Can You "heat Proof" Leather ?

[Anacott Steel]

Maybe I've become obsessed with leather, but all of life's problems seem to have a leather solution.....

So a while back I made a cuff to go around my exhaust pipe....just where the heel of my boot touches....and melts..

and the leather cuff cooked. I used 4mm and thought it might be thick enough to survive.....guessing the only thick one was me....

Is there a way to treat leather to withstand some fairly high temps or am I looking at lining it with whatever the modern day equivalent of asbestos is ?

Cheers

Don

[electrathon]

You need to have an air gap between the pipe and your leather.

[TwinOaks]

Leather is not heat proof, and I don't think there is any treatment to make it so. Remember, it's skin....preserved, but still skin.

[Anacott Steel]

Cheers. The air gap does sound like the solution. I noticed some of the guys on this forum have leather in firefighting situations so wondered if there was a treatment to keep it from "cooking".

Thanks

Don

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

An air gap may work, but the pipe puts off a ton of heat, so the gap ay have to be pretty large. Is it a straight pipe, or does it have a metal heatshield on it? You can also try putting a good layer of pipe heat wrap on it, then covering that with the leather. Leather will cook down, and shrink to a point, then stop. I have some welding gloves that are permanently deformed due to getting too close to a torch. Once cooked they are guite hard, and stiff. May try making a form, wrapping in leather, precooking, than installing.

[Anacott Steel]

1343492628[/url]' post='258360']

An air gap may work, but the pipe puts off a ton of heat, so the gap ay have to be pretty large. Is it a straight pipe, or does it have a metal heatshield on it? You can also try putting a good layer of pipe heat wrap on it, then covering that with the leather. Leather will cook down, and shrink to a point, then stop. I have some welding gloves that are permanently deformed due to getting too close to a torch. Once cooked they are guite hard, and stiff. May try making a form, wrapping in leather, precooking, than installing.

They're Vance and Hines short shot with heat wraps. Pretty sure that the heat wraps serve no purpose other than looking good !

Pitty didn't work because it actually looked nice on the pipe. But....you're right it's a ton of heat to cope with. Perhaps this is one of life's problems that can't be solved with leather.....like replacing the fan belt with a leather strip.......

Thanks for your suggestions

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I have a coworker who built a rat bike out of a Kawi. He cut the shielding off the pipes exposing them, then wrapped them with the woven fiberglass looking heat wrap. That keeps him from burning himself, and it may protect the leather too. Worth a try.

Model T fan belts were leather.