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@Littlef, I will buff the groover today. it appears to be iron, no idea what it is combined with though. It rusts very slowly, not the fast surface coating of rust that I see with other iron or steel items. Reminds me a bit of the Ashok Pillar - an iron with high Phosphorus content. Will metal polish be sufficient to protect it after cleaning? Do you have any recommendations for brand? I do not plan to buff the stamps. Just warm evaporust until clean. That has never failed as yet! After that, do I use polish on them as well? Or anything else? There is not much chrome left on those pieces, else they would not rust.

This old groover that I found is heavy, made of one piece of metal, which I think might be some form of Iron. I could not get it completely clean. It has some sort of black protective coat on it, it appears. When I apply oil and rub with a cloth, a brownish residue rubs off, which I presume is rust. I would like to apply a protective coating on it. I store all my knives with blade wax which works splendidly but not for tools of daily use. I read the threads on this forum and am confused abut what to use. Ballistol or Rain-X or Flitz or steel polish (so many out there!) or plastic spray or something else? I have not used any of these products so am unclear as to what would work here. I would also like to use the same on some old stamps that I found. They are rusty and I have to remove that rust first - Evaporust works there - thank you @bruce johnson for that tip! Any help is greatly appreciated.

@dikman yes and along with mineral oil, other petroleum based products appear as additional ingredients as well. About mineral oils, it is purely organic (versus inorganic) from the point of view of Chemistry. I think of it as natural as well - the result of refining of crude oil - sources of fossil fuels. I suspect people think it is not organic because of the name - they associate the term 'mineral' with, I suppose metals and nonmetals, essentially inorganic material. I wonder if there is another name for mineral oil.

@GeKl, Thank you. I am, in fact, in the process of making a set with mineral oil + a very small quantity of coconut oil - I am using 10% - hopefully that will decrease the stiffness that mineral oil allows. @fredk waterproofing with Vaseline is a good idea - a small quantity should work, or maybe mixed with beeswax. @GeKl, I think I was typing as your response got posted. That product has oils as well as beeswax and Vaseline. Seeing how ubiquitous such ingredients are in almost every product, I wonder whether they are the ones mainly dong all the work and the plant based oils are added to satisfy customers who still have an issue with petroleum based ingredients. The plant-based ingredients seem to change in different products but the petroleum based ones are more or less the same ones.

Sounds like a fun game, Fred. And unique. How nice!

I've no idea really. I just saw it at an estate sale after someone had bought it. Just a perfunctory look where I held and examined it for a couple of moments, but it looked nice. The leather was soft. I have no idea if it was initially soft or got soft over the years. However, it was one of those kiss-locks and don't those require softer material? I looked online on e-bay and they have plenty of similar ones, some smooth, some not. They all look soft as well.

I saw a really old leather bag and it is beautifully tooled. The texture of that leather is like milled veg-tan - the wrinkly appearance rather than the smooth surface of regular veg-tan. I have been told that milled veg-tan does not hold tooling as well as non-milled. If so, what would make the tooling on that bag remain so long? Or is there a way to get that wrinkly appearance on regular veg-tan?

@bluekush Glad to be of help. Do put up pics once done.

Deep red or Mahogany with the roses antiqued in black. Or any such combination of dye and antiquing. I think that painting the roses could distract from the beauty of your tooling.

Great. Next time I am in a hurry, I will remember. I don't use very delicate leathers either. Although, I must confess I am a bit lazy to use the hair dryer even on my hair, leave alone on my leathers! I just let everything dry naturally. Just discovered this by accident when I kept the sheaths aside to dry, and thought I would put it up here. Hopefully, some hobbyists might benefit from it. And apparently, candle warmers are pretty popular and certainly inexpensive and easy to operate - a single switch! And temp controlled as well - H, M and L.

I just realized yesterday, when I inadvertently placed a couple of dyed -waiting-to-dry leather sheaths next to a candle warmer, that the heat from that candle warmer is sufficient to dry the leather. it is gentle enough to dry but not so hot that it will warp or damage the leather. It is essentially like a hot box that people make to dry their leathers, with bulbs. This uses a bulb as well. The ones with a warming base might not work but the ones with bulbs do. Only requirement -no fragrant candles, since leathers pick odors fast.

In washing machines, clothes get soaked. So, while there are water repelling leathers, they might not be soak-proof.

@rleather yes, it helps tremendously! Thank you so much.

I have been looking for a pattern for a leather handbag with a kiss-clasp. Pic of the clasp blow. Not found it yet. If anyone knows where I can get such a pattern, I would appreciate the information. The only patterns I find are for cloth ones - not sure how the material translates when I want to make it of leather.

