Glove maintenance

[uncdrew]

The other thing about sweat is that when it dries and forms salt, the salt is microscopic but still jagged and sharp edges. When you put your hand back in it rubs that salt and basically cuts the leather.

When I played competitive racquetball I would wash out my gloves or else they'd last about a week. the sweat would just cut them up in no time.

 

[ANNASDAD]

What is skiving lace all about?

Making it thinner for areas like the palm lace where you can really feel the lace touching the palm of your hand. Also makes it easier to bend and manipulate to do what you want it to do in tough areas.

In my gloves I just always used regular 3/16" lace that I got to pick through to do those areas like the palm. I'd wet a microfiber towel with conditioner and really work the lace to try an take away the sharp edges. But Schmick's right about skiving cause after a new re-lace with regular 3/16" lace, you can feel that new sharp, thicker lace digging into your palm! Back in the day I just thought that was normal after a re-lace!

 

[ANNASDAD]

What is skiving lace all about?

This palm lace is the perfect example of where I'm talking about skiving lace!

 

[BRsoftballDad]

I've done gloves for about 20 years now and TBH, the fastpitch gloves are the grossest gloves I, and other people in the glove community have told me the same, have ever dealt with. Many other glove guys just refer all their fastpitch clientele to me. It's good to see some parents on here starting to look at glove care.

Here's a few tips

Clean glove with Ball Player's Balm Glove Cleaner and the Horse Hair or Hogs Hair Brushes. (Fiebing's Saddle Soap also works well, get the white can) The natural brushes are better than plastic or other synthetic brushes. Avoid using harsh leather cleaners that will dry out the leather

Obenauf's Heavy Duty LP is pretty good stuff. Ball Player's Balm Pro Glove Conditioner or Pecard Leather Dressing are a little better. Put a little of it on your fingers and rub it in to the glove. After it's been on the glove for about 10 minutes get a horse hair shoe brush and brush the glove off, scrub around the laces so there's no build up of the conditioner.

For inside the hand and finger wells, Fiebing's Golden Mink Oil works best at keeping sweat from soaking in to the leather and then salting the leather as it dries.

The biggest issue with fastpitch gloves is how the girls treat or care for them. Walk behind a travel baseball team walking in to a park to play games or out of a park after games and the boys will have their gloves in their hands, their gloves in a mesh bag attached to their back pack or the glove will be clipped to the outside of the bag. The girls will stick a dirty, sweaty glove in their bag and not take it out til the next day that they need to use it.

Brush the grit and dust off the glove and allow the sweat on it to dry quickly and in the open, not in tha bag. If your player has sweaty hands then you may need to clean the inside of their glove, with the cleaners and brushes listed above, out more often. Sweat is salty, look what it does to shirts or hats, it is doing worse to leather because as the sweat dries the salt remains and it causes the leather to crack and rot.
The Golden Mink Oil by Fiebing's comes in a plastic tub, rub your glove hand in the oil and then rub that in to the glove, down the finger stalls and most importantly in the palm well and on the binding. The mink oil helps stop the sweat from soaking in to the leather and I have gloves that are 10-12 years old that still feel like new when you stick your hand in them.
Once the leather dries or cracks there's not much that can be done for it so you need to start caring for the glove when it's new

On my or my kids gloves... play year round in Southern California, though my wood bat Sunday league hasn't played in a year.
Clean the gloves with the cleaner and brushes monthly or after tournaments in AZ, Nevada, UT where there is much more iron in the dirt, making everything redder.
Condition the gloves after every cleaning making sure to brush off excess conditioner and give the glove 12 hours or dry before using again.
I tend to relace our gloves once a year. I dont recommend lacing gloves yourself unless you have a skiver and pocket grease/palm adhesive but then, even most the sporting goods places that do relace gloves don't skiv the laces or apply the palm adhesive either so just make sure that whether you're lacing the glove or having someone else do it, that it's done properly.

Sorry for being so long winded, gloves are sort of my thing.




Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

Just bought the Ball Player's Balm off their website and the mink oil off of amazon. Thanks for the info. I always just used the old Wilson glove conditioner. But now that my DD is using higher end gloves, I'll be sure to take care of them a little better.

 

[uncdrew]

Making it thinner for areas like the palm lace where you can really feel the lace touching the palm of your hand. Also makes it easier to bend and manipulate to do what you want it to do in tough areas.

In my gloves I just always used regular 3/16" lace that I got to pick through to do those areas like the palm. I'd wet a microfiber towel with conditioner and really work the lace to try an take away the sharp edges. But Schmick's right about skiving cause after a new re-lace with regular 3/16" lace, you can feel that new sharp, thicker lace digging into your palm! Back in the day I just thought that was normal after a re-lace!

Ah.

I've always wondered if the really thick lace that comes out of the thumb area stayed that thick wherever it was going inside the glove. You're saying that in some cases it doesn't?

 

[ANNASDAD]

Wilson glove conditioner.

Wilson Pro Stock conditioner is still really good conditioner!

 

[ANNASDAD]

Ah.

I've always wondered if the really thick lace that comes out of the thumb area stayed that thick wherever it was going inside the glove. You're saying that in some cases it doesn't?

That's different pieces of lace!

 

[_MIA_]

Man, if I had known all of this 30 years ago I would be collecting my MLB pension now instead of sitting in my 50 degree office grading HW..

 

[ANNASDAD]

Just bought the Ball Player's Balm off their website

I've never personally used Ball Player's Balm but I've heard nothing but excellent things about it! Hey if it's good enough for Dan Davis, and now Schmick, it's definitely good enough for me! Dan Davis swears by it!

 

[ANNASDAD]

Man, if I had known all of this 30 years ago I would be collecting my MLB pension now instead of sitting in my 50 degree office grading HW..

You know what they say about hindsight?? Trust me, I'm right there with you!