Bull Nutria
Member
i have been using this stuff on my leather gear for years, seems to do the job. anything better out there?
Bull
Bull
Can you post the brand and store you buy it from? Someone gave me a tube of that some years ago and it was a great drill bit lube especially for little jobs that you wanted to keep clean and not have a bunch of oil spread around. I used it up and lost the tube and can't remember the brand.mine is a cartridge tube like for a grease gun but is sold at the hardware store as a drill bit lubricant, its basically soft beeswax
As a lifelong backpacker and hiker I've "tried" a lot of other stuff...and kept going back to Sno Seal.
Powderkeg got it with the Obenauf LP. it is the stuff.
jrm40 said:Snow seal, nor any bees wax waterproofer will hurt gore-tex. The Gore-tex liner is basically a water resistant sock sewn inside the boot. No waterproofing materiaal will ever come in contact with it.
http://www.gore-tex.com/remote/Satellite/content/care-center/washing-instructions#tab_2WATER REPELLENT TREATMENT
We do not recommend the use of waterproofing waxes or greases as they can affect the footwear's breathability. Apply only treatments, polishes, conditioners, and dressings recommended by the manufacturer.
Fact or Myth?
Q: Mink oil is bad for leather boots.
A: Fact! Most hiking boots made in the last 20 years should only be treated with wax or silicone-based waterproofing and leather conditioning products. Dave Page says oil-based treatments (including mink oil) over-soften chromium-tanned leather. Modern, glued-on boot soles can also delaminate when penetrated by certain oils.
Q: What about using Sno-Seal?
A: Unlike water-based formulas used by Nikwax and Granger's, Sno-Seal is a beeswax-based waterproofing paste. Introduced in 1933, it is marketed at outdoor stores under the Tectron label.
Designed originally for boots worn by hunters and outdoor laborers (loggers, for example), Sno-Seal is a waterproofing product with a large following. It carries one drawback: If applied to the leather used in nearly all modern leather hiking boots, those boots cannot be resoled, says cobbler Dave Page.
"You just can't work on the boots after it's on the leather," Page says of Sno-Seal. "Most hiking boots today are made of dry-tanned leather that uses chromium salts and chromium sulfates. Modern uppers sit down on top of sole units and are glued on, not stitched. To get soles to stick to the glue line, you have to be able to get the leather absolutely clean."Sno-Seal, Mink Oil, Neatsfoot Oil are all products that work fine as waterproofing, but they're formulated for oil-tanned leather--leather from 60 years ago," Page says. "There's just something that's in Sno-Seal that gets impregnated in dry-tanned leather. I don't know what it is. Once it's in there you can't clean it out and the leather will just not accept adhesives."
Not every hiker considers resoling their backpacking boots. If you deeply love a pair of boots and anticipate a lifelong relationship with them, though, it's best to bypass Sno-Seal. "I think Sno-Seal is an awfully good waterproofing product," says Page, who does not carry Sno-Seal in his shop. "It works fine if as long as you put it on boots that you don't care if they ever get resoled."