Bear Grease...

[Ian Marchuk]

Yup..... I'm looking for a waterproofing boot grease for leather workboots.
In light powder snow and mild temps my leather work boots become soaked with water fairly quickly. I have tried quite a few different compounds , all of them sell better than they work.
I have long heard that bear grease was the ticket and want to try it. Does anyone have any that they might part with?
Aulikki??? Brian ????
I've poked around the Bilge and a coupla greasy old bears roaming about down here seem to have potential but no tags are available.... yet anyhows.

[paladin]

You may have trouble these days. Bear grease does not turn rancid with age..used for a lot of things, as bullet lubricant, hair grease, waterproofing for clothing...find any natural short fiber grease, such as would be used for black powder patch lubricant.
Native Americans mixed it with a cinnamon type plant, and a tea made from the bark of the slippery elm, simmered it with the rendered bear grease and strained it off......add sugar and use it as a substitute for butter and syrup.
Mink oil would be a close substitute.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Ko-Cao-Line.

[bobbys]

I take sum Mink Earl ,heat it up in my wife's Omelet pan and use a paint brush to put it on my boots..

Did not save the Bare grease out of the last Bare.

It sorta stinks.

[Mrleft8]

I used to get it from L.L.Bean...... But I think they stopped selling it years ago. I used to use "Sno-seal" too..... Now I use vaseline. Doesn't work as well, but it's cheap. and easy.

[The Bigfella]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbin

Dubbin

[coelacanth2]

Sno-Seal. Warm the boots in the oven, rub the stuff in copiously, back in the oven to absorb. Doesn't have to be smokin... Will last a good long time

[Stiletto]

The old timers in the high country here used mutton fat.
It may have been because there was quite a lot of it available.
Nevertheless, it worked.

[The Bigfella]

The old timers in the high country here used mutton fat.
It may have been because there was quite a lot of it available.
Nevertheless, it worked.

Yeah, but we are talking about boots here, not the old Kiwi KY substitute....

[Stiletto]

Well, I'll be buggered!

[Three Cedars]

When I was younger I hunted bears for a few years and have rendered bear fat , it is high quality stuff. Bears are very clean animals . A big fat black bear shot in the fall will yield quite a bit of rendered bear fat. I don't hunt them anymore .

Curious video of a man obsessed with bears -
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8468007

[BrianW]

Not sure if I'll be able to hunt black bears this year. Work schedule might interfere. But I'll be sure to save some fat if I do.

But one technique recommended by a guide is to use beeswax. Believe he used a hair dryer to melt the stuff into the leather. He also used it on plain insulated leather gloves. Break-in is suppose to be a bitch, but you'll cry if you lose them afterwards.

[Ron Williamson]

I quit waterproofing workboots with grease when I started working in the shop more.
By the end of the day they would look like fuzzy bunny slippers,with all the dust and shavings stuck to them.
R

[Ian Marchuk]

Thanks for the replies and the suggestions.
In years past I have used Ko Cao Line on horse harness, dubbin on boots, and at one time I found what was purported to be a mink oil based boot waterproofing goop. All worked well as a leather dressing ,especially on horse harness ,softening the leather and preserving stitching. Generally speaking the results were disapointing as a water proofing for leather boots. It may be that I did not give them enough coats of goop.
I have just applied 3 coats of a dubbin like product in the last 16 hours. Boots are in a utility room where there is a toasty wood fired heater doing its work. They are soaking it up nicely.
I have long heard that rendered bear fat was the treatment of choice . I can see the benefit of a blend with beeswax. Beeswax is easily had here and I think I will try some blending.
I'll bet that Nikwax is exactly that...
Gotta run
Thanks... Ian

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Here on the shores of Lake Erie we know about snow but we don't have any bears. At least not yet.
My solution was a pair if Gore-Tex lined chukka boots from Cabelas. They haven't leaked in ten years, no maintainence necessary. They work equally well in the spring when the water table in the woods is about at ground level.