Help! Boer War Leatherworking Advice Needed

[BobsYourUncle]

I've been thinking about this some more this afternoon.
If the leather is chrome tanned, you will not get to the buff color. It will be a light gray color. It will, however, be roughed up and ready to apply the Blanco. I would try sanding the back of the harness or somewhere inconspicous to see the results.

I have this idea in the back of my mind, that the object may well become to simply rough up the surface rather than remove it altogether, and then just rought it up enough to accept Blanco. Such a solution would be acceptable, so long as it results in something other than the "patent leather" type finish it now has.

[BobsYourUncle]

I concur. And I'd be afraid if you tried to "fix" it by sanding, you're probably going to do a lot more damage than you want trying to make it look authentic. If you're REALLY serious about it being suede and adding white stuff to it, I'd probably use the pieces/parts you've got as a pattern and go get some roughed-out leather or suede to make new stuff from.

There's also a few places that can take leather and refinish it to match pretty much any color you want to match. My wife knows some people in Memphis, TN that do this, though it's pretty expensive. If you want, I'll get details and maybe they can help you take that route. Just let me know.

Look on the bright side , if doesn't turn out you will still have a full scale pattern to make a set out of the corect leather.

As you both have noted, if the sanding doesn't get me where I need to go, I can take the whole thing apart and use the parts as pattern, then disassemble the metal hardware for use in my new set. I have a couple of sources for buff leather, having made several smaller kit items in buff leather in the past [white sporran belts]. If all else fails, it may be a better use of my time and effort to do just that.

[BobsYourUncle]

Haven't had time in the past several days to do very much with this project, but I did get an assortment of sandpaper, 220 grit, 400-b grit, sanding block and sand paper for my palm-sized detail sander.

I took a stab at sanding on the "back" of the bayonet frog, and took a close look at several areas of the equipment. It appears that on some elements of the equipment, the hard "patent" finish is only on one side. The non-patent side has a little white coloring on it, but no additional surface. The non-patent side would rough up quite readily.

On the "patent leather" side, the preliminary outcome is that surface seems to sand o.k., but I haven't really gotten down on it yet. I need to be able to spend a little time and employ some elbow grease to get a real sense of what will happen with some sustained sanding. I will say that I think I may have to take Artificer up on one of his suggestions, and go at it with a wire brush before sanding.

I have also ordered some Deglazer from Feibings, as PaulHenry has suggested. I may wait until that comes in, and use it on a test piece, before trying to tackle the whole project. If an application of Deglazer can strip the hard suface coating, I may be able to seriously short cut the whole process. I will post further as we go. Thanks all for your great advice. Cheers!

[longhuntr74]

How much savings are we talking here again?? I saw a set of these for $150 on a website.

[budd4766]

If I'm correct, you can get the same effect from an acetone-based nail polish remover as you can from deglazer. Think there's not much difference between the two. Just a thought.

Deglazing can be kinda tough...if you're changing colors or something like that. You have to be sure to get ALL the old finish off. But, for your stated purpose, this might work out fine. Never tried it on patent leather, but I know on veg-tan, it can give that dull look you may be looking for all on it's own. You might not have to sand....much..

Hope it works, and post some pics when you're done!

[theborderer]

If you Google "Blanco for Army Uniforms" you will find on Wikepedia that the latest Blanco is not the same as was used in 1880 where the euipment was Bucksin.

[BobsYourUncle]

If you Google "Blanco for Army Uniforms" you will find on Wikepedia that the latest Blanco is not the same as was used in 1880 where the euipment was Bucksin.

Of course, the original manufacturerers of Blanco have long since gone out of business, so reenactors who are trying to replicate the process for their web gear have to either (1) find a source for an ancient cake of Blanco [some is still being sold, incredibly, or (2) figure out how to use paint or shoe creams/polishes to acheive a suitable facsimile effect. The Blanco and Bull website describes several ways of using various materials to do so, here: http://www.blancoandbull.com/

The original "web gear" cleaner and whitener, of soldier's waistbelts and crossbelts, was pipeclay. Ask an 18th Century reenactor about pipeclay, and you will get an earfull about how it rubs off on all that red melton wool...