I have always broken in my gloves with oil and practice. I decided to hurry this one along by using the suggested oven tip I have heard about in the past. “Oh, just put your glove in the oven!” I never believed them, because I feared it would catch fire. I thought I was wrong. My Easter was ruined today.
So, uh. That glove isn't leather. You don't need to break in a glove that isn't leather, because vinyl isn't going to shape to your hand with oils, etc. the way leather will. Same goes for shoes; unless your shoes are all leather, there's no break in period.
Yes, plastic will melt in the oven. And that's what your glove is. Or was.
Never owned leather shoes an all of them had a "break in period". Probably different to leather but they change drastically the first 5-10h you wear them.
10 hours doesn't count as a break in period. Good leather boots can take a couple hundred hours. Good leather boots can also last thousands of hours longer than cheap boots.
You gotta go low and slow. 12 hours (give or take) at 225°F until it gets to an internal temperature of 203°F and becomes fork tender. That way all the collagen and fat renders out.
I prefer to do mine on the grill with a few pieces of a louisville slugger Maplewood bat on the coals. Instead of 12 hours though I wrap mine in foil at about 7 hours when it hits the stall.
There is a microwave technique for drying weed if you want to smoke it quickly. It will taste extremely green though. There’s nothing you can do to replace a good cure.
I don't play, and have never tried this. But from the instructions I'm seeing online, is either microwave method or heat up the oven and then turn it off before putting the glove in.
That's also looks like it's melting, is it actual leather?
Betting it’s not leather. Leather doesn’t melt. It will burn, but never liquify. It clearly appears that the outer layer liquified. Also this screams prank to me, but good quality, oiled leather should also hold up ok to 350 for 15 mins.
It might have been real leather. It smelled like it, as it burned. The online sites I read said nothing of turning off the oven. Everyone who swore by this said to put it in there at 350F for fifteen minutes.
I've never heard of this and I've got absolutely no idea if this is a real thing or if you got pranked as someone said. But assuming it's a real thing, I can think of two possible explanations why it went so badly for you:
First option, you used a toaster oven instead of a regular oven. The surfaces closest to the heating elements in this case get exposed to a lot more heat than the rest of what's in the oven. If the heating element is exposed, it's a toaster oven.
Second option, your oven's temperature knob isn't calibrated well enough so it got way hotter than it needs to be. Honestly I've got no idea how well these are usually calibrated. I have the exact same model toaster oven as my parents and theirs gets way hotter for the same knob position. But it's a cheapo brand (I can barely bring myself to call it a brand) so I hope it's better in the broader market, and maybe proper ovens are better calibrated than microwave-sized toaster ovens.
I wouldn't trust any oven based methodology because most have ancient barely functional electronics. Like the temperature control circuit could be orders of magnitude better for a total BOM cost of ~$1-$2, but they ship with absolute garbage instead. The overshoot, undershoot, and relative average are all wildly random. Every model and likely every unit are vastly different. Every unit I have taken apart is the same turd junk like electronics in a different dress.
It softens it. I put olive oil on it first, as many sites suggested, and other players have suggested. I used to break in my gloves with throwing after oiling them. I would also leave my gloves in a hot car to soften in the heat, with a ball inside of them. I am so mad right now. Today was ruined. I didn’t get to watch Easter mass online because of time zones, I missed watching (in person) my kids open Easter baskets I made, and then my damn glove caught fire. God, why?
Your glove caught fire because you put it in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes, when leather will readily burn at 210 degrees. I don't know how other people are pulling it off, as googling around pulls up the same instructions you apparently followed.
I never believed them, because I feared it would catch fire.
Seems like you knew better, which must make this more frustrating. Nothing stings quite like a self-inflicted wound.
As for the Easter stuff, that's really all about your personal situation and your belief system.
I didn't know anything about this, but was curious and looked it up. Most methods say to turn off the oven before you put it in, some say a lower temp. I found one result that said 350 for 15 minutes, but it said to watch it closely the whole time. I don't think your glove would have burned if you were watching it, things just don't burn so fast that you can't catch them before they turn black if you are watching it the entire time. I don't know if warming up a glove helps it, but it does seem like you didn't follow the instructions properly, and after cross referencing should have done the oven off method.
When I used to play I’d just put a new glove under my mattress for a night or two and it was good enough. Sucks you were misled about the material it was made from.
I have never used TikTok. In fact, I have refused to ever use TikTok, SnapChat, and Twitter (despite starting an account to enter some contest for The Walking Dead years ago). I just feel like some platforms attract certain personality types that I try to avoid when I’m relaxing.
I have a very hard time believing you didn't smell this before it got to this point. It's got holes in the fingers this shit was probably smoking out of the oven setting off the smoke alarm.
Because I am used to my soft, leather, Mizuno, Fastpitch glove that I had for years, and now it’s gone. I was left looking at this cheap, new, Franklin glove, wondering how I was going to break it in by next week.
I've used the oven method for two different gloves, but used shaving cream on the first one and a specific treatment foam on the second one. It's been 10 years since I last played, but I remember putting it on a cookie sheet and we turned the oven off before placing the glove in.
Sucks this happened to ya. Hopefully somebody around you has a spare you can borrow until you can figure out a replacement and get it broken in.
Treat the palm and heel of the glove with olive oil and massage it in. Moving the glove open and closed. Do with your hand in the glove and open and close it too.
Then after 20 to 30 of this. Wrap the outer pinky part of the glove around the ball into and under the thumb. Wrap it with the runner bands. Put it anywhere overnight.
Should be good to go for initial breaking in. Actual breaking in happens when you catch and play with it too.
You’re right, and I usually do that to break in a glove. I lost my old glove and I had to break this one in quickly. I tried a new method and it failed.
No, I have plenty of common sense. You don’t have any manners. Plenty of people have successfully used the oven trick to quickly soften a new glove. I’m sure if it had been 100% leather, it would have softened and not burned. The idiotic move was buying a cheap glove that was probably vinyl, and probably produced in China.
Here is an ESPN article where a MLB player suggests using the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. He also suggests a different amount of time and using shaving cream, instead of oil. Eco sports has an online article that suggests the method I used.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=caple_jim&id=5173365#
Fwiw the ecosports website seems entirely devoted to promoting sports equipment made from TPU, which is plastic, not leather. The blog is labeled "vegan athletes"