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@Aven, Yes, I believe so.

It burns when I put a lighter to it. Burns down the length of the piece that I cut. No. That is wrong. I think it melts and leaves a small amount of firm black residue which would not happen with natural fibre. Natural fibre would leave ash. This thread burns up so fast, initially I thought it burnt up but now when I look, it has left a firm black residue. So synthetic fibre.

It is about 1.2 - 1.3mm thick. I did take the photograph from up close so that it is clearly seen. Incidentally, the seller did not know what this thread is either.

I have had an excellent experience with an eBay seller in the last couple of days and thought I should put it up here since these days, more and more of us have reasons to mistrust eBay sellers. I bid on a set of about 40 pre-1963 Craftool stamps. The lot included a rawhide mallet in good condition and thread (I have put up the pic here..what type is it?) I won the auction and paid a total of $68 including taxes and shipping, which I thought was fair. The seller, however, did not expect the lot to go for so much and was delighted. As a thank you, he included 2 pieces of leather with the lot. I received the lot last evening and on cleaning, realized that the stamps are all in excellent condition - only light surface rust that disappeared with Evaporust. The mallet is also in good condition, needing only a light cleaning. The leather included seems to be deerskin. A good experience, which put me in a good mood for the weekend and completely wiped away the bad taste left by a crooked seller from France from whom I luckily did not purchase anything. I would love to know what this thread is - it was part of the lot that I received.

That's good information. I will use Vaseline on several pieces and check the extent of water absorption over hours and days. Right now, I have applied a mixture of mineral oil and coconut oil (10%) to new leather pieces and kept them with the others. I will prepare a new set for the Vaseline. I need to also record the thickness of the leather very specifically for each piece too, not just a generalized 5oz description. Today, it is bright and sunny outside. Hope it rains soon.

Sorry to hear about your eye problems. Glad you are getting it done and they can be straightened out. And your NHS. What a blessing that is. Wish we had something similar here.

I'll wait for your input.

I am thinking of a way to include petroleum jelly ever since your experience that it might be giving a water repellent effect.. That will be a different experiment, more to check how long the water repellent effect remains when out in the rain - its been raining here quite a bit - and then, when kept in different places, how long the effect remains. Have you had any experience with this?

Here are the pics and information about Lanolin, Tallow and cod liver oil. - the first row is treated with lanolin, the 2nd, with tallow and third with cod liver oil. The piece on the extreme left is untreated, for comparison. Lanolin, tallow, cod liver oil - applied to 4 pieces each, one piece being placed in garage, outside, car and control area. Observations as follows: Lanolin: Immediately on application, leather pieces slightly darker than control – all remarkably consistently darkened. Smoother as well. Mild smell of lanolin. Tallow: Immediately on application, leather pieces slightly darker than control. Smooth. No smell of tallow. Cod liver oil: Immediately on application, leather pieces slightly darker than control. Smooth. Smell of cod liver oil. All pieces have darkened slightly after application of test material – more or less to a similar extent. The lanolin gave the most consistent immediate darkening with the least streaking or spots. The pieces treated with tallow have no smell while those treated with lanolin and cod liver oil smell of those respective products. All the pieces feel smooth - smoother than the control. They are as soft as well but not softer than the control. I completed this a while ago; now preparing the set with the mix of mineral oil and coconut oil.

@fredk, will try that.

Thank you for that information @Littlef

That is in fact what I needed - which polish to look for. Now I have some idea -that polishes are categorized based on the hardness of the metal being polished. Never done anything with metal, so naturally I am absolutely clueless , but slowly learning, with the patient help from all you kind people. I don't plan to buff the faces of the stamps - they have to remain sharp. Not sure how I will protect them. Let's see. Thank you @Littlef, for your input.

@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.

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.