Quick Simple Odorless Leather Finish?

[jbird22cal]

Hello all,

I'm new to leather working. So far I haven't made anything that requires a finish.

I started making a bow wrist sling last night. The sling design is of common modern design. It uses 550 para cord for the sling and attaches to the bow via bolt through a 4-5 inch leather strap. I have strap and belt blanks I can use for the leather part as well as grommits for the bolt.

I just don't have Any finish that I know will work. I have tung oil and linseed oil that I often use for gun stock repairs/work.

I need somewhat of a subdued, color for the leather and a odorless protectant. I have some lightly dyed brack wax/grease stuff for my motorcycle bags but I just don't know where to start.

I would use eco-flo if I had a local shop carrying it. I can mail order it if its the best.

I'm looking for something simple. Shoe polish, oil, etc. Any help is appreciated.

[jbird22cal]

Here is what I've got so far.

I picked up some info on how to make it from this fellow:

bowhunter4e's youtube profile look for project bow D.I.Y. wrist slings if you want to make one or two yourself. I imagine a person could make the whole thong from leather if they had about 5 foot sections of lace.

[bex DK]

I don't think anything is really odorless. We use mainly spirit dyes for coloring (unless it is fancy detailed stuff, where I use thinned acrylics). Finish with a bit of super shene if needed (especially ont he acrylics) or for shine. Treat pretty much everything with a leather grease with beeswax in it. The super shene dries pretty much odorless, but the smell of the stuff reminds me of elmer's glue. Beeswax has a slight scent as well.

The grease with beeswax is the same as we use for all our horse tack. It will darken undyed leather, but doesn't color it. Leather usually needs some kind of maintenance treatment with oil or grease and pretty much all those will darken slightly. Spirit dyes are more drying that the water based ecoflow, so the leather always needs some restoration.

Hopefully someone else will have better advice. It might help if you mention what sort of color you are looking for. Brown? Black? Green?

[jbird22cal]

Well... I was able to find Thiebings locally and I tacked on Super sheen on my last order from Tandy.

I agree with you on the smell of the super sheen. It does smell like Elmers, but when it dries it seems to seal off most of the smells. I found I have to read on here for propper application as I have had some of the dye not penetrate well, but that's a different thread.

All in all, I really enjoyed making these and I started tooling beyond stamps. A few hand cramps and layout problems but it went faster then I thought. This is an easy little project, I recomend it for all of you have friends in the world of hunting. Short of drying time the leather took less time than the Parachute cord weaving.

I uploaded pictures, I apologise if there small, it will only let me upload so much.