deboardp

I'm near end of life, so I won't be buying a microscope to study cross-sections. I was wondering though why the experiments are centered on oils and not fats? I have heard that saddle makers use saddler's grease to condition their saddles, or maybe it's their customers who do that. Grease is like concentrated fat. It's rubbed in with bare hands to produce heat, with the leather being wet with warm water first, to facilitate the fat/wax/tallow/lanolin movement along the fibers, to keep the leather flexible. It seems like a basic principle to me, to do that. I might be in the wrong topic thread. I'm trying to find out the best leather conditioner, and as you mentioned, this one to find out if mineral oil is harmful or not. Sorry!

The difference between using oils as opposed to fats and waxes paste is elbow grease. The report walks through how vegetable tanned leather can be stuffed by the craftsman, and it is labor intensive, and messy. My intuition tells me stuffing fats and waxes is better than oiling, but it would require adding a stuffing concoction to the experiment and buying a microscope, to expand the effects determination.

leather conditioner.odtThis is an awesome and interesting experiment, and I appreciate the care everyone is putting into it. I myself want to make my own leather conditioner. I do have a bit of a bias, based primarily on a secondary source, a report by Austin Black of Wales, who was trained in the UK in saddlery trade school. The report is in a thread I started recently on the topic of DIY leather conditioners. He goes into detail how he applies his conditioner, which is something the experiment here ignores. About NFO, which it seems every contributor to this thread uses and lives, he says to avoid, and he explains why, which is that it leads to the oxidation (decay) of leather on a molecular level. Which brings me to another procedure deficiency of this experiment, which is, what are the criteria for determining the effects of the conditioners being tested? Are they simply what can be experienced with the senses of sight, smell, and touch? I did not see a concern by anyone with the effects of the conditioners on the fibers of the leather on a cellular level. My understanding from reading secondary sources and from personal experience of making multiple hundreds of pairs of leather sandals over 50 years ago is that conditioners make leather supple and more readily conformable to the human foot. I have no idea how we can test the effects of conditioners on the actual fibers of leather, unless we start using microscopes and very sharp knives to cut slide samples, before and after samples. The effects to the fibers seems quite important to me, because we want the fibers to be free to slide along side each other, at least for sandals that seems important. A flexible sandal rather than a stiff one seems more comfortable in theory. Maybe a saddle needs to be stiffer? Finally, another concern I have is that there seems to be a consensus amongst most, if not all, experiment participants that the way to condition leathers is to oil them rather than to stuff them with fats and waxes. Maybe I need more sources of information, but from the Austin Black report, the UK saddle industry has historically not used any oils at all to condition their saddles, except for cod liver oil, but then only after the leather has been thoroughly stuffed with fats and waxes from their paste conditioner. The cod liver oil is not absorbed by the leather because it is stuffed already. The cod oil treats the surface and somehow restores the smell of leather to the leather. How that works is a mystery to me. I'll attach his brief two page report here, which he posted on leatherworker.net a long time ago. I wonder if we can put the thread I started in the same sub forum as this one? What happened to all the test results? It seems folks moved on to other things after December 10... oh, the holidays...

I'm impetuous. I realized this evening that Eastern Orthodox monks don't eat meat, and my target demograph is monks first and Orthodox lay people second, so why am i buying lard and tallow to condition their footwear??? Sheesh. I'm an idiot, too. So, regroup. I need to reread the discussion about recipes for leather conditioner that Scott Wolf mentions above in this thread, and read the thread on this topic from September. How does one mark that? Could i have used a browser bookmark? I had just gotten to the part where someone posted links to discussions from 1940 and from 100 years ago about fats and oils to condition leather. I did read in one of those that wool wax and wool grease are ingredients, and I heard of some kind of fat or wax made from nuts. I lost many memory functions during my stroke of 2015. Be grateful if you remember things. I guess I'll be wanting a leather conditioner that 1), doesn't harm leather in any way, but rather makes it soft for contact with tender feet, and 2), doesn't stain the socks that people can where with these sandals, and 3) doesn't contain fats from animal food products. Off the cuff, there's anhydrous lanolin and there's beeswax. I'll read more and see if my aversion to using NFO and other oils is warranted and supported by actual evidence, and to find evidence of what else could join my recipe.

Which recipes are for waterproofing, Scott?

What the book calls wool grease is what we call lanolin.

I'll read it again.

I might like to buy the book online if it's in print and if it's relevant to making sandals (and later, belts and bags).

I would like to look at it. I was thinking earlier this morning that if I didn't like the conditioner I'm about to make, I'll have all this organic pork lard in a jar, and I could eat it out of the jar with a spoon, like a bacon smoothie. Well, maybe not...

It did finally show up last night.

