Drying leathers

[the_Journeyman]

So, got caught in a very hard rain on the way home AND took a wall of water to the chest from a pickup hitting a reasonably deep puddle in the other land.  Completely soaked my leathers, gloves, and boots.  Do I just put them on a hanger and let them dry naturally?

JM

[Spider]

absolutely....you can also get a day old newspaper and scruntch it up and putt it inside pant legs, arms etc

do NOT put it anywhere near a heat source - it will dry to quickly and crack the leather

nice and slow and then treat it to some conditioner once it is completely dry.

same rules apply to all leather - shoes, briefcase, jacket...

[woodyracing]

for full leathers I lay them out on the floor zipped up and stick the output end of one of these in the neck of the leathers:

works pretty damn well imo

[woodyracing]

also if they are completely soaked I would not suggest hanging them, wet leathers have a tendency to stretch.  Some will do it more than others but its a risk you run

[DoubleEagle]

If you have a coat hanger that came w/ your jacket put your jacket over the hanger and snap the collar strap if it has one . If no collar strap try to get the jacket to hang as naturally to the original shape as possible.

Hang on an indoor clothes line if you have one. If you have a clothes line use clothes pins to attach to the leg bottoms of leather pants . You will probably have to turn some of the leather at the bottom of the pants over so that the clothes pins will get a better grip . Same w/ gloves , hang on a clothes line by the flap that velcroes to the cuff if there is a flap . Otherwise hang the gloves by the cuff.

What I do that works real good is I have a dehumidifier in the laundry room and that pulls all the water out of the wet leather and then I can liberally use Lexol leather conditioner ( I can buy it at Advanced Auto Parts ) in a spray container.

I then take each piece of leather and spray Lexol on it and use a fine sponge to spread it all over the leather . You don't want to twist or wring the leather , just spray it on so that every area of leather has been covered w/ the Lexol Conditioner and let it soak in.

Since the leather has been so wet you may need to do the Lexol Spray again. You should after the Lexol has been absorbed within an hour , know by the way the leather feels if it has had enough Lexol treatment. Wipe off any excess Lexol and you're done.  Dolph

[the_Journeyman]

Thanks for the input folks!  I've let them dry naturally overnight & I'll be putting some conditioner on them once they're completely dry ~

JM

[fasterblkduc]

I have this for my racing leathers: http://www.rscycles.com/images/hangair/hangair_suit_dryer.htm

It is awesome

[Pakhan]

Last soaking my leathers got was about a week ago and I just hung everything up in the bathroom with the window open.  Everything dried no problem and I didn't use conditioner.  They were a little stiff at first but after using them for 5 minutes they were back to normal again.