I had read about dried kombucha or vinegar SCOBYs being used as a leather substitute for shoe-making during economic downtimes. These days, it could be valued as a homemade vegan leather substitute--but I haven't found any reports from someone who has actually tried it. As a small test project, I tried using a piece of the dried out "cellulose leather" to patch a hole in some old crochet-back leather bike gloves. I think it was a success. The "celluleather" is surprisingly strong. It is smooth, flexible, and full of character.
The "kombucha leather" is layers of cellulose created by the acetic acid bacteria Acetobacter xylinum. I love that the bacteria does all the hard cellulose-making work for me. The cyborg gloves now contain material from three kingdoms: animal (leather), plant (crocheted cotton backing), and bacteria (kombucha leather patch), as well as petrochemical-based foam padding and polyester-core thread.
Finished product (more photos on flickr):
Does it smell/rot?
ReplyDeleteThe pancake started out smelling like kombucha--kinda like a weak vinegar. I dried it out on a wire rack outside. It attracted a few fruit flies because they love vinegar. Once it was dry, it didn't smell at all or attract any flies. And because it is dry, it won't rot or grow mold or anything.
ReplyDeleteI love the way the light looks coming through it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, were there any preserving treatments or was it just dried?
ReplyDeleteIf it's mainly cellulose, and a preserving treatment is desirable perhaps some sort of drying oil like linseed or tung oil would be useful? Of course, it depends on your experiences with the current prototype since preserving treatments may be redundant.
Thanks for the tip. I periodically rubbed some old "Dr. Martens Wonder Balsam" (coconut oil, lanolin, and beeswax) into it. Wouldn't a pure drying oil dry hard and make it inflexible? Of course, that could be desirable in some instances
ReplyDeleteVaseline could work too. I'm thinking baseball glove...
Also, although at first I thought it would tear, I folded and flexed the dried cellulose many times throughout to make it more flexible.
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely great information! Do you have try different kind of thickness? Which one was the best?
ReplyDeleteIndokombucha-
ReplyDeleteAnything thinner than 0.5 inches didn't seem strong enough. I tried some thicker ones, but they weren't uniformly thick, so it didn't work out so well. I would start by trying 0.5 inches.