waterproofing leather boots

[PeterC]

Ta.

[PeterC]

After the castor oil?

[Ophelia]

Pink cheeks ... "Oh, the embarassment"

[MP]

sorry can?t remember exactly which ones, but I do know she got very little wear out of them under 60 mile. As fair as I know the upper didn?t let water in but marked and cut very easily. But the worst thing was the soul very quickly came away from the leather upper allowing water in. I tried to persuade her to return them to the shop but because she walks so infrequently she said she had had them to long to take back. MP

[Chris Holford]

snip

I'm not certain of this, but I've tried neats' foot oil several times and it seems to me that it is very good for keeping leather supple but not so good at waterproofing. In fact I suspected that it 'opened the pores' of the leather and made it less waterproof. I'm still looking for the perfect leather treatment and have gone back to good old dubbin for the present. BTW 'veldtshoen' construction is supposed to give better water resistance to footwear,but at a cost (eg

. My current walking shoes are made this way and do seem to be very good in this respect.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

They were possessed?

[The Natural Philosopher]

terrible case of asset stripping..

[docholliday93]

I've only had one pair of Goretex lined boots, but they're still keeping my= feet dry after 5 years (mainly weekend walking, but occasional longer trip= s doing 15-20 miles a day for 5 or 6 days). The last time I used them there= was a gaping hole on one side where the sole was coming unglued and the sl= ot was being forced apart by stones and mud, but my feet were still dry - I= shall have to try them out soon now I've cleaned them up and re-glued the = sole.

[PeterC]

Capital!

[PeterC]

My Grandfather made the first ever pair of 'veldtshoen' for Lotus(?) in Northampton. Apparently every pair was weighted and floated in water for some ?time to check for leaks. If this is still the case (I doubt it), that would explain the price!

[Bill Grey]

Gave up the ghost eh?...:-)

Bill

[Bill Grey]

Disagree entirely, My various boots, Berghaus, Meindle and Trail shoes all of which had Goretex lnings all performed perfectly in wet conditions.

Bill

[nmm1]

Physics is not mocked. What I said is correct. You may well believe in Maxwell's demon, but there's no such animal.

Once Goretex gets saturated, the surface tension no longer blocks water from passing through, and it is no longer waterproof. But, as I said, the percolation rate through its very small pores is low.

Once Goretex gets covered with water on the outside, saturated in any other way, or it gets colder than the dewpoint of the water vapour inside, it ceases to be breathable.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[Peter Clinch]

Gore have a ridiculous guarantee, "guaranteed to keep you dry". A classic case of the large print giveth and the small print taketh away, but in this case the small print points out the foundation to the claim is a hydrostatic head well in excess of that considered to be "waterproof" (MOD say 800mm, outdoor industry reckon 1m).

And that is hydrostatic head, which will be maintained whether or not it is "saturated". XCR has a measured HH in excess of 4m IIRC, so (a) it's difficult to see how you can apply that in testing without "saturation" and (b) percolation rate would be zero /or Gore would be sued left, right and centre over their fraudulent guarantee/.

That certainly does appear to be the case. Same goes for pretty much any other waterproof/breathable fabric, of course.

Pete.

[nmm1]

Why? What's the physics behind that? Its claims are nonsense (a water molecule is NOT much larger than a steam molecule), and my understanding is that the hydrostatic head is due to hydrophic material.

Not really. Holding up a few metres of water on one side is NOT saturation, and I am not disputing their claims. But once it gets saturated, then there is liquid water both sides, and the surface tension effect gives way to percolation.

I have measured this effect for several fabrics, including Goretex, and it occurs for that as much as anything else. However, I never managed to get more than a certain amount of dampness through the Goretex, so all I could be sure of was that the percolation rate was non-zero (but negligible). What I can't be sure is how much would get through with the pumping caused by footwear and clothing movement.

Obviously - the same physics applies.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[Bill Grey]

You can theorise all you like I can only comment on what I actually experienced and still do.

Bill

[Rick Hughes]

worth reading this thread, by Nick Brown the guy who formulated Nikwax ... importantly he advise new product will out perform Liquid Nikwax ... which would make it very good indeed.

[Rick Hughes]

Just remembered the other product I used for some time on Army boots ... Mink Oil ..... only ever had it when I could get it is US PX stores. Seemed to be a great product .. really soaked in.

[nmm1]

As I posted, my statements are also based on measurement, personal experience and other people's experience. Whether you have been just lucky, have never stressed Goretex as much as we have, or simply been unobservant, I can't say.

It works fairly well (I use Goretex boots), but nothing made by mortals works perfectly.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[Peter Clinch]

Bad phrasing on my part. What I'm getting at is that in order to /be/ staurated you need over a 4m water column providing pressure, and that isn't going to happen to anyone using it in a normal application. In other words, the hydrostatic head will be maintained precisely because the pore structure cannot get saturated until you exceed it. The pore structure won't be saturated however much the face is.

Its claims are nonsense (a

It's surface tension, but you can't break the surface tension until you exceed the hydrostatic head, which you won't do because it's too big. So it won't leak until you've got a lot more pressure forcing the water through than will happen in practical application.

We are in furious agreement. But /how/ it's going to get saturated in normal use, given the amount of pressure you need to force water in to the pore structure is what "oh it will leak, albeit slowly" doesn't address

Most examples of "leaking" are condensation on the other side, which is remarakably difficult to get rid of.

If it's easy to measure percolation through goretex then it would fail the hydrostatic head tests that Gore use as the basis of their guarantee.

Pete.