Leather belt related funny

I thought you guys might get a snicker at this. I have been getting my Von Wyck conehead set up after a cleaning. I bought about 75 feet of leather belting at an estate sale recently. Well, I have been pouring over posts about skiving and belt treatment concoctions. After looking at many, I decided to try a cod liver oil mixture. So today I go to the local health food store and look around in the extensive supplement section near the incense and self help books. A really young sales person finally asks if they can help. "I need some cod liver oil". He hands me some capsules and starts pelting me with info on how this is going to really help me. "No, I need liquid". He continues on his pitch. I ask, "I was just wondering if you might have tallow by any chance?". He asked what it was. "rendered hard fat from cows or sheep, I need that and the oil to treat some leather belting for an old machine" He gets a greenish look about himself and says "ummmm, sir, we are a vegetarian store!!!" I had to laugh a little to myself, I mean, they do sell the cod liver oil!
Michael

Wouldn't a place that sells animal stock feeds have bottles of it for horses etc?. When I read the title I flashed back to this famous Australian image:

Heheh, I am pretty sure I know what hippie health food store this is. My fave story about that particular store... back 25yrs ago, I was working in a small local artisan bakery in the ritzy section of town (Continental, pieces) where we hand made specialty breads for a lot of the local restaurants and small grocery stores. One of our selections was made for this hippie health food store. We had this adorable little 19yr old that worked the sales counter and she dealt well with the high dollar women that frequented the place. A lady came in one day and was looking around when she noticed this seven grain whole wheat bread we had. "Why, that looks just like the bread I buy at (aforementioned hippie food store)!"

"Yes, we make that bread for them." Our little sales girl said.

"Oh no, (hippie store owner with indian guru sounding name) told me that they make theirs in the upstairs of the store," protested the Mercedes driving yuppie.

Sales girl flatly... "Well, he lied."

And as for leather care stuff, try the tack dept at Tractor Supply.

It is my understanding that the cod liver oil sold in hippie vegan progressive stores is taken from volunteer cod that are brought to the surface by organic nets that have been modified to exclude sea turtles and porpoises. The oil is gently expressed from their livers, and they are returned, unharmed, to the sea with a prayer of thanks to Mother Earth for sharing her creatures and abundance. You no dats rite.

Since you mentioned tallow I'll relate my recent experience in trying to get a barrel of the stuff. I work for a maritime museum and we use tallow for slushing the spars on our sailing vessels and as cylinder lube for our steamer. The barrel we had was getting low and with three, soon the be four, rigs to slush and a season of steaming ahead we needed to buy more. I started with google and found small quantities for outrageous prices used for a) soap making b) candle making, and c) french fries. Not much help there. Next tried meat packing plants and was generally greeted with "what's that?". Finally tried rendering plants and found a) out of business b) under investigation for "animal cruelty"
(read this as not showing proper respect for the deceased) c) target of protest by PETA or some other group of wankers d) 10,000 gallon minimum. Finally got a lady on the phone who knew exactly what I was talking about and when I told her what it was going to be used for she said "my father (the owner!) would love to talk to you!" Turns out he loved things nautical, old and steam powered, had been for a trip on our schooner AND used to own the 10,000 gallon minimum place and had some pull with them. We were given one barrel by him and another by an associate! That should last us another 20 years or so after which it will not be my problem!

Well, I had asked the guy at the health food place because I thought about candles..Anyway, maybe going to bring up some comments, but I decided to go with 2/3 cod liver oil, 1/3 pure mink oil. A person at a leather supplier here in town said that especially in the south, animal fats applied break down into sugars which promote mold which weakens the belt. I glued the belts up today. Will report how they run.

"The oil is gently expressed from their livers" Bwahaha........cod milkers

Chris, it is totally who you know! Well, who you know, and how one conducts themselves around those you know.

