I made a blend ofequal parts pitch and resin, a little pine oil and stuck it in one of those brown crocks used for cheese...the one with the metal clip. I have kept it in my shoemaking bench and used it for about thirty years. I stopped making shoes in 2001 and did not resume until 2013. The mixture was still in tact in the crock.
It'll dry out so I periodically re-heat it and add some oil. Not a good idea to try heating it in the kitchen or indoors or use anything more than a very low heat. It'll behave like fuel and burn your house down.
No matter what the formula, it is sticky big time.
It is also durable. When I finally dragged my butt back to the Eastern in 2013 after fifteen years in Cowboy Action, I was flat out shocked when a friend named Parson Jim walked up to me and asked for a pair of Batts because the pair I made for him so many years ago ( twenty, I think) had finally given out at the heel. All those years and the stitching held up with the COAD in it.
Now, my shoes are no better than anybody elses, and all I had left when I showed up was my trekking gear, two flintlocks, shoemaking tools and small clothes made by a great seamstress named Maggie Flynn, so when I got home I right away looked for that crock of COAD. Still there and workable. Guns are guns and tools are tools, but the fact that Maggie's small clothes have held up all these years and that this gent sang the praises of my shoes are testimony to the value of crafts people trading their stuff for other crafts people's stuff. Hope I find Maggie soon because two and a half decades of my small clothes are taking their toll. Most of the other folks for whom I made shoes have dropped out for one reason or another.
Never tried beeswax as part of this mixture.
Some guys like to keep it floating in water because the mixture they make is a bit runny. I like mine dry enough to need friction rubbing on the thread to soften it and allow it to penetrate, and I don't make shoes frequently enough to need it in a firken. It is a little less dense that a cake of beeswax, but I don't know how authentic that is.
I was taught that it was a must in welting and very advisable in soling. When I mixed two parts hemp and one part flax thread, or three hemp and two linen, I found its chief value was in holding the pigs hair or nylon bristle on and doing a good job of permeating the leather when closing.
It's other value was coloration on my meershaum pipe.
Inasmuch as it comes off easily with WD 40 I don't know why I don't use it more, but in a pegged shoe when I tack the uppers before soling a heavy Barbours with beeswax is easier to work with and just as durable.
It's most distinctive feature, however, is the visible difference it makes when closing and flattening a seam.
Never tried it on saddles and gunbelts, though, and I must admit I was a little annoyed when making cowboy rigs because those guys liked seeing the white machine stitch on the dark background.
The Honourable Cordwainers website will probably lead you to a couple of recipes.
The Capgun Kid
( AKA The Still River Cordwainer )
