Jump to content

Recommended Posts

  • Members
Posted

This may have been mentioned earlier, this thread has a lot of words, BUT, using nut oils maybe problematic for any one who has a nut allergy. Perhaps the soles of feet are callused enough that the allergens won't be an issue. I do not know, I am not a physician, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

I, personally, since my nut allergy has landed me in the emergency room on multiple occasions, would not touch any thing treated with even a small amount of a tree nut oil (my particular allergy, some are affected by peanuts).

  • Replies 193
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • Contributing Member
Posted

Excellent point. I'm not being facetious when I say we may now have to put allergy warnings on our goods. I'd rather put a tag with a warning then be responsible for putting someone in hospital

Al speling misteaks aer all mi own werk..

Posted (edited)

Just for the record, i didn't stay at the Holiday Inn last night either. Haha. 

So I'll cook with the macadamia nut oil, leave it out of my conditioner recipe. That leaves the beeswax and the Lanolin, and if it needs to be thinned I can reheat and use several drops of NFO. I have 2 quarts of the stuff, pure NFO, not the compound. @chuck123wapati  uses it, so that's good enough for me. 

I don't know how much beeswax to use, or why it is used in a stuffing recipe, and apparently I'll never know why, but if the sandals look nice, smell nice, are a pleasure to handle, then I resolve to be happy about it. (Well, and if people want a pair!)

I could use the tallow, too, and I will ruminate on that thought. 

Edited by deboardp
  • Members
Posted (edited)

Beeswax is used most often because it is a good water repellent. Besides, it does not soften very easily in the heat. Lanolin, tallow, etc. all go soft  or liquify when it is hot and  could be messy but when mixed in with beeswax, that does not happen.  Just conjecture on my part though.

 

Edited by SUP

Learning is a life-long journey.

  • CFM
Posted
15 hours ago, ScottWolf said:

I believe only you can answer this question. In my leather conditioner recipe thread I started with using certain products/ingredients and avoiding others. That was my baseline starting point for seeing which ingredients and the combos of them that worked. As you read through the thread, you will see I later used some of the ingredients I initially avoided to further refine and or prove/disprove the effectiveness of their use in a leather conditioning product(meaning a concoction of several ingredients like beeswax, oils,etc, not the ingredient by itself). Each combo of ingredients has its own performance characteristics on the type of leather it is used on that can be observed. Certain ingredients are known to darken leather significantly, others to a lesser extent. If you want to darken the leather, then using those ingredients would suit your use case and visa versa if you don't want to darken the leather. Through experimenting with different ingredients, you will answer your own question. Or, you can go out and buy and try all the different commercial products until you find one you like, which is what most people do. Lastly, if you know of a commercial product that works for you, you can always search for the MSDS for that product and get the breakdown of ingredients used and recreate it yourself, minus the parts you don't want to use and or increase the amount of an ingredient you want to use more of.

 

"Welcome to the internet, someone will be along shortly to disagree with you." is a phrase that holds true, no matter the subject matter. When it comes to leather work, it's no different, especially when some old guy in 1892 wrote down in a book that he used ingredient X ,because that's all they had at the time, so now it's considered gospel that cannot be questioned or a more suitable modern ingredient used in its place. One can slather just about anything on leather, but the old saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should"  should be kept in mind, even in this day and age.

I agree with your first statement.

People tend to disagree with personal opinion, vague descriptions, misconception or misrepresentation. Facts are undeniable, the up side to disagreement is science depends on it. Its called peer review.

Dubbin has been used for centuries. you call it conditioner. it was made from tallow , beeswax, and fish or animal oil. It was produced as a commercial product as early as the 18th century.

 I'll demonstrate a misconception you made, here is a short list of old guys from 1892 who wrote books. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/19th-century-scientists.php They had everything in 1892 you have now to make leather conditioner except maybe a few synthetic oils of which I see none mentioned in this thread. Obviously people of that era also had the intellect and scientific knowledge to make it. 

 

Worked in a prison for 30 years if I aint shiny every time I comment its no big deal, I just don't wave pompoms.

“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.” THE DUKE!

  • Members
Posted

I see there are a few references here to jojoba oil. I just saw a wood finish made with beeswax and jojoba oil.

And Christopher Schwarz, and reasonable well know woodworker sells a finish he calls soft wax, beeswax, raw linseed oil (not "boiled" that has metal driers in it) and a bit of citrus based solvent.  Ment for wood of course, but does not sound like there is anything that would be bad for leather. Just that there is probably more wax than would be desired.

Posted
1 hour ago, chuck123wapati said:

Dubbin has been used for centuries. you call it conditioner. it was made from tallow , beeswax, and fish or animal oil. It was produced as a commercial product as early as the 18th century.

I have a box of tins of dubbin! 

  • Members
Posted

Sup, my sheep tallow doesn't go particularly soft in hot weather (we occasionally reach 40*C plus, more often it's in the high 30's) it has quite a high melting point, but lanolin, of course, does soften significantly.

deboardp, I don't think you can go far wrong using combinations of beeswax, lanolin, nfo and maybe a decent tallow, they're all tried and proven for using on leather. The tricky part with using beeswax is finding something to thin it down sufficiently to make a soft paste (and without going rancid ;)). You'll find that most of the commercial products use mineral oil as the thinning agent primarily, I suspect, because it's cheap and is stable.

Machines wot I have - Singer 51W59; Singer 331K4; Seiko STH-8BLD; Pfaff 335; CB4500.

Chinese shoe patcher; Singer 201K (old hand crank)

  • Members
Posted

@@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! 

 

Learning is a life-long journey.

  • Members
Posted
10 hours ago, deboardp said:

 

I don't know how much beeswax to use, or why it is used in a stuffing recipe, and apparently I'll never know why, but if the sandals look nice, smell nice, are a pleasure to handle, then I resolve to be happy about it. (Well, and if people want a pair!)

I could use the tallow, too, and I will ruminate on that thought. 

Again, see my recipe post on how to make leather conditioner, it has ratios of each product and how to modify it if you want a more solid product, a balm or a cream. As for the "stuffing" you mentioned, I am assuming you are referring to hot stuffing,? This is done at the tannery during the tanning process, you are wanting to make a leather conditioner to be applied to finished leather if I understand you correctly. Hot Stuffing is defined by Horween as:

Hot Stuffed: Hot stuffing is the traditional second step in the re-tanning process for leathers that are not fat liquored or wet stuffed. Unrefined fats and oils, that are solid at room temperature, are utilized to deeply nourish and condition the fibers of the hide.  The fats and oils are pounded into the skins via tumbling in heated barrels, without the use of water and emulsifiers. The use of these fats and oils gives the leather a much richer feel. Hot stuffed leathers typically exhibit pull-up, good water resistance and excellent durability over time." Here is the link because someone will undoubtedly want to refute this https://www.horween.com/glossary

You are on the right track with using beeswax, Lanolin and Tallow(beef). I make that exact recipe using the tallow from South Chicago packing and it works great for conditioning a piece of leather. You can also get this same product from Colorado leather balm if you want to try it out before you make it yourself. You can find it on Amazon. I think this is a good trifecta of ingredients to condition leather to be used to make sandals.

 

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...