DIY leather conditioner

[ScottWolf]

2 minutes ago, deboardp said:

He was checking your statement that leather doesn't absorb MO. 

Take a breath Scott. It's not about you. 

I am simply trying to share information based on my experience researching ingredients used in the making of leather conditioner(s), making them, and using many variations of it on a very regular basis. Do with it what you will.

[deboardp]

Just now, ScottWolf said:

I am simply trying to share information based on my experience researching ingredients used in the making of leather conditioner(s), making them, and using many variations of it on a very regular basis. Do with it what you will.

Nobody is rejecting you. 

Maybe ask Chuck if he used vegetable tanned leather.   is that what you used? Leathers with finishes probably won't absorb mineral oil, but veg tan leather will. It's just a fact and has nothing to do with our personalities and characters personally. It's just science. What works, what effect does this have if we do this. 

I think you might be using something other than vegetable tanned leather to support your observation that MO stays on the surface. I've heard there's oil tanned leather which I know nothing about. I suppose MO might stay on the surface of that type of leather. Surely there's an explanation for the discrepancy between your observation and chuck's. I haven't poured MO on a scrap piece of leather like chuck surely did, and I'm not going to. If i poured any kind of oil on a scrap of my leather sides i know it will soak in immediately. That's the nature of veg tan. There's no oil, fat or wax anywhere in it. Everything was removed during tanning. 

[deboardp]

As a remodel contractor I occasionally installed butcher block counter tops. To protect them from food and stains I finished then with food grade mineral oil. I would put it on the wood and using microfiber cloth I would rub it into the wood until it was well absorbed. I did this the next day and the next. That wood absorbed a lot of oil. If wood will absorb it, vegetable tanned leather will inhale it, as it is way more porous than wood. 

To finish here, are you using liquid mineral oil. Vaseline is closely related to MO, but it is solid. If you put that on veg tan leather it won't absorb, probably. Are you using liquid or solid? Can you post a picture of what you're using, and a picture of the leather you're using, before and after applying the MO?

Edited December 31, 2023 by deboardp

[chuck123wapati]

11 hours ago, ScottWolf said:

Why would someone  pour mineral oil directly onto a piece of leather? In what instance would anyone pour mineral oil directly onto. a piece of leather they were working on?

Only to show you it does migrate through leather just as any other light oil will and to test its actual effect on leather over a given time, science remember.

I'm not here to argue but I'm also not here to give or receive misinformation.

lol Don't say follow the science if you have none to follow and don't pretend I cant understand it or immediately not accept it as your excuse for not posting it. No offence but that's kind of lame. I've read plenty of science studies in my day and have no problem reading more. I also have the ability to change my mind, something my wife taught me years ago.

I already am doing research my friend as well as several people on the forum. in fact mineral oil is one or maybe more of the test pieces.  I'll post a link here so you can add your conditioners or any solution you would care to add. The intention is to actually learn something our great great grand parents knew as common knowledge. This research is from both side of the "fence" as you call it and is ongoing for years so a couple months between when you started and we did wont bother the results. Pleas add to the conversation and come join for some sciency fun!!!

 

[SUP]

 

@deboardp 'oil-tanned' is actually a misnomer. Oil-tanned leather is actually chrome-tanned leather that is, post-tanning and dyeing, stuffed with fish oils and other oils and fats  in some process that makes it soft and rich and pretty water-resistant. It is lovely and a favourite type of leather for me. 

12 hours ago, deboardp said:

I've heard there's oil tanned leather which I know nothing about. I suppose MO might stay on the surface of that type of leather. Surely there's an explanation for the discrepancy between your observation and chuck's

I just dumped some mineral oil on several pieces of oil-tanned leather - different sources - and they all absorb the oil perfectly well. The only leather that does not absorb any oil, mineral oil or any other, is the leather with plastics on top. They do not  absorb anything, oils, waxes, whatever. 

About waxing damp leather, I should have realized that the fats applied and the water in the damp leather would form an emulsion from which the water could evaporate.  I think I will try it. I have some old, clean sides which are rather dry. that would be perfect for this. 

