OK so I just got around to making my own version of proofide that is made by the Brooks saddle company. They make high end leather bicycle saddles. They recommend using only their special concoction on their saddles. Only thing is the small tins they sell are pretty pricy. They do, however put the ingredients right on the tin. Now that I’m looking to do more leather working, I am trying to make my own large quantities/low price version of this. One Saturday, I rounded all the ingredients up locally and mixed them all up in a small saucepan on the stove over low/warm heat.

Here are my notes on the concoction that I hereby dubb as Praterhide leather rub.

I just had another very good result with some real mink oil(not the shoe polish you can get anywhere. It has no mink oil in it and is a cheap mixture of other stuff). Trappers mink oil (about 8$ for a large tin) is rendered from actual mink fat(i thunk some shooters use it with powder rifles), and first impressions are very good. By itself, it provided almost as good suppleness as brooks proofhide. Im going to mix it in with my current concoction, and next batch will not include beef tallow, or vegetable oil.

Tallow – $14 – (not needed now using mink oil)This is rendered fat from suet, or beef fat. Normally the really hard stuff around the loins or kidneys. This was the hardest ingredient to track down, I went to a few supermarkets and a butcher and they didn’t have any beef fat to sell or give away. So I went to the meat section and got a pack of two medium sized rib-eye steaks. Trimmed off all of the fat and fried it up and strained into a small jar.

Citronella oil – $5 at earthfare. They also had lemongrass oil for about $8. a few drops of this go a long way.

Cod Oil – $6 -Bought a bottle of 100 capsules. Used them all and ended up buying more. This stuff is slick.

Vegetable Oil(not needed now using mink oil) – $2  – Just plain cooking oil. nothing special about this. I have seen others use virgin olive oil on leather as well so you might be able to sub that if you wanted, but would cost more.

Beeswax – $5 – look for a beeswax candle at the fancy pants grocery stores in the all natural section. A little will go a long way.

Paraffin Wax – $2 – I just used one of the tea light candles that I had around the house. uber cheap.

 

Here is my take on the while process/ingredients. Cod oil is the slickest stuff of the bunch. Kind of a pain to get out of the capsules, would be nice to just squirt it in. This stuff stinks too. I think the citronella oil is uses primarly to hide the smell of the fish oil. Vegetable Oil is the next slickest stuff, nothing special about it really. I used almost all the tallow I got from two ribeyes in my concoction. You can save it for later, but needs to be refrigerated. Paraffin wax – Just broke one tea light into 6 pieces and melted it into the oil. Beeswax –  this stuff is sticky and tacky. At first I put too much of this in the mix and then had to add a bunch more oil to make it not so solid. I just cut some chips off the candle and melted into the oil. Ended up using about 1/4 of the small candle about 3 inches tall and 1.5 inches diameter. When done, the consistency should be similar to butter, maybe a little thicker. It should remain solid in the tin, then when you rub it into the leather, the warmth from you hands will melt it as needed.

I found a couple ways to test the consistency of the mix. Just swirl it around in the pan and the edges will dry quicker than the center. Also ended up putting the saucepan into a larger bowl of cold water to cool it down a little quicker.

OK here is the measurements I used.

Tallow(capfulls)(not needed now using mink oil) – .5, .5, .5

Cod Oil(pellets) – 20, 10, 10,

Vegetable Oil(capfulls)(not needed now using mink oil) – .5, .5, .5

Citronella oil(40 drops) –

Beeswax (1/3 candle ~ 1.5 tealight candle)-

Paraffin Wax (1 tea candle)-

Then was still too solid so I split in half and added more oil to one half:

Tallow(capfulls) – .33, .5, 1,

Cod Oil(pellets) – 10, 20, 5, 100,

Vegetable Oil(capfulls) – .33, .5, 1, 1

 

So half of this batch yielded one small tupperware tub full. About the same size of 4 or 5 small tins of proofhide (that cost $10 each). The mix might not be quite the same, but it’s close enough (and cheap enough) for me. Now that I got it right, I need to add another 100 caps of cod oil and a capfull of veggie oil to the other half of the batch, then I will have two tupperwares full of Praterhide ready to go…