[grantman]

Originally Posted by lugerholsterrepair

OK, The best approach is to do as Don says..search out the thousands of words already written.

First off you need to determine IF it's mold and what type it is. Some molds are grey dried and not affected by heat. I don't know if this type is alive or dried & dead? An active living growing mold will be white and greasy feeling. This is the best for heat treatment. Heat will make it disappear inside and out. Even fairly mild heat.

I have a solar hotbox I use. Plexiglas top and achieves 150-220+ on a hot sunny Yuma day. Metal gets hot enough to make you drop it. It will erase most living mold flowers.

BUT! Will it kill the spores? Maybe not. I use the 350 F treatment to pretty much guarantee deep heat penetration for a killing dose. Heat your Wife's kitchen oven to 350. Place holster/or other leather on cookie sheet, place in oven, Sing Happy Birthday a couple of times and TURN OVEN OFF! You are then free to leave the area but NOT BEFORE YOU TURN THE OVEN OFF! After you YOU TURN THE OVEN OFF come back after an hour or two or even later. The oven will naturally lose heat and finally cool. Because you what? YOU TURNED THE OVEN OFF! Now if you forget to TURN THE OVEN OFF you will come back because the smoke detectors will be telling you to. Remember the old movie, Fahrenheit 451? Well, that's a neat reminder of when paper bursts into flame. Well, at 350 your holster won't burst into flame but at that sustained temperature, long term, it WILL toast, smoke and brown off eventually shriveling up into a twisted charred wreck.

OH! One other IMPORTANT tidbit! DO NOT cover the leather with ANYTHING! Leave it to the open air. Let it breathe and expel moisture. If you cover it, it will become a boiled shriveled twisted shrunken ...GOD! It's too horrible! Don't do it.

But it's possible lessor temperatures work about as well.


OK, Lets talk about acetone..Tandy sells it in a small bottle labled 'Leather cleaner" but it's acetone. Acetone CAN damage suede. The fuzzy stuff on the underneath. I've seen it eat it away and harden, stain the hell out of it. So I am careful when/where I use it. On surface leather it seems benign.

Rubbing/medical Alcohol is the best I know of. It will not damage leather that I know of. Remember the leather you might be heating up and slopping Ballistol/OIL, or other chemicals on is likely many decades older than you might be. THINK, investigate, research before you put it on cause once on it's there to stay.

Jerry: That's what I was wondering....It is common for methods used by museums to evolve over time, and data accumulation. Hence my phraseology.