white leather

[brian]

anybody got any good tips for claening white leather? :: :hmm:

more spit and pollish capn bragg
BB

 

[vradin]

If you're talking about garment leather, then- I've had good luck using clean poplar or maple sawdust. Put the skins in a 5 gallon bucket with enough sawdust to cover but not too tight- you need room for stuff to tumble around. Slap on the lid and seal. Give the bucket to a bunch of kids to play an hour or two of kick-the-can.

An option for the tinkerers out there is to make a rotating drum, toss in the leather and sawdust and tumble for a couple of hours. The sawdust traps the dirt and lifts it off the leather, while freshening the aroma.

Avoid walnut and other high tannin woods or most any piney high resin wood. The tannins will stain the leather, and you'll never get the pine resins out and you'll smell like a bottle of pinesol.

vic

 

[brian]

actually I ment belt leather, them brass buckles and sword hilts, leave some bad marks
BB

 

[musketman]

anybody got any good tips for claening white leather? :: :hmm:

I use yellow corn meal to clean my buckskins, so white corn meal or grits rubbed into the leather should lift any dirt and oils...

 

white chalk might work, i've used it before, not thinking it cleans it, but hides a stain a little better, pumice stone works if you can afford to scratch it off like buckskin, white shoe polish if you just have too?
don't tell anyone!

 

[BLAHMAN]

Try some toothpaste.

 

[SAJones]

Right, chalk is what the military used back when. However, most of the white leather was buff leather, a lot different than the white chrome-tanned leather we get today, if you can even find it. White buff leather is even scarcer & the last time I checked about twice the cost of Leather Factory white sides. As far as white chrome-tanned, I would used saddle soap if the hair (slick) side is the dirty side, as chalk just sloughs off this surface. It will stay on the flesh (rough) side, but still doesn't seem to hold on as well as real buff.

 

[Maynerd62411]

Quote:
An option for the tinkerers out there is to make a rotating drum, toss in the leather and sawdust and tumble for a couple of hours.
------------------------------------------------------------

I used to work at a glove factory that had a tumbler made of 3" oak planks, 100" in diameter,6' wide, and turned at over 300 rpms . It could tumble close to 1,000 lbs. of leather at a time. It had 2 1/2" round "beaters" attached to the inside that were about a foot tall. It looked like a big whiskey barrel .

 

I'm guessing at this one, how about plain old saddle soap????? :m2c: