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Hello, I am kind of a new amateur. I am making some straps for some squeezeboxes. This is the first time I have worked with mink oil. After cutting and punching holes in the pieces of leather, I treated all of the pieces with mink oil, and they don't seem to dry. I have been placing them on newspaper, and changing the newspaper twice a day for several weeks now, and still whenever I change the newspaper, there are still blotches of oil on the paper. Once I assemble these straps and start using them, I do not want to end up getting oil spots on my shirts. So, I want to get these straps dry enough so they won't do that. They no longer get my hands oiling when I handle them, but they still get the paper oily after lying on the paper for hours. Is there some way to get the oil to dry faster? Like maybe baking the pieces in the oven for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature? Thanks.

I've added a couple of pictures of sheaths I really did shed some blood, sweat and tears working on yesterday. All y'all have been so good with advice -- I think these, especially the wider skinner sheath, have some of the best work I've done. Once I'd stitched and done the edge-burnishing, I swabbed on a good coat of Fiebring's USMC Black leather dye. I let it dry and then rubbed off the powdery residue. (I only get that with the USMC Black and not with brown dyes.) Then another coat of the black dye, and left them hanging overnight, well over 12 hours. Today I rubbed the paraffin into the edges and buffed that. I'm trying different finishes. I don't like the SuperSheen -- makes my leather look like plastic. I have Eco-Flo matte and satin finishes, and they've left streaks on sheaths before. I prefer a lower-gloss finish. Today I tried mink oil that was in the shop from someone else's work. Rubbed it on, let it dry for a couple of hours, rubbed the surface then put it on the buffing wheel, and that's when the black dye started coming off the leather. You can see the patchiness here in the pictures. So -- now what? My partner thought maybe the mink oil acted as a solvent on the dye, but the dye was dry. I know the thread I used yesterday was more heavily waxed than usual and I'm wondering if I transferred some by my fingers and made a resist -- but it didn't show up til I buffed the finish. I'm thinking of trying the homemade finish - got beeswax and vegetable oil to melt it into. The one I saw has vodka in and there's good reason not to keep drinkin' liquor around here -- I'm going to see what I can find about using rubbing alcohol instead.

I've added a couple of pictures of sheaths I really did shed some blood, sweat and tears working on yesterday. All y'all have been so good with advice -- I think these, especially the wider skinner sheath, have some of the best work I've done. Once I'd stitched and done the edge-burnishing, I swabbed on a good coat of Fiebring's USMC Black leather dye. I let it dry and then rubbed off the powdery residue. (I only get that with the USMC Black and not with brown dyes.) Then another coat of the black dye, and left them hanging overnight, well over 12 hours. Today I rubbed the paraffin into the edges and buffed that. I'm trying different finishes. I don't like the SuperSheen -- makes my leather look like plastic. I have Eco-Flo matte and satin finishes, and they've left streaks on sheaths before. I prefer a lower-gloss finish. Today I tried mink oil that was in the shop from someone else's work. Rubbed it on, let it dry for a couple of hours, rubbed the surface then put it on the buffing wheel, and that's when the black dye started coming off the leather. You can see the patchiness here in the pictures. So -- now what? My partner thought maybe the mink oil acted as a solvent on the dye, but the dye was dry. I know the thread I used yesterday was more heavily waxed than usual and I'm wondering if I transferred some by my fingers and made a resist -- but it didn't show up til I buffed the finish. I'm thinking of trying the homemade finish - got beeswax and vegetable oil to melt it into. The one I saw has vodka in and there's good reason not to keep drinkin' liquor around here -- I'm going to see what I can find about using rubbing alcohol instead.

I've used golden mink oil and I like it a lot. How does their mink oil paste compare? I read on amazon that there's not even actual mink oil in the golden mink oil. Thanks in advance