This terribly wet and humid summer is SE PA has left many of us dealing with mold on our saddles. What’s the best way to handle this?
Long ago, we used the old one cup to the gallon solution of water and bleach to clean tack of mold and it worked fine on any we tried.
With today’s leathers, if you use that, try it first in a spot that won’t show, in case it does something odd to the leather, like leaving splotches.
We used a sponge to wipe the leather down well with the mixture, then again with plain water, then conditioned it with glycerine saddle soap.
I would expect today there are products made just for that, since mold is so common in leather where it is humid.
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I use diluted white vinegar, followed by a deep leather conditioning.
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Lysol disinfectant wipes in the green tube or knockoffs of them.
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Liquid Murphy’s Oil Soap & water, and a toothbrush if the saddle has a lot of tooling:)
In researching how to get rid of mold in my basement, I found that bleach only works on nonporous surfaces. Borax was recommended for porous surfaces. I cup borax to a gallon of water, don’t rinse. I’m not sure how that would work on a saddle but it’s supposed to kill mold.
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Leather Therapy Wash worked well for me on a saddle that I bought off of ebay. It was a British-made Hermes Steinkraus knockoff and covered in mold (and priced accordingly). The Wash worked very well, and underneath the mold was beautiful supple leather. (Still love that saddle.)
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Since it’s so horrible here right now as far as humidity (so bad I was excited that it was only 95% humidity when I got up the other morning) I’ve just been wiping it down with regular old leather new.
I’ve been using ammonia diluted in water, followed by KoChoLine. Working well so far.
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I will second the Leather Therapy Wash. When we bought a bunch of older tack from Western Wa, this stuff combined wih the Leather Therapy conditioner got the mold off and kept it off.
The tack room of the barn I work at is not climate controlled, and the mold has been INSANE the last few weeks. Even the synthetic tack has mold on it! And the rubber muck boots are moldy… Crazy.
My “helpers” used Leather New and then Leather Therapy. Everything leather looks great again. We will see how long it lasts before we have to repeat! I have never in my life seen mold like this!
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I do a vinegar wipe down - get into all the cracks and crevices, and let it sit in the sun for a bit. Then a clean with some castile soap. That kicked the musty smell out of mine quite well and deals with any visible mouldy bits.
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Strange but true: The only leather in my tack room that does NOT get moldy is my buffalo saddle – seat and flaps. Everything else in the room gets green mold almost overnight. Scary.
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for once the weather forecasters have been correct, they said this fall and winter here was going to be wetter… we had no rain at all from April until the end of of August…zero… since September 2nd… 21.5 inches… twenty-one and half inches… it has rained every day this month but two days
There was a hysterical years and years old thread about someone who used a dishwasher as an autoclave for her saddles persistent mold. I think the saddle might have been a stubben. If someone could find and post the link it might have a few mold control tips not yet mentioned. .
In so cal mold is not a big problem but if it were I would bag the saddle in plastic and use an ozone generator to kill the spores.
I have been using the ozone generator in my workshop for a long time. Recently I wanted to buy a new one found on the site an excellent comparison of generators https://ecolifemaster.com/best-ozone-generator. But still not decided what to choose. I will be glad to any advice!
Looks sideways at first time poster with kind of odd link in post…
Suspicious person here.
Yep, spammer, reported to be checked.
Spam on Christmas Eve, how nice of them.
Odd choice, we are having salmon :lol::D:lol:
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Salmon is better for you, any day.
All those good omega 3s …
