corfam)? If they're Corfam shoes, there's probably nothing you can do about it. If they're not, you should be able to put a new spit shine on them...you'll need to put some black leather dye on the toe before they'll hold a spit shine.

When I was in the service we used to use lighter fluid and shoe polish paste and sometimes work on them for hours. When we were finished you could use them as a mirror.

OMG Steve we did the same thing (I am guessing what you call shoe paste is the same Army Reg. polish we used)...and I bet there is atleast 20 years difference in our service eras.

Hey, Steve, lighter fluid? Wow, when I was in, lighter fluid hadn't been invented yet. We had to use Kiwi shoe polish and water to do our spit shines. Only kidding. Wish I had known about the lighter fluid thing since I shined my shoes and boots every night for my two years in the Army (56-58). See, I TOLD you about lighter fluid not being invented yet!!!!