SUP
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@deboardp Just a word of caution. Beeswax hardens quite a bit and when I tried it first, my conditioner ended up hard. I had to add more and more lanolin and oil to get it to a paste. Since you are not planning to use oils which make the mixture more fluid, may I suggest you start with a small quantity of beeswax and add more until you get the texture you want? Else, like me, you might end up with a large hard block from which I hacked off pieces and added lanolin and oil to get a paste. A bit of a pain. Also if you want it to smell nice, maybe you should decide what you mean by 'nice'. Lanolin smells great to me - is that what you mean? Or do you plan to add something for fragrance? You can add any essential oil or fragrance oil but is that what you want? If so, maybe you could look up fragrance oils to find what will please you?
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@dikman Yep but you see, it is a personal thing, so to each his own. @deboardp if you are most comfortable with using greases on your leather, you also now know that they are fine on leather. As @chuck123wapati said, people have been doing it for 100s of years. So whether you do what they did or adapt something like petroleum products, ether way there is plenty of proof about all the ingredients and that they do not harm leather, never mind what the companies selling different products say. Good luck in your endeavour!
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Been there, done that. @deboardp
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There are only so many waxes and greases suitable for the purpose. Over the centuries, all the combinations will have already been tried, isn't it? Finally, it is just hydration, lubrication and water proofing, whatever the products used. If Aussies, with over 94% petroleum products is considered wonderful - people wax eloquent about it - as much as tallow and lanolin and beeswax and other animal products, it shows leather is hardy and not really fussy, is it not? And @deboardp if you are concerned about the vegans and vegetarians, why not emulate Aussies? There's proof for you that petroleum products do not actually harm leather and do not need animal products or indeed, labor-intensive procedures like hot-stuffing with grease to remain in good condition.
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I'll take your word for it.
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One of the uses of a still, I guess. Or just keep a handful of tobacco along with the leather maybe. After all, cigar boxes smell wonderful too - used to get them from my uncle who smoked cigars.
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Maybe, if you want to use this pretty patterned leather, if you used a thick glue, applied it only on the wallet and not on the lining and then placed this on and rolled, it might not bleed through .
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@dikman I use a D-limonene cleaner to clean my pots after I make leather conditioners in it, which contain beeswax. I spray it in and leave it fora while. Then I wipe it off. Sometimes I need to do it twice. After that, a quick scrub with soap, more for my satisfaction, and it's clean. My cleaner is a 16 oz bottle filled nearly to the top with tap water, 1-2 Tbsp of D-Limonene, 1 Tbsp of alcohol and a few drops of Dawn dishwashing soap as surfactant, in case you were wondering. Found this recipe online, tried it and am delighted with it. I suspect the alcohol evaporates fast enough though. I can understand D-Limonene being so expensive in Australia. Maybe you need to find a local manufacturer there?
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@fredk LOL That's one way of doing it.
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@jrdunn thank you. I am ordering it at once.
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Making essential oils must be time consuming, isn't it? I'm actually looking for a leather or tobacco fragrance. I'm a bit tired of everything smelling of orange! I thought my leather at least should smell a little different. Last week I added a tiny bit of a solid scent that I bought last month. It is a paste so blends right in. Strong scent so only a little was needed - smells of leather and tobacco. If I don't get a good fragrance oil for a leather fragrance, I will probably continue to use it.
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@p51p28 there are any number of discussions about leather creams in this forum. Just search for 'conditioner' and you will find them. Lots of discussions about ingredients as well, so you can choose which best suit your purpose. By the way, Aussie's is mainly petroleum jelly, 60% or more, and microcrystalline wax which is also obtained as part of the petroleum refining process, and petroleum distillates. They say the conditioner is made of beeswax but the percentage of that is only 3-6%. Check their MSDS. Not that there is anything wrong with that product. It works fine.
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@chuck123wapati a bit off topic, but you said you use your tallow to make soaps - lemon, lavender, peppermint. Do you use essential oils for fragrance?
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@fredk A divider across the stitched lines like @MarshalWill says, with a soft flexible leather would work well, I think. @Asavva what a wonderfully versatile pattern you have some up with! A pouch bag made with one piece of leather would not easily allow additions of pockets or compartments but this pattern is not only elegant and beautiful but allows those additions as well. And lovely color combination too. @jrdunn Your question is certainly worth a lot more than 2 cents since it resulted in so many useful ideas. Now I can't wait to make a pouch bag either.
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That is a nice bag! @jrdunnHow would you put inside pockets into a pouch bag? Would it not affect the shape?
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@chuck123wapati And fish oils are supposed to be good for leather too -used in oil-tanning leather isn't it? At least, that I want is said in the literature. If I were in Nevada, I would have an issue with tallow as the temperature goes up to late teens there but here, it is positively balmy in comparison. So I will not need too much wax then. Thank you.
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I wonder if I write so badly that some people don't understand my posts? Some of the responses make no sense. Enough of grumpiness. I have ordered several pounds of tallow and am just waiting to try it. Everyone has such praise for it, I had to get it. Not elk tallow though as @chuck123wapati uses. I do not think we can get it for sale - we get beef, lamb, bison but not elk. Does Tallow get very soft in summer? Here it gets pretty warm, so when I make the conditioner I want to be certain it will not get too messy in summer.
