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Fixing bubbling saddle leather?

I have a calfskin saddle, that I lent to a friend for a few rides. Her well-meaning groom oiled it using neatsfoot oil, and there is now a fair amount of bubbling on the flaps. Is there any way to fix this? It is a really expensive saddle and I am worried that the bubbles will become tears. I am also worried about causing more damage as I continue to do routine cleaning and conditioning. I have reached out to the manufacturer but they are terrible at responding, so I am hoping someone here has some insight!

The current high end saddles are ironically made out of layers of thin glued leather to make the top layer super soft and grippy calf skin. Unfortunately that glue bond can break down causing bubbling. They can also wear through the calf skin. In contrast, traditional high end saddles had panels of a single cut of full grain leather.

I don’t think you can fix this once the leather layers start to delaminate.

BTW, who uses neatsfoot oil anymore??

Oops, just saw this was from last year. The fact there was no replies yet made me think it was new.

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What do people use now days?

On modern fine grained leather, various leather balms and conditioner. I’d only put neatsfoot on my vintage rescue strap goods

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Yup, never ever ever oil calf.

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I do on my bridles which are incredibly old and real leather. It keeps them soft and supple.I only use it about once a year after Winter is over.

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I have a tiny bottle of neatsfoot oil that’s got to be over 25 yrs old. Barely made a dent in it. Have used on NEW hunt bridles and reins and that’s about it. Cream conditioners go on dressage/jump saddles, stirrup leathers, breastplates and dressage bridles/reins.

Can you try using glycerin soap on it to remove the oil then let stand in the sun for a while?

fwiw my saddle maker told me to neatsfoot my new flaps.

What kind of leather are your flaps?

Unfortunately I think you can’t fix bubbling on a bonded leather product because the glue holding the layers together has deteriorated.

Firstly, I would suggest you contact the saddle maker and ask them what you can do; however, I was thinking that if you cleaned it with saddle soap then laid the flaps on a flat surface (might have to do one flap at a time) and put something heavy on them like a thick book or heavier and let it dry that if the glue underneath was still viable it might reattach?

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Thanks for all of the suggestions! All of the saddle is calf except for a small part above the billets that is grain leather. I thought about trying to smooth it but the bubbles are really tiny- it almost looks like a rash on the leather- so I think it would need an insane amount of weight to press them down, and I’m not sure how to configure that without damaging anything else. It’s not the end of the world, as it seems (at this point) to be primarily cosmetic, but it was very disappointing as I kept this saddle pristine and am in the process of looking for a new horse, so if I need to sell it, the value has definitely plummeted. In the future, anyone borrowing my tack will receive strict instructions to leave the cleaning to me!

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