First project: Stick Barrettes, advice needed please.

[JenGranger]

I imaging if used sparingly, and not totally sealed in, where it can still breath, it would be ok.

[TinkerTailor]

49 minutes ago, rejerome said:

Additional discussion on olive oil here. 

http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,31724.0.html

As stated in the thread link above, everyone has their own experiences and beliefs on what works. Jen, you'll have to reach your own conclusions. I mentioned olive oil as most folks have it on hand for cooking and would therefore save a beginner a little money over purchasing a "dedicated" leather oil. 

Maybe it does go "rancid inside the leather". I've had no issues. It's a fact that many saddle makers use olive oil.  Two quickly come to mind that have YouTube content you could look at; Bruce Cheaney and Don Gonzales. Don actually has one video dedicated to olive oil  

Regards,

Rex

Technical stuff ahead warning:

It may be true that olive oil has been used by some in the past and saddlers today use it with success, It is not the ideal oil in many situations. Don't get me wrong, I have used it myself at times. I looked into this topic pretty thoroughly a while back because, like you, when I read anything about oiling leather online it all seemed like he said she said and nobody knew why. I decided to go to the best source we have left, the textbooks and manuals from back in the day when there were thousands of saddlers, not dozens. People spent great deals of time and money back then to find out the answers to these types of questions because they made a big difference to industry when horses and leather were king.

  I have a huge library of leatherworking/saddle making/tanning/ treatment/bookbinding/cobbler textbooks and manuals dating from the early 1800's to the 1950s (100+pdfs). Both western and english sources. Lots of info was in "The Journal of the American Leather Chemists Association vols 1-16, 1906-1922". I'd upload it but its 240mb of pdfs.

Most texts list rancidity as a downside of any vegetable based oil. Many mention that olive oil may be used and is one of the best of the easily obtained vegetable oils, but none that i know of list it as the ideal oil if you have a choice. Oxidation is the enemy of vegetable based oils. Neetsfoot basically never oxidizes, that is one of the reasons it is used for leather. When vegetable oils break down and go rancid they form acidic compounds and some terepenes you can smell. It is when oxygen reaches the oil that it goes rancid. Depending on conditions like humidity there may not be much of a smell noticeable. The smell is not the harmful part, it is the acidic compounds that are bad. It was suspected that these acidic compounds in the leather may accelerate dry rot. Essentially, dried out leather that had previously been treated with olive would dry rot more/faster than leather previously treated with neetsfoot, some thought.   A least one early book has a recipe that supposedly stabilizes the olive oil to help prevent this. However, if i remember correctly, this recipe seemed dodgy chemistry/alchemy wise (which is common in the early texts) and it may not even work.

Repeated wetting and drying as well as flexing opens and closes the pores of the leather allowing in fresh oxygen and moving the oils around, which speeds oxidation. This wet/dry cycle was why I recommended neetsfoot or another non-vegetable based oil more resistant to oxidation. Light also speeds oxidation incidentally, olive oil is sold in a dark bottle for this reason. If you do use olive oil, one key is to get the most extra specially virgin cold pressed, freshest clearest oil possible and keep it sealed and out of the light. Go to your nearest italian market/little italy district to get the good stuff. Considering the price of leather and time, it is cheap. If it is dusty and sitting in a sunny window in a chinese market, leave it there

Many texts list almond and rose oil as well as compounds extracted from whales as options, though the downside to these is cost, and/or you have to kill whales.

[JenGranger]

Very interesting.  I enjoy learning new things.