12 hours ago, ScottWolf said:

I am simply trying to share information based on my experience researching ingredients used in the making of leather conditioner(s), making them, and using many variations of it on a very regular basis. Do with it what you will.

@ScottWolf It is good to hear about people's experiences. We all have garnered information from hearing about other people's experiences over the decades as well as our own research  (it is such a simple matter these days and I suspect most people do plenty of it) and of course, personal experiences. People here have decades of experience that they speak from, knowledge which is very valuable. A large number of people make their own leather conditioners  as well, though they do not much talk about it. 

Each person has his/her own take on what is good and bad, and really, seeing how people from different parts of the world and even parts of a large country, have different opinions, sometimes conflicting, sometimes not, how can anyone really definitively say that what one says is right and everyone else not? Even research publications - anyone who has any research experience knows to look at every aspect very carefully before fully believing it.

But having different opinions is not an attempt to offend and should not be taken as such. 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by SUP

[SUP]

On 12/30/2023 at 8:11 AM, chuck123wapati said:

From my feeble knowledge and experience of brain tanning the basic idea is to remove all the stuff inside the leather except the fibers, I can find big words in my book for "stuff" if you need them,  then the stuff inside is replaced by the oils or greases. this allows the leather fibers to flex and move against each other easier which we see and feel as softness or suppleness. the fibers don't change they are just lubricated. As for hydration i think that leather being porous takes in and holds only what humidity will allow, that's why it doesn't stay wet I don't think you can hydrate leather to a given state, say 10% because it will simply evaporate to match the natural humidity and that is why you use oils lol they don't dry as quickly. Yea those aren't true conditioners imo if they don't work and go completely into the fiber structure of the leather, leather has to change color somewhat to be conditioned correctly again IMO.

@chuck123wapati  Exactly!

@ScottWolf as @chuck123wapati says, bring along your individual ingredients and you are welcome to join our experiment. Individual ingredients. like the rest of us are using though, since that is what we are testing. We are not testing conditioner mixes. That will take us off-track.

[deboardp]

7 hours ago, SUP said:

About waxing damp leather, I should have realized that the fats applied and the water in the damp leather would form an emulsion 

An emulsion. That's how the water can easily evaporate. The water acts as a medium to help the fats/wax/lanolin compound get into the leather and then exits, leaving the compound in the leather. Brilliant!

My tallow came. It smells like hamburger fat, is yellow like lanolin. 

Edited December 31, 2023 by deboardp

[deboardp]

I was thinking about the recipe just now. The tallow smells of hamburger grease, and the pork lard probably smells of pork chops, and I'm thinking, why do  i want to put this stuff in my leather??? OK, it's fats, but it stinks! According to old English saddler's grease recipes, the cod liver oil is supposed to restore the smell of leather. Is that because it cancels out the mIteat stink? Sheesh.  

So, I want to use things that don't stink or overpower the natural scent of vegetable tanned leather because that stuff smells wonderful.  Therefore, I'm shelving the animal fats for now. When the Norwegian odorless cod liver oil arrives, I'll shelve it as well.

Therefore, I have beeswax, lanolin, macadamia nut oil on the way. Is there another fat I could use instead of the ones from animals? I prefer to not use man-made fats, and I don't have a reason I can articulate, yet. My primitive thinking on this is to put cup portion of lanolin in the small pot over a low heat, add half a portion of beeswax, I guess by volume, and see how it melts, maybe a couple tablespoons of macadamia oil... If it all gets along with each other, then I'll put some in these tins I got from Bulk Apothecary bulkapothecary.com where I also bought the lanolin. 

Chuck, can you share your recipe for conditioner? You seem to know about it, and I'm interested. What kind of projects/products do you use it on?

