Leather Preservative Experiment
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I'd think that vegetable oils (like olive oil) that can go rancid would be a bad idea.
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That's crazy, that's what Nick Horween says to use on cxl
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This isn't true, mineral oil would have been fine on the butcher block (but NOT on leather).
The logic is entirely backwards, the entire rationale for vacuum sealing, for example, is exactly the opposite what he's describing, removing oxygen and oxidation from the material to be preserved so that it WON'T rot.
A bit of warning: Olive oil rots over time, and smells really bad. I thought it would be a good idea to oil my big butcher block with olive oil, because, you know, its a cutting board, so what better to oil it with than olive oil, right? Wrong! After about a year, I noticed a foul odor that actually permeated the food and tasted horrible. I can't imagine the effect would be less on a nice piece of leather. Since that incident, I got a new butcher block, and oil it with mineral oil, which won't rot, and keeps my block looking (and smelling) fresh!
As good as that olive oiled leather looks, I would strongly advise NOT using olive oil on your own belts!
There's a good reason your chopping board became stinky.
Oil creates a seal, that will seal any sort of dirt, mud or tiny chopping remnants inside of it. It'd be like coating a piece of meat in vaseline so it degrades in an almost oxygen free environment and any space in that seal is going to reek. -
I made the fatal error of putting neatsfoot oil on several pairs of leather shoes and boots.
Mould, mould and more mould. Disgusting stuff ruined all my leather goods.
Do you have any pictures of the damage?
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I made the fatal error of putting neatsfoot oil on several pairs of leather shoes and boots.
Mould, mould and more mould. Disgusting stuff ruined all my leather goods.
Do you have any pictures of the damage?
No but in one case I had two pairs of expensive 1000 mile leather boots.
I left one pair untreated and one pair treated with neatsfoot.
The treated pair developed green looking crud all over them where the oil was used.
The untreated pair stayed like new.
Both were kept in very similar place so I can only blame the oil really.
It happened with other stuff as well though, not just those boots.
Maybe I used too much, I don't know. -