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@chuck123wapati you are perfectly right about adding solvents to oil based products - why would you? You want to soften the products, not degrade them. What is the advantage of that? I wonder what the end products are and how they will affect leather, the end products of degradation of the various oils and waxes I mean. Anyway, why are we even talking about adding solvents to leather conditioners? It makes absolutely no sense! No one does it, except for miniscule amounts, for like I said, fragrance or insecticidal properties - certainly not for its solvent properties!. So maybe, just maybe, we should move on.
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@dikman I have been using D-Limonene in my conditioner for quite a while now, and just about everything else since it is a very safe pesticide and cleaner as well. But in small amounts. My concern is only about using it as a softener for wax. Waxes are hard and need quite a bit of a thinning agent. I was wondering how it would affect leather in larger amounts and over time. It is supposed to be a good degreaser as well, because of its solvent properties, so I am not sure how it will work along with waxes, in larger concentrations. Will it dissolve the waxes? I have no idea. As an insecticide and for fragrance it is used in such small amounts, it does not seem to harm leather or dissolve the waxes either. I will probably look into it sometime and put it up here if I learn something new. I use so much D-Limonene, I like to know what else I can do with it. As far as vegetable oils are concerned, I know that coconut oil, which is notorious for smelling awful when exposed to air, did not smell at all when applied to leather. Four different pieces of leather kept in four different locations and no smell. I was surprised but there it is. Of course, I used the fractionated coconut oil, so that might be one reason for that. So the treatment of the vegetable oils maybe something to look into, for anyone who wants to use vegetable oils.
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@dikman I have been using food grade D-Limonene for a while now and buy it by the gallon. The MSDS does say it should have a mild citrus fragrance with a slight turpentine hint, so what I get is pure. It is a solvent so I am not sure about its use as a softening agent to make paste wax. It might eat away the leather if it is present in too high a concentration, don't you think? I started using it to make my all-purpose household cleaner and then, finding it convenient and because it keeps away insects and the area so clean, decided to add it to my conditioner. Just a little bit, for the fragrance and also the fungicidal and insecticidal effect. Not sure how much is needed for that effect but I'm not sure I want to add much more either. I just follow my nose when I add it. Lanolin and D-Limonene together give a lovely fragrance and the advantage is that with the beeswax and oil, the conditioner is good for my hands as well and safe if my dog licks it off my fingers. I make my conditioner in small quantities so the orange fragrance, which keeps away insects, remains. I'm not sure how long it will remain if used in larger batches.
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@deboardp orange oil is the solvent. Orange oil is the layman's name for it.
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@Wepster Thank you! I have been looking for a citrus oil which smells only of oranges. I get mine as food-grade since I use it as a household cleaner as well and want it safe for my pets. But in spite of getting it from different sellers, it always has a slight smell of L-Limonene - piney-turpentiney, as described in the MSDS. I will try this seller. Limonene does not contain turpentine either. It is pure orange oil and the part with the orange fragrance is D - Limonene. Many companies sell it separated from L-Limonene but I suspect the separation is not always perfect. @deboardp, I go on Amazon to get food grade D-Limonene. As I mentioned, sometimes it has a slight turpentine smell but the orange fragrance is present. i plan to try the one @Wepster suggested next. It is technical grade, so not for a household cleaner for me, but certainly for my leathers. About oil-tanned leathers, they are easy to line. I use them a lot and am happy with the results. Just made a host of keychains for gifts, many with layered oil-tanned leathers and they do glue well. There is no oil on the surfaces to prevent that.
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@ScottWolf I'm sure your leather conditioner is perfectly fine and works well. But that does not mean other ingredients or other recipes don't. They do.
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@Wepster, @deboardp citrus oil - solvent - I suspect they mean Limonene. D-limonene smells of oranges which is pleasant; L-Limonene has a piney-turpentine smell, which is not. D-Limonene as a solvent is great as an addition to leather conditioners - it is an anti-fungal as well. Not sure of the percentage needed though. If you buy plain Limonene, you get the unseparated mix, which smells of pine and turpentine. So if you want the citrus fragrance, you need to buy the D-Limonene. Often though, it is not sufficiently separated and still has some turpentine smell. @deboardp if vegans don't like what you use, it is their loss, isn't it? How much can you really change your conditioner recipes to suit people's idiosyncrasies? The change might result in a product that is not as effective and that will be another issue. A question: Is there a need for tallow as well as lanolin in a conditioner? Is one of these not sufficient, along with beeswax for a bit of stiffness and an oil of choice for penetration into the leather and texture of the conditioner? Just wondering. @deboardp After the earlier comments on applying conditioners to damp leather, I tried it on some dry leather that I have. I dampened the leather with a spray bottle and then rubbed in the conditioner. It slowly turned white. I left it overnight and the next day, the leather was soft and pliable and shiny - whiteness gone. Delighted with the result but I don't think I will repeat - too much elbow grease needed. But the method works. About hot-stuffing, From what I have read, oil tanned leather is specifically chrome tanned leather that is hot stuffed. That does not mean veg tanned leather is not or cannot be hot stuffed - just not given a specific name. Latigo is hot-stuffed and chrome and veg tanned! There are others too and since the process makes the leather more pliable, I guess if we look at the processes of making the more pliable veg-tanned leather, they might include hot stuffing as well.
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@@dikman I'll take your word for it. I've still to receive the tallow I've ordered. I guess beeswax is included for its water repellent properties then. I'm trying to find inert lipids to apply on my leathers - beeswax is one such, as are carnauba wax and lanolin. "Organic" in layman's terms too!
