Re the leather iron from Aliexpress mentioned in Comments.
I’ve just used mine in earnest (though not on a boat, alas) and have to change my opinion. The shoe is a solid lump of alloy, yet after a few hours it bubbled! See the photo. It looked like a chrome plating with bubbles, but after taking it all apart it is actually solid. The bottom of the shoe is also bubbled and will need filing smooth if it’s ever to be used again.
Worse, the temperature knob moves every time the handle is gripped, so one minute it’s too cold and the next you’re looking at a burnt and melted lump of nylon. Removing the knob and using a screwdriver on the shaft and an infrared thermometer is one solution.
Worse yet, sometimes when pressing down the light will come on – pressing the other way will turn the light off. Suspiciously as though it’s bending and making unwanted contact somewhere.
After pulling it apart, you can see that one of the wires going into the heater element is bare – the sheathing stops just short of the element. The blue-sheathed wire is 2-core and will be the feedback. Putting a meter across the other two where they join the PCB gives a full 230v. Hmm. Granted that’s 230v into a bare wire into a ceramic core inside the metal heater in the metal shoe, but the blue cable is crimped at the entry point and who knows what’s faulty inside, out of sight.
I don’t think I’ll use this again.
