| Author | Message | ||
     Ceejay |
Anyone got any good advice on Leather care? I've had my first leather jacket for about four months now and was wondering if anyone had any tips on a good way to waterproof, clean, etc. been riding in the rain all week so that's what got me a tinking. | ||
| Bomber |
waterproofing is almost always the wrong thing to do -- only way to truely waterproof something is to completely block all the little holes, which will, in time, make the leather deteriorate much more quickly, and likely make the jacket really stiff in the bargain you CAN make leather damn near totally waterproof buy duniking it in a hot mixture of 50% neetsfoot oil and 50% beeswax -- it'll also be unbendy in the extreme (good for holsters and knife sheaths, bad for jackets) cleaning, use saddle soap or whatever product the manufacuture suggests (saddle soap is a good default for cleaning anything leather) if the leather is really beat up and you want to make is supple and bendy again, you can't do much better than LEXOL -- I've ressurected a number of leather items, brought em back form the dead, so to speak, using this stuff (including a 150 year old holster that felt like cracked cardboard when I started) making yer jacket water resistant, now, that's another story -- you can use any one of a number of products, including neatsfoot oil (remember your first baseball glove?) and mink oil (one shudders to think about how one harvests this, what what the mink thinks of the process) -- good rule of thumb is that the thicker the stuff you're using, use less of it -- always, like the instructions say, test a new treatment on a jacket (pants/boots/gloves) in an small, out of the way place -- then let it sit for a day or three -- you may find that you've renederd that small area stiff as a board, discolored it, or otherwise done sumpin you wish you hadn't -- leather comes in a large number of hide types and tanning processes, and they all react a little differently to various treatments I damn near killed my Gerike (sp?) Dakar Jacket by using some waterproofing stuff from a camping store . . . it was quite happily shedding water like a duck, but got really, and I mean really sxtiff, to the point hwere it was not at all comfy to wear -- took lots of effort to undo THAT mistake likely more than you wanted to know, yes? | ||
| Ara |
My advice is to get the Harley "Leather Care" product. I've used it for decades with excellent success. | ||
| Ceejay |
Thanks! I went to the store, thought I'll just get the same stuff I use on my boots and then realized how much crap was out there and didn't want to ruin a 400 dollar investment cause I just threw something on. Thanks again for all the info. | ||
| Steveford |
Lexol is the way to go, all right. No Mink was ever involved in the production of Mink Oil and it will eventually rot the threads. | ||
| Brucelee |
http://www.leatherique.com/ The cleaner/conditioner is an amazing product. Hands down better than Lexol. |
