Ink cleaning / glove darkening experiment

[Musashi]

I picked up this glove for $5 thinking I'd cannibalize the web, but it turned out to be too small for anything in the collection. Then, I was going to disect it, but this little glove just feels so comfortable (and looks really nice with the single post), that last night I cleaned it up, and I was pleasantly surprised by how it came out, seeing how much I abused it... Pics below.

The glove was pretty interesting. It's an "MT2004 (whatever that is), and appears to be an 11". It does have Mizuno's "Crest" leather (which I think was their version of HOH) - but it's Korean made, and while the construction seems decent enough, they definitely skimped on the lining - it's suede.

There was a lot of ink on it that I attempted to clean off, but utterly failed to get it completely off...so I decided to darken it to see just how much I could hide it. I decided to try some different techniques on it to see how it affects the leather.

First, I went after the ink with some Fast Orange with pumice, then cleaned the entire glove with some Permatex. Not even waiting for the glove to dry, I immediately went over the glove with regular neatsfoot, then a coat of mink oil while the leather was still moist (I never use mink oil, but what the hell, I was experimenting and I wanted to get the glove as dark as possible). Then, I sealed everything in almost immediately with some vaseline.

The glove has been sitting for almost a day now, and the vaseline is almost gone -- I'm not sure what the long-term effects will be, but the short-term results are surprisingly good. However, given that I pretty much did everything you're NOT supposed to do to a glove, I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to get the glove nearly as dark as I thought I would...

[Zako51]

Lanolin and Mink Oil are just going to keep the glove hydrated, its not necessarily going to darken it. The more and more you put on will continue to weigh the glove down and you will over saturate the glove. In order to get the name off (or hopefully most of it) us a high grit sand paper (preferably 320) and lightly sand the name off. I have found that has worked in the past.

Good Luck!