His patterns are great for learning different techniques.

Yes, that's probably true.

It is a nice pattern. Dieselpunk.ro has a different pattern for $1.99 each week. Have you seen them as well?

I still have issues with beveling, @Toffe. However, once I remembered that beveling is actually just trimming the edges off the leather and that the beveler is a tiny knife, I now look at the blade on my tool and think of positioning that blade in the position to cut as I want, whether on a higher level, different angle or whatever is needed, including sharpening/stropping. Looking at it in a different way helps me get better results. It might make a difference for you too.

I was offered it for 15 here. But I don't do sufficient tooling to warrant many swivel knives.

Thank you @DieselTech and @bruce johnson. I'm not a collector, so I'll probably pass.

I spelt the name wrong. Sorry. It is Divelbiss.

I might be able to lay my hands on a Devilbiss swivel knife. It seems to be in good condition. Are they good? Are they worth buying?

If I find my chisels difficult to pull out of the leather, I use a pan of wax as my punching board. I melt any old candles that I have around the house (no fragrance - that will transfer to the leather) in a baking pan. Once cool, it becomes a great punching board. Each time the wax surface become rough due to punching, it is a simple matter to put the pan back into the oven at low temperature to melt the wax and smoothen the surface again. This way, the chisel tips get waxed at each turn and slip out easily. If I find that the wax is transferring to the leather, I use an old piece of thinner split in between my leather and the wax. I anyway use thick splits as punching boards. Kinder on the chisels.

CORRECTION: Leather pieces treated with Mink oil are not the stiffest. They are second to the pieces treated with Mineral oil.

Report for 22nd March, 2024. The leather pieces showed some differences from 3 months ago. Firstly, an explanation of what the descriptions mean. Smoothness indicates the surface feel – silky smooth or rough. Shape indicates how the pieces hold their shape – whether the corners curl or the edges curve or even curve in a wavy manner. Stiffness indicates how easy it is to bend or fold the leather. Color: Indicates the extent of darkening. Smoothness: The leather pieces treated with Mineral oil were all the smoothest, having a silky feel. The next were the leather pieces treated with Neatsfoot oil and Coconut oil, which were similar - relatively silky. The Mink oil treated leather pieces felt a little rough, even more so than the control pieces. Color: Coconut oil darkened all the pieces the most, although all the pieces in all the locations except directly outside, are lighter now, than 3 months ago. in fact, they are almost as light as the leathers treated with the other oils. The least darkened are the leathers treated with Mink oil. Pieces treated with Mineral oil all have remarkably similar color except for the one outside. They also have remarkably uniform color - actually beautiful. Shape: The most warping was seen in the control leather pieces at every location. The Mink oil treated leathers were also relatively warped, the Coconut oil treated ones, less so. The leather pieces treated with Mineral oil were the least warped and held their flat shapes very well. Stiffness: Here, the stiffness differed more according to location. The leathers kept outside were the stiffest in their treatment categories. The least stiff were the ones treated with Coconut oil and then the ones with Neatsfoot oil. Most stiff were the leathers treated with Mineral oil. The leathers treated with Coconut oil are actually very soft. All the pieces treated with Coconut oil are the softest and smoothness is second only to Mineral oil treated leathers. This is surprising as, initially they had appeared a bit dry in Dec., 2023. They darkened earlier but over time, all except the leather placed outside are close in color to the leather pieces treated with the other oils. The leather pieces treated with Mineral oil are the flattest with least warping, the smoothest and all darkened uniformly and to the same extent in all locations except outside where the piece darkened significantly more, as expected. The darkening is also remarkably uniform over each piece. They are all however, also the stiffest.in their location categories. The leather pieces treated with Neatsfoot oil are moderate in every way. Moderately smooth, moderately stiff, moderately dark and moderately but not too warped. Mink oil continues to surprise me. The leather pieces in all locations feel least smooth, in fact a little rough. In all the locations- they feel like the controls – untreated. They are the most stiff and dry across all locations, including inside. They are however, the least darkened. Smell: they all smell like leather to me. There is no mold on any of the pieces. Seeing the results at this 6 month point (more or less), I can see why more than one ingredient is used to condition leather. Depending on the use of the leather goods, specific ingredients that complement each other can be selected to get the best results. This is still premature and I have added tallow, cod liver oil and lanolin to the line-up. I just added them a couple of days ago, so have not included them here. I will list them separately next week and from next time, list them all together, along with any other ingredient that I might add. If colors in the photograph appear different from my description, it could be the play of light.