Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Boot waterproofing?

Well, seeing Obenauf's has beeswax as a key ingredient, I'd say not only is it in the same zip code, it resides on the outskirts of the same city.
But argue away – it's what you do.

The voice of NO experience wants to pick on the voice of one with significant experience with both. Before pure beeswax it was not uncommon to wear out a new boot on a single hunt in bad shale. With Obenauf's it was better. With plain beeswax every boot lasted for years. Huge difference. Feel free to try it and KMA.

I’ve not used pure beeswax, so won’t comment there, but Obenaufs has produced similar durability for me and my hunting partners to what you describe, with a bunch of hunts and a lot of miles in shale per pair of boots.

Obenauf's does not put a smooth top on the leather. It melts down in and gets rough quickly. Wax remains smooth and does not get scraped off quickly. There is a serious difference. in serious shale you cannot tell the boots are waxed with Obenauf's in very short order. It is more than orders of magnitude longer lasting.

This season has prolly made me a believer in wax. Chit.... my beloved mink oil prolly a thing of the past. Obenhaufs never once impressed me much. FWIW been using Kennetrek boot wax. snow, creek crossing multiple times daily, rain, putting boots on daily that don't hit a heater or boot dryer and my crispis are kicking ass keeping my feet dry.

Don’t worry about waterproofing, your Danners will be toast by the time you go to Africa

I keep adding coats of Obenaufs until the leather won’t absorb anymore, and it does build up to a surface layer.

Sno-seal or melt toilet wax ring

Do as you wish, but when you use straight beeswax you will instantly see the difference. Adding solvents makes application easier but compromises the wax. As the solvents evaporate you will see the fluffer resemblance, too.

It takes quite a bit longer to apply straight wax the first time... but you will not have to do it again for at least a year of serious use. That is not the case with Obenauf's.

One caveat: once solvent-heavy dressings have polluted the leather the straight wax is compromised by it. Start with new boots. Funny part is trying to apply something like Obenauf's on properly waxed boots...

Jordan;
Top of the morning to you my friend, I hope the day is behaving for you all and you're all healthy.

Although I've texted you a bunch of this information already, I've thought of a couple more things so hopefully it's okay I throw it up here instead of giving my thumbs a workout.

If I'm not mistaken it was likely Sitka who put me onto the straight beeswax thing and that might have been closing in on 15 years back.

Usually I pick up beeswax in a big block either at the farmer's market or the local Facebook Marketplace always has smaller beekeepers selling honey and sometimes beeswax too.

I don't treat dress boots with it because it does discolor them, but all my work boots over those years have had beeswax soaked into them. Especially when I was working on construction sites or doing machinery maintenance and repairs, the toes on steel toed boots always wear out first. The beeswax helped a lot with that, to the point where I was getting some resoled and reheeled so that was nice.

We need to remember that liquid beeswax is flammable - really and truly flammable - so I use a double boiler to melt the wax and if one is using a Coleman in the shop, be careful of the flame.

As I mentioned in the text, one absolutely can do the double boiler on the kitchen stove - BUT - if it's the new stove that you just bought with the new set of appliances, no amount of wax paper placed carefully all around is going to be enough. Well Jordan, it wasn't for me...

I suppose one can heat the boots up however it works best, but I find an old hair dryer or a very adjustable heat gun might work too. My shop heat gun produces a bit too much heat to use easily.

The boots get heated up so they're pretty close to hot to the touch, then the liquid beeswax gets worked into the leather with an old toothbrush. Have a couple of those on hand because even a hair dryer can make them get rather floopy. Also I've tried short paint brushes for application and while they work okay, an old toothbrush works better for me.

We'll keep on applying the beeswax until it's obvious the leather isn't absorbing any more, as you said with the Obenauf's.

When it's dry it can be buffed with a cloth and I usually do that was it both looks better and also seems to get dirty a bit less than not buffing it. It absolutely still will attract dust however.

For me the boots perform better on those days when it's snowed a few inches and it's starting to melt or it's been raining for days and one is bombing around in grass up to your waist. By "better" I'd say I mean they'll keep stiff or hold their shape and keep supporting my feet and ankles better than when the leather gets sloppy wet and doesn't support properly.

Hopefully that made some sense and was useful to you or someone out there.

All the best and good hunting.

Dwayne

Nonsense, again.

It is your fantasy, not mine. I have used SnoSeal quite a bit. Many folks hunting with me on Kodiak found out just how useless it is.

The latter for me has worked very well for years on both hunting boots and works boots.

Get a Peet boot dryer. Mine stays plugged in all the time. Work boots on it at night, my slip ons during the day while im at work. They last years and years, I believe a lifetime warranty also. I've had them plugged in for a solid 10 years at a time. I also, have the propane version in my old bumper pull camper for wet boots, works great also.

Sounds like failure of you and your party to choose the correct boots for the terrain and conditions.

You could be wrong, however.

In over 40 years of experience hunting, guiding, and transporting on Kodiak I believe I picked up more than a little knowledge on keeping feet dry. Quite a few folks here spent time with me there and are laughing at you now, but please do keep digging.

When they get truly soaked a day is not long enough to dry leather boots. Properly waxed boots never get that wet...

Have you used both to see the difference?

Great post. Thank Dwayne!

Duhhhh... Obviously not.