That's an interesting topic thread. Why are you averse to using tallow and lard? Those two ingredients make up 3/4 of the recipe of the English Saddlers conditioner. Austin, who apparently goes by"Oz", recommends to not use oil at all, until after the leather has been stuffed with fats and waxes, and he points out that the leather doesn't absorb this oil since it is already stuffed. I know almond oil is heady stuff for the olfactory sense, but the Saddlers of old didn't use oil. They used fats and waxes, which are removed in vegetable tanning leather. They're simply replacing that stuff with their conditioner. So I think I'll try the old way first, see how it works. Leather sandals are similar to tack and saddles in that there are straps and body weight on the topsole. I'll try what has worked for centuries. I bought 50 tins to send along with each pair of sandals I make, no charge to customers.

I just edited my post at the top, you might want to look at it. Do you have a link to your recipe?

This topic was started here in 2016 click here . There was an interesting discussion, and one fellow, "unicornleather", who is Austin Black of Wales, made saddles, and he makes his own concoction, which he sells or used to sell. But I can't reach him. Basically he said he uses an ancient saddler's grease made with tallow, beeswax, lard. He recommends using lanolin, but doesn't mention it in his basic formula. Also, he doesn't include the actual recipe. He says use 50% beef fat (tallow), 25%beeswax, and 25% lard (pork fat). In an effort to add lanolin to my recipe, I've jotted down these numbers: 40% tallow, 20% beeswax, 20% lard, 20% anhydrous (no water) lanolin. Lanolin is made by sheep sebaceous glands to lubricate and protect its wool. It's a waxy, white substance, the same stuff as the white part of a white head on human skin. I've considered maybe adding something else, for aroma, but Austin "Oz" said that the final treatment of leather, after this conditioner has spent three days moving along the leather fibres, and is apparently "dry", is to rub a small amount of cod liver oil onto both sides of the leather. He said this restores the leather smell of the leather. I'll have to try it. My leather already smells like leather, but after rubbing all that grease into both sides of it, who knows WHAT it will smell like! He wrote a similar article in another journal in 2012, but I didn't save the links to either article. However, I saved his article on the computer. I'll attach it, if allowed. He posted and was a member known as unicornleather. This is his website. I couldn't get his messaging to work for me. https://www.unicornleather.co.uk/ You can read his story if you click on "about me", at the top in the blue banner. I ordered all my ingredients today, online, except for the cod liver oil. Patrick leather conditioner.odt

I'll be using then for mid-soles, since I'll be cutting out rectangles from the midsole to create channels for straps and stanchions. The other ideas are good, too. I can use them to practice stitching, testing my glues, trying out dyeing techniques, trying out my new DIY leather conditioner based on basic ancient recipes. I'm starting a new topic on that.

I'm making a four sole sandal, three layers are leather, glued and stitched together. The fourth layer is 1/8" gum rubber, a full sole. What's the best glue for this? In my glue drawer I have Barge, Renia Top-Fit, Renia Aquilim 315, and Intercom Ecostick 1816B. The last one listed holds great when dry but the leathers separate when wet. They can be pulled apart. The shop is in my living room so i haven't done that experiment of soaking and pulling apart with the other glues. I'm thinking the water based glues will also not hold when the leather is well soaked but that possibly the barge will hold. Anyone know? The leather will be well roughed and the rubber, too. I have a one ton manual press for some pressure on it.

I did some more online snooping about oils and conditioners and read something from Carl Friedrik that reminded me of 50 years ago hearing the same thing, that neatsfoot oil can harm leather, while mink oil is the best oil for leather. My second stroke destroyed many of my memory functions, so I just don't remember many many things. So I bought a few bottles of mink oil online from Tandy. I've been using the neatsfoot oil on my stones to sharpen my round knives and I guess now I have a lifetime supply for that. Here's the link to what I read: what Carl said about best oil for leather

stitching

I added the deadends, with dotted lines. I also added a photo with the stitching, how it passes over the deadends and also reinforces the other straps with parallel stitches.

