Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire leather waterproofing goop

Huberd's Shoe Grease.

Pretty good stuff, for an 80+ year old mom and pop family recipe.

But it wears off, like most store bought products, when walking in abrasives like grass or snow and ice.

One product I've had good success with isn't commercially available.
Deer grease.

Skinning out dead deer it worked so good on my hands and gloves that I started using it regularly.
Deer and elk skin gloves love the stuff. Gloves last twice as long, even out fixing fence and riding down calves for cutting and branding.

I rub it on boots, too.
It's free.
And we have plenty of it from September through December.

Ball gloves get lanolin.
Bees wax is for bow strings.

In this re-run about waterproofing leather, I will repeat my agreement with everything Sitka says re beeswax. But that's only if you want the best. Re experience, 65 years of tramping off trail with much of that time in real rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island. The past 15 years or so have used nothing but beeswax except for an emergency app of milky liquid Nikwax once and personal try-outs of a few others.

Pure beeswax is harder to apply, but is longer lasting and protects leather better. I started using SnoSeal in the 60's and many products surpass it now. A couple of the best have gotten good mention here.

Deer/Elk fat is great for gloves.....I found that out by accident when skinning an Elk in MT.....it was to cold to go barehanded so I put on some leather gloves....they turned out to be the most comfortable longest lasting gloves I ever owned...I've never missed a chance to rub some Deer fat on my gloves since...

Huberds Shoe Grease is definitely another good one that's made with beeswax and pine pitch....
And who doesn't stuff that comes in a paint can....
Just reading the back of that can a minute ago...FWIW Huberds doesn't speak very highly of using animal fats or bi-ptoducts on boots....

Animal fats are horrible for waterproofing leather!

They will rot quickly in damp weather.

Okay. Im convinced.
I'll try some bee wax next time on my boots.

I'm 41. My boots were bought for me on my 18th birthday. I am still wearing them, they have been rebuilt many times, but the original leather is still in great shape. I have only used obnaufs on them. Why change?

If you live in relatively dry country you may not want or need the very best...

Everything added to beeswax for waterproofing is either to make it easier to apply, or cheaper. There is nothing that improves the finished product...

Forgot to add that beeswax is far better at fending off abrasion, too...

I have been in those boots in the Pacific Northwest, alaska and clear to Nevada. I'm not saying you're wrong, but let's be honest. ....there is something going right for them to still be kicking.

I've found nothing better than Obenauf...

Neatsfoot oil, being rendered from cattle bones, would qualify as an animal bi-product (sic), no?

Have you encountered any rand delamination from it? While it did rain here once, I don't need the best waterproofer so ease of application is more of a factor for me.

Aside from a brief fling with Obenauf's in the past most of my experience is watching it fail on boots of slow learners... I have not seen rand failures with it.

Neatsfoot oil is actually the synovial fluid in the hooves and joints.