Rattle Snake Belt Finish

[hunte567]

What would ya'll recommend for a last coat or finish for a snake belt.  Thanks

[OldLeatherGuy]

43 minutes ago, hunte567 said:

What would ya'll recommend for a last coat or finish for a snake belt.  Thanks

This is nothing more than my own personal opinion, since you are dealing with a special kind of "leather", something akin to hair-on cowhide, you do not want to find out a year from now that you have caused some of the scales to fall off of that skin. I was once told by a veteran leather crafter that you don't want to treat any "special" type leather with oil, neat's-foot, olive, or any other oil as you might do with veg tan cowhide. I can't prove his theory but I did believe his common sense reasoning about the subject. The reasoning he had was that snake or lizard or gator, examples of skins of this kind, will stay soft with age, when oiled, and the connecting points where each scale is rooted in that snakeskin will soften also and will eventually begin to shed from that piece of skin. There are accounts of Indian tribes who used the same type of skins to adorn their dance moccasins and clothing and they laced or sewed the skin pieces on the leather rather than using hide glue or some other permanent fashion of attaching the trim pieces. Then, if the snakeskin pieces started to show wear or shedding scales, they would simply cut the laces and lace on a new piece. I tried to attach a photo of a rattlesnake inlay I am working on for a knife sheath now and the program limits the photos to 1.46M so most of my HQ photos are higher than that. I will try to downsize the photo and append it to this message later.

Getting to what to use for a final finish, I use Fiebings Tan Kote for most all of my leather which I feel needs some kind of protection for outdoors use. it goes on easily, dries quickly, and doesn't run the neighbor kids out of their homes with a nasty toluene smell. It is not water PROOF but it is very water repellant and it gives the scales a sort of grab onto each other if you put a second coat on after the first coat dries. It also imparts a sheen to the snakeskin and to the leather surrounding it which I like much better than a "fake" look of some of the high gloss finishes on the market today. I also have heard that some leather workers use saddle soap rubbed "with the grain" of the snakeskin with good results. Fiebings saddle soap probably is not the best for this as it contains a fair amount of lanolin, which is danged good to keep cowhide in good healthy shape but it may cause the same shedding problem with any scaly type exotic skins. Good luck with your project.

 

 

[hunte567]

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer.  I really appreciate it.