Any Vinyl Piping Rejuvenation Tips?

Please share your knowledge on how to keep your vintage gloves in great shape and looking sharp.

Any Vinyl Piping Rejuvenation Tips?

Postby mplsgloves » July 16th, 2019, 5:00 pm

I'm looking for recommendations on what products and procedures might work best for bringing back softness of the plastic/vinyl piping that unfortunately seems to have become quite common after 1970. I would assume for most collectors the plastic piping is a sign of a lower quality glove to be avoided but I'm sure there are lots of people like me whose childhood gamer is a plastic piped model they would love to maintain as much as the polymer chemistry allows. Also, I just ran across a nearly brand new early 70's Tony Oliva (Macgregor M9K). The leather and stampings are pristine but the piping is stiff enough that it makes it a bit uncomfortable to use the glove and I would love to fix that.

From some quick googling, it seems like a thorough cleaning of the vinyl and then mineral oil application is a recommended technique in the world of restoring vinyl car interiors. I might try that but would love to hear any other tips, trick, suggestions from the craftsmen of this forum. Thanks!
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Re: Any Vinyl Piping Rejuvenation Tips?

Postby mplsgloves » November 7th, 2019, 10:55 pm

Follow-up report on my previous query:
After some further reading and experimentation, it seems like once your vinyl/plastic has lost all its plasticizers and gotten really hard and brittle, there's not much hope of bringing it back. But as long as it isn't too far gone, cleaning and conditioning can return some pliability and really improve the visual appeal.

My favorite example so far is this Willie Mays model with a full vinyl back. Its certainly not a high end glove in need of preservation but it was fun to see it really sparkle after thoroughly cleaning all the vinyl with isopropyl alcohol and then applying some mineral oil. I also tried Pecards leather conditioner on a few test sections of vinyl and that also made it look really nice.
ImageImage
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If anyone else has other tips, I'd love to hear em.
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Re: Any Vinyl Piping Rejuvenation Tips?

Postby ebbets55 » November 8th, 2019, 11:59 am

That glove looks fantastic! Nice job man. Love to see that.

JD
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