I answered this laboriously on my "smart" phone, and then lost the message when I went looking for my attachments. So now I'm on the laptop, and I edited the pic I want to send you. I use slots in the topsole, and channels (cutouts) in the midsole, to pass straps across to the other side of the sandal. In the picture, those straps are one piece of leather, separated so I can use a buckle. The wide end, at the big toe knuckle, deadends under that knuckle. I glue it to the flesh side of the top sole under the knuckle. Later I will run a doubled stitch through all three soles and the deadend, make sure it never pulls out. The dotted lines show where that front strap crosses to the other side from the little toe slot. The ankle/heel stanchions, one piece of leather, also pass across through a cutout in the midsole. The stanchions strap will be glued to the topsole, and stitched to prevent shifting. I use the midsole in order to keep the topsole flat, no humps from a strap being under it. The midsole is made of the same side of leather as the straps, the parts that are not prime strap leather. The straps fit in the cutouts, laying flat with the midsole, because they are replacing the part I cutout for them to lay in. I'm innovating with this design. My hypothesis is that two thinner layers of softish leather (7/8 ounce) will conform to the foot better than a more hardish, thicker single layer, and in my practice sandal, I noticed the the edge of the topsole curls up after I run a stitch along the sandal edge, which I like immensely. It creates a raised edge, helping to hold the foot. The bottom sole is not bend, which is too stiff. I'm using another double sole feature for the bottom sole. The two-part bottom sole will be 10 ounce shoulder, stiched together with top and midsoles, and then a 1/8" thick gum rubber bottom sole that will be glued, not stitched, to the shoulder. I wonder about the glue, and I'm going to create a new topic under the shoes and sandals forum here. I had tried a water based glue, Intercom ECOSTICK 1816B, and I liked it. I glued two scrap pieces of shoulder together and it held quite tight. A week later I wondered about it getting wet, and how it would hold up. So I soaked it in warm water, probably unfair, because rain is not usually warm, for 15 minutes, and tried to pry it apart. To my surprise, it came right apart. That's not good. I wonder if Barge or Renia Top-Fit would withstand being soaked. I have a gallon of each. I used Barge on my own personal sandals that lasted 20 years before I finally lost them, and I'm pretty sure they got wet from time to time. Do you know the answer to this question? I have a gallon of another water-based glue on the way, wish I could remember the name of it... but I think all water-based glues will share the problem of losing their bond when the leather is soaked. On the other hand, if the leather pieces are stitched or cobbled, they won't separate. The question might be moot.

I should have asked you if you thought that my 6 ounce straps might still be weak despite their pronounced width? Obviously 7/8 ounce would be stronger, but will a small man or a lady stretch these 6 ounce straps before twenty years is up? Can you share what you use for oil and for conditioner? Thanks!

Thank you, Tom E, for taking the time to help me. All the leather I'm using is vegetable tanned. I have a side of 7/8 ounce for straps for men, and the 6/7 ounce is for the delicate among us. When I got back from Vietnam with my honorable discharge I learned how to make snacks and opened a shop. Heady days. I did bevel all edges, but used Edge Kote. I remember thinking it made the edges rough and hard. I didn't know about burnishing. 50 years later I'm determined to use best practices to make a world class sandal. I have the same concern as you about the thinner material, and I have justified using it because my straps are 50% (minimum) wider than what I used to use, which was 1/2". I noticed on my 20 year old sandals that the straps stretched and were only 3/8" wide in places of stress. I thought at the time that if I ever got back to making sandals I would increase that to 3/4". And that's what I've done. The main strap is 1-1/2" wide over the big toe knuckle and 1" wide over the little toe knuckle. After that it transitions to 3/4" wide. I'm using an edge creaser, burnishing machine, and sewing machine to hold it all together. And glue of course. I AM using cuts along the back and butt for my straps, because the leather is obviously tighter fibered there. I'm making 6 pair for friends at no cost to them. Two of them are delicate and will get the thinner straps. The others will get the 7/8 ounce, which is 7.5 ounce every where I've checked. The 6/7 is 6.0 ounces. Luxury vegetable tan comes out of a tannery in Italy and is tanned longer, I think. The result is a luxurious soft pliable leather, very uniform on both the flesh and grain sides. It was also expensive. I have a side of 7/8 Hermann Oak veg tan on its way. Maybe the 7/8 straps will be fine for everyone if I use several applications of neats foot oil, as Dwight has suggested. I'll try that for the second pair I make for the delicate person.

Thanks, Dwight. I remember that I used neats foot oil 50 years ago.

I'll try to figure out how, again.

I'm close to making sandals. Shop is basically complete. How can I make veg tan sandal straps soft and more pliable without losing strength? I've got some Bart's Saddle and Tack conditioner on the way. I heard use neats foot oil, don't use neats foot oil, use saddle soap and water and a horse hair brush. The straps will start at roughly 1.5 inches wide and taper to 1", and then taper to 3/4". I'm using 6 ounce luxury veg tan. It's already soft, but I want softer, more willing to conform to the shape of the foot. I don't want to use water for that because I think it will weaken the leather by allowing it to stretch too much. I also have 7.5 ounce utility veg tan. it's stiffer, but I think the 6 ounce will work because I'm using wider straps. I forgot how to use Snapseed. Here's a link to a photo of my burnisher and sanding drum with DIY vacuum setup. Duct outlet, reducers, duct tape, gum, and paper clips. OK, no gum or paper clips. These two pix have nothing to do with my question. They're just for the curious. Better shot:

Well, Dwight, I decide to buy one of them, because I don't want to disturb the neighbors below me. I bought a 1 ton from Vevor, with a wheel that quickly positions the ram onto the work item. one ton Vevor