WWII Boyt sling care.

[Griff Murphey]

Nobody mentioned saddle soap. Since you cannot use Pecards, and cannot use Neatsfoot... what's left besides..."mink Oil"....!!??

[Bodyman]

I spoke with the curators at SANHS (Springfield Armory National Historic Site) about this, and the moment I mentioned 'leather care' his eyes rolled back. Knowing about Renaissance wax and their efforts to preserve our National Treasure of a firearms collection at SAHNS (BTW; as the National Park Service doesn not have the funding to do so, the effort is currently being assisted by your dollars in the from of a yearly grant from the GCA to continue their efforts to preserve the collection housed there ...), I asked what professional curators do in museums to preserve the leather artifacts. He said there is nothing that can be done to stop them from degrading and eventually ALL leather artifacts will change and degrade. I got specific and asked about Pecards and the other leather care products available commercially, and all he would do is reiterate; there is nothing that can be done to stop them from degrading and eventually ALL leather artifacts will change and degrade to nothing but a pile of dust.

Once the cow died the leather started degrading and decomposing. Tanning turned it into a product we could use but it is hardly stable or permanent, and there is nothing that anyone or anything can do. He added that many of not most of the products out there will actually have a negative long term effect and be detrimental. He then stated that the ONLY thing we can do is keep them in as perfectly stable an environment as we can; not too dry not too humid, not too hot, not too cold, and above all; as perfectly stable as we can manage between all these variables.

That is it.

The result for me is that I do not bother trying to 'collect' the leather accoutrements and such - I know that I cannot do anything but watch them go downhill, inexorably.

Sorry if that is not the answer that you want, but my experiences with Pecards have, like Rick's, been wholly and completely unsatisfying. The white stuff never goes away, not here in the midwest, and it is an MF'er to get back off when it shows up.

[DaveN]

What can you do if you put neats foot on a sling. they are just uncollectable
leather slings the 40 to 50 dollar kind that aid me in shooting and carrying.

[RyanV]

Thanks All!

I put neatsfoot oil on a turner sling years ago, made is look real nice and feel good too. But the keepers would not stay put after that. I am guessing it will still last a few decades anyway as it is. Now Turner Biothane is how i roll.

For the Boyts, i was thinking if they were going to get worked at all, they would crack unless some moisture was put into them. Guess the answer is don't work them. Maybe i will mink oil the lesser example.

Thanks again, especially for the Springfield Historic sight info, i need to see that place someday, remember staring at my computer screen with my jaw open when somebody posted pics of a tour there some time back.

Ryan V

[Bodyman]

A good sling that is cared for decently should last just fine for as long as you need it. An 80 or 100 year old year old sling on the other hand, well, try to be nice to it.

I found a neat one on ebay a few years ago - two halves of a 1905/1908 Rock Island Arsenal leather sling, each half having a different date. It was in average shape but one side needed a little stitching so I got it for about 27 bucks (I always loved those honkin' Rock Island Arsenal keepers with the hand-bevelled edge - no one else has them quite like that);



But what was really neat was that it had some nice Cavalry markings on it.



Not wanting to deal with trying to preserve it and not 'in' to the early '03s (or whatever this might have been used on), I traded it to a guy that I knew would like it. Now, not knowing what it was actually worth, I just gave it to him and told him what I paid and said 'surprise me' with something from your stash of 'trading fodder' (every serious guy has stuff that he got for a deal so he can trade for what he wants ...). Well, nice guy that he is, he gave me more stuff then I ever imagined - apparently he was VERY excited to see this little sling! I started feeling bad cause I paid so little. I still think I owe him something in return - I'll get him back, don't you worry.

How often do deals turn out like that ...

[Devil Dog]

"Once the white stuff started ooozing out from everyone's old leather, we all stopped using it. Pretty soon you couldn't give it away. LOL!"

What do you now use in very dry leather?

[Rick Cummelin]

"Once the white stuff started ooozing out from everyone's old leather, we all stopped using it. Pretty soon you couldn't give it away. LOL!"

What do you now use in very dry leather?

I use nothing.

Like Bodyman, I have stopped collecting leather acoutrements, and have sold off most of what I had. I only have a couple of WWII leather slings left that are in essentially mint condition. Putting anything on these slings would constitute a criminal act, IMHO. LOL!

Hey BM, (pun intended)! Looks to me like someone attempted to clean the verdigris off that R.I. sling with a wire brush (done that when I was young and stupid, so I know what the results look like, duh!).

Anyway, if the brass components on your old leather acoutrements are growing that green crap (verdigris it's called) simply use a wooden toothpick to CAREFULLY scrape & dig the stuff off. NEVER use a wire brush, knife, screwdriver or any other metal implement that could damage the leather during the removal process.

[Rick Cummelin]

Again, IMHO, if you own some old collectible leather, you have some options available to you:

If the leather's dry and/or stiff, and/or cracked, simply do NOT use it. Don't put slings on rifles, and NEVER put pistols in holsters or rifles in scabbards. Roll up the slings and put them away - or sell them to someone else for a profit.

If a leather sling is still soft & supple, you can put it on a rifle, but keep it loose, VERY loose. The contact points where the slings wrap around the swivels are where the cracking initially occurs. The tighter the sling, the more likely it will begin cracking at the swivels.

Of course, this are only my personal thoughts on the topic. Since it's your stuff, feel free to do whatever pleases you, but if your leather self-destructs, don't say you weren't warned.

[Bodyman]

What do you now use in very dry leather?

Nothing. It cannot be rejuvinated. Let me restate this; once they remove it from the original owner - i.e.; once you kill the cow - short of Dr. Frankenstien or a miracle of Biblical proportions, there is nothing that can return it to life. It will follow the natural course of things and return to dust, and there are no products available that can rejuvinate it and rehabilitate it. The ONLY thing you can do is slow that natural process down.

Now from a collecting standpoint, this is good and bad; you can say 'wow - that makes any excellent items all the more 'rare' and valuable', or you can say that (depending on care) 'any item you get is only going to be getting worse off while you own it'.

Think about it this way; what can you do to make an old pair of tired workboots new again? Answer; buy a new pair. It is common sense with shoes - why not these things?

It is true that some of these items are highly sought after and highly prized, but ask yourself; why is it that original WWII USMC high-top leather boots or, leather M6 fighting knife scabbards are so rare? I will tell you - it is because; they ... didn't ... last. Yet, even fair to average condition, they can still command a good deal of money, and if you follow the link after the pictures you will see that this guy didn't hedge about the fact that these are quite fragile items;



WW2 US M6 Scabbard for M3 Fighting Knife, Nice Original - eBay (item 370326357946 end time Jan-27-10 07:14:06 PST)

I once asked a vendor to see a nice WWII helmet - while picking it up and before my eyes he tore the chin strap in two it was so delicate! (All I could think was that I was glad he did it instead of me!)

So I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but all leather eventually falls apart and there is nothing you can do to reverse it or even to stop it. So much so that even museum curators cringe when the subject is brought up. There is just no good answer and the best you can do is slow it down to a snail's pace by keeping things as consistently temperate as you can.

Best all.

(and you guys haven't even gotten to putting these slings into a safe that has a 'goldenrod' in it ...)

[RBruce]

On the other hand, I have leather items in good condition that date back 150 years. They were probably kept in dry locations. They may eventually turn to dust, but the WWI and WWII ones that I have treated with Pecards will be in better shape when they are 150 years old than the ones that are currently 150 years old. I'll enjoy them until then, or ......