DIY leather conditioner

[SUP]

 

4 minutes ago, deboardp said:

I have standards (nose held in the air, accompanied by a sniff).

LOL @deboardp  me? Not so much. If I can get something done well on the cheap, I do not like to spend more. But i like lanolin in my conditioner for the fragrance as well - if petroleum jelly smelt as good, I would use it. 

And hey! it is not just our Western culture that produces and uses cheap stuff... think of where it comes from first! The rest of the world does it as well, produces and uses cheap stuff.  Think of Balistol as @dikman  said. It is only us who beat ourselves about it. No, my friend. Let's not do that. We have to respect ourselves first before we can expect others to respect us,  and there is plenty to respect in us.. 

[deboardp]

18 minutes ago, SUP said:

@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?

Thanks for the warning about the wax. I'll reduce what I plan to use, maybe do 12.5% instead of 25% of the total weight. Lanolin smells great to me, too. It's a bit thin, not very pasty, although I haven't scooped any out of the bucket to work it with my hands. I'll know more when I pull the tallow and the lanolin out of their containers. I'll pinch a bit of each for a feel.

[deboardp]

13 minutes ago, dikman said:

That Colorado stuff is sort of what many on here have been saying to use - tallow, beeswax and some sort of oil to thin it out, in this case lanolin. If it is soft enough to spread then the bulk of it must be lanolin, as while tallow has a relatively low melting point beeswax does not and once you start adding it the mixture will thicken/stiffen very quickly. I see Sup just said the same thing. Even the Colorado add said "just a bit of beeswax", so it's mostly lanolin and tallow.

In my experiments I started off with beeswax and found I had to add a LOT of oil to make it softer, as Sup has said.

The can says that this Colorado Leather balm goes liquid at 95F. That's like close to how warm a sandal will get with a foot in it. A bit more beeswax will raise the melting point.

[deboardp]

19 minutes ago, SUP said:

 

LOL @deboardp  me? Not so much. If I can get something done well on the cheap, I do not like to spend more. But i like lanolin in my conditioner for the fragrance as well - if petroleum jelly smelt as good, I would use it. 

And hey! it is not just our Western culture that produces and uses cheap stuff... think of where it comes from first! The rest of the world does it as well, produces and uses cheap stuff.  Think of Balistol as @dikman  said. It is only us who beat ourselves about it. No, my friend. Let's not do that. We have to respect ourselves first before we can expect others to respect us,  and there is plenty to respect in us.. 

Nobody should respect me, and I certainly don't respect myself. I know myself. There's nothing good in me. 

That's called humility, a virtue.

About getting stuff on the cheap, yes, I'm okay with that. That's why, if this Colorado Leather Balm works, I want to make my own, since I have 50 tins and lids. I'll give my customers a tin of it with each order.

 

Edited January 13, 2024 by deboardp

[SUP]

@deboardp,  that is sad. I hope a day comes when you will value yourself more.

When one is not puffed up with self importance, when one thinks one is no different from anyone else, that is humility and a virtue. Denigrating oneself? I don't think so. And before you say that I don't know what I am talking about, please remember you are a veteran and to the rest of us in the country, veterans are people whom we respect. Whatever happened afterwards are circumstances which you might or might not have contributed towards but that will not change the fact that you re a veteran.   As my husband says and I agree wholeheartedly, when there is danger and we laymen run away, the armed forces, the police force, the fire service, all of you run towards it, so that the rest of us are safe. That is why, all of you are worthy of respect.

[deboardp]

I'm a 77 year old man who is disabled by exposure to agent orange during my service in the Vietnam War. I lived on a base cleared with that herbicide from which we flew combat missions of fighter escort and EW escort for the B-52's. We also connected the Vietnam command to the US by phone and teletype. I worked with that crew, in the multiplexing center. 

I became disabled in 2004 by the developing illnesses caused by herbicide exposure. I had to stop working and was homeless for 15 of the past 18 years. I became housed in September of 2023 because i received a HUD-VASH voucher.  In 2022, mainly due to Jon Stewart, the comedian and talk show host, the US Congress passed the Pact Act which says that soldiers such as myself no longer has to prove they were exposed to herbicide if they were at particular places at particular times. Jon had yelled at Congress, "SHAME ON YOU!!" More than once, for not granting us disabled veterans disability compensation. (It's usually not possible to prove exposure.) So in December 2023 I was granted disability compensation, just 30 days ago. My disease disabilities add up to 190% disability, but of course they round it off to 100%.

Although i had the housing voucher, my SS retirement benefits were roughly $500  a month shy of covering all my expenses, so until 30 days ago I was facing homelessness again without that $500 additional income. I had started making this sandal shop in September 2022 because I used to make a good sandal 50 years ago, and I didn't think the VA would ever compensate me.

But now I'm being compensated and will not become homeless again in my 80's. 

I joined this leatherworker.net group because of all the questions I had about leather working and I've gotten most of my answers. 

If folks think I'm a troll I can leave. @fredk and @SUP had jumped on me for being humble so I instinctively explained why I am humble, which is that I'm trying to act like a Christian. Maybe if they stop trying to tell me I'm wrong to be humble I wouldn't explain why I am. 

I don't know how that makes me a troll. 

[dikman]

3 hours ago, deboardp said:

The can says that this Colorado Leather balm goes liquid at 95F. That's like close to how warm a sandal will get with a foot in it. A bit more beeswax will raise the melting point.

In that case there's not much beeswax in it! Mostly tallow.

I have a mix that I use for leather, it's beeswax, tallow and a little bit of baby oil (mineral oil) from memory. It's pretty stiff and while it softens slightly in a hot sun in doesn't go anywhere near melting. So, today I decided to remix it to soften it slightly by adding a little bit of lanolin grease and a bit more baby oil. It worked - too well! It's what one might call semi-liquid, too runny for my liking, looks like I'll be adding more beeswax. All good fun.

[deboardp]

1 minute ago, dikman said:

In that case there's not much beeswax in it! Mostly tallow.

I have a mix that I use for leather, it's beeswax, tallow and a little bit of baby oil (mineral oil) from memory. It's pretty stiff and while it softens slightly in a hot sun in doesn't go anywhere near melting. So, today I decided to remix it to soften it slightly by adding a little bit of lanolin grease and a bit more baby oil. It worked - too well! It's what one might call semi-liquid, too runny for my liking, looks like I'll be adding more beeswax. All good fun.

Can you tell me the exact amounts you used?

[dikman]

Just now, deboardp said:

Can you tell me the exact amounts you used?

Sorry mate, I just wing it until I get what I want. Initially I tried measuring parts but I didn't write them down (I thought my memory was better than it is!) so don't bother. I think it's called "experience".

[deboardp]

@fredk this is another thread I started that proves I have a shop. In my apartment. 

Hope that helps change your mind. 

Edited January 14, 2024 by deboardp