I think beeswax, lanolin, and macadamia nut oil might smell really nice, on top of the leather smell. I worry about oils going rancid, so I googled, "will macadamia nut oil go rancid in leather" and figured, ha, nobody will have an answer to that!  I was surprised to see that this is the very top result of the google search: click here Fascinating. I read the OP's post and will return now to read more. The target audience is for leather workers with organic chemistry background or a scientific bent, which is us, since we're interested in making a concoction that has chemical properties.

[deboardp]

I copied and will paste here a post by TinkerTailor from Nov. 26, 2015, from the thread on leatherworkers.net. It's fascinating and has a link to a 217 page digital book from the past, that has been preserved for us.

From TinkerTailor:

I got alot out of this book: The recipes in it obviously take ph into account based on application.

Get out your bucket of spermaceti, your rape oil, and that stash of caoutchouc, Its time to make some leather dressing! Did you remember the brown sugar?

I give you:

"The manufacture of lubricants, shoe polishes and leather dressings"

https://ia600404.us.archive.org/1/items/manufacturelubr00brungoog/manufacturelubr00brungoog.pdf

All page numbers i list are pdf page numbers, not the original page numbers.

Page 29 of the pdf, they talk about the ph of oils and how it changes as it rancidifys due to the presence of free fatty acids forming. It also clarifys what are called neutral oils, which are oils that do not have the free fatty acids in a fresh state which change the ph, such as rapeseed(canola) oil as well as olive oil. They imply that some oils have the free fatty acids when fresh and are unsuitable for use with metal due to corrosion issuesdue to Ph. I would imagine the same thing applys to leather. They also get into drying vs non-drying oils, linseed oil, for eg, is a drying oil and is not very suitable for a lubricant and presumably a leather dressing, while it is used in recipes for leather varnish.

Page 102 is a writeup on neetsfoot oil and a comment about how many sewing machine and clock oils are bleached neetsfoot repackaged in tiny bottles and marked up.

pg 119 is the recipes for the fine machine oils. They also talk about freezing neetsfoot and straining out the oil that is still liquid to purify it. Also bleaching it in the sun using violet glass.....Had they discovered uv treatment? They did notice purple glass bleached it better for some reason.

Page 114 is an interesting recipe for leather belt dressing to prevent slip made from ~90% castor oil and 10% tallow.

Page 142 is where the good stuff starts. The stuff relating to leather. You will notice that many of the recipes for shoe polishes etc contain sulfuric acid or soda, Presumably to make them strong enough for a man but Ph balanced for a woman.........Or is that deodorant?....rabbit holes are fun.........squirrel

Page 148 talks about ant-acid boot leather varnish .....acid free....The effects of ph on leather were DEFINITELY known at this time.

I have from my reading determined that as a leather treatment, tallows are the best treatment for lubricating the fibers and preserving the leather for a long time, however they are hardest to apply due to being mostly solid at room temp. Tannerys hot stuff tallows and waxes to make that expensive horween stuff. Temperature and exposure time are needed for the leather to take up the fats fully. These processes are out of the reach of the average user as they require special equipment and machinery and is better done in bigger batches of hides. The tallow lubricates, and the wax protects. Both are very long lasting before breakdown, if it even happens.

We as leatherworkers try to approach this on raw leather but without the prolonged heating and tumbling. Oils are the best solution to make leather treatments that are easy to apply. In order to apply the harder waxes and tallow, we often mix then with thinner oils to make easily appliable pastes and cremes.

In my opinion,Neetsfoot oil has won over many as the oil of choice for a few reasons:

1: The general availability and cheapness of neetsfoot oil as well as its suitability for leather in that it is non-drying, long lasting, and has a long shelf life

2: It is easy to apply. It can be used to make waxes and tallows thinner and possible to apply at room temp

3: The US army chose it.

4: It works in most of the situations leather is used as an adequate dressing.

5: Grampa used it, and so did his grampa......so did stohlman and some other saddler guy..

Edited January 1, 2024 by deboardp

[deboardp]

Holy Smoke! Somebody in Paris, France is making and selling a conditioner made with the same ingredients I am thinking of using! Lanolin, beeswax, and macadamia nut oil!  Look at this!