MM

how about neatsfoot oil? isnt that what is normally used to treat leather belts? actually the oil from the lower portion of the cows leg, has some interesting properties. I was experimenting with it for a project and found it at Tractor Supply in gallons and five gallon containers. At my Father's plant we had several leather belt machines and I am pretty sure we used neatsfoot oil, it has been a long time.
By the way, Vegan neatsfoot oil is made with out killing the cow, but is is expensive because the cow needs to be fitted with wooden legs.

surplusjohn said:

how about neatsfoot oil? isnt that what is normally used to treat leather belts? actually the oil from the lower portion of the cows leg, has some interesting properties. I was experimenting with it for a project and found it at Tractor Supply in gallons and five gallon containers. At my Father's plant we had several leather belt machines and I am pretty sure we used neatsfoot oil, it has been a long time.
By the way, Vegan neatsfoot oil is made with out killing the cow, but is is expensive because the cow needs to be fitted with wooden legs.

Click to expand...

Neatsfoot oil is a great cutting oil too.

Funny thing is we took cod liver oil each morning, neat, when I was a kid. Mom had learned of the healthful properties of cod liver oil from a Norwegian immigrant friend. In those days, cod liver oil was sold in glass bottles (shaped sort of like a cod fish), in the A & P supermarket. I was probably exhibiting signs of latent craziness as I loved the taste of the cod liver oil. Mom would be chasing and threatening my brother and sister to get them to take their tablespoon of the stuff, and I would be ready to chug it off the bottle. I have not seen cod liver oil on the supermarket shelves since I was a kid, and that is over 50 years ago.

I wonder about the choice of oil for leather belt dressing. I know at most saddle, tack and farm supplies, they usually have neats foot oil for rejuvenating and preserving leather. I bought a pint can of it (made by Fiebings) to use on work boots, motorcycle leathers and leather saddlebags within the past few years. Not terribly expensive as I recall.

I am kind of surprised that you have to make your own steam cylinder oil. The "compounded" steam cylinder oils made with tallow, mineral oils, and rapeseed oils are still available. Lubriplate offered a compounded steam cylinder oil for saturated steam engines, as does "Green Velvet" oils, a specialty maker of oils for steam engines and old machinery. Exxon should also offers a compounded steam cylinder oil. Believe it or not, there is still a small and regular demand for compounded steam cylinder oils. A few remaining steam pumps, steam piling hammers, and certain worm drive gear reducers are in regular use to this day. As a result, steam cylinder oils are still commercially available. The basic steam cylinder oils for saturated steam engines were known as "compounded", meaning they were a mixture of tallow, mineral oil stocks, and rapeseed oil. This is the steam cylinder oil that has that incredibly great and unmistakable smell when heated and in use.

I have a couple of old books of "do it yourself" formulas for everything and anything- off the wall stuff like embalming fluids, explosives, cordials, hair tonics, veterinary remedies, boiler compounds, carriage top dressing, and all sorts of outmoded or harmful stuff. I am sure if I dug out the old books, there would be belt dressing formulas listed. OK, the old book jumped off the shelf at me: "Fortunes in Formulas" pub by Books, Inc, authors are Hiscox and Sloane, 1939 edition. Here we go, "Belt paste for increasing adhesion":formula I: Tallow: 50 parts
Castor Oil, crude: 20 parts
Fish Oil: 20 parts
COLOPHONY (God alone knows what THAT stuff is): 10 parts
Melt on moderate fire, stir until mass cools

Formula II: for cotton belts, so irrelevant

Formula III Gutta percha: 40 parts
Rosin: 10 parts
Asphalt 15 parts
Petroleum: 60 parts
(this already has plenty of sticky stuff in it, beteen liquid raw rubber, rosin and asphalt). Heat in a glass vessel in a water bath for a few hours until uniform solution obtained. Let cool and add 15 parts of carbon disulphide and allow the mixture to stand, shaking it frequently.

My late father had this book in our old house. When I was a kid, I discovered it. Predictably, I attempted some of the explosives and fulminates. Later on, I got into the sections about making whisky, and borrowed my mom's pressure cooker for a still pot. A great old book, for sure. I knew there would be something in there about belt dressing. One oldtimer in our area claims he used to slop roofing mastic onto flat belts in his sawmill to stop them from slipping. Any port in a storm, I guess.

COLOPHONY. Another term for wood resin (rosin). (from dictionary)

Don