I have a New Cavalry bridle that is – no joke – like 25+ years old. Dang, these things last. It’s going strong except for one thing. No matter how much I clean/oil it, the leather is starting to dry out quickly (after a ride or two, it’s back to being dried out). Is this a sign it’s finished? Are there any products that might bring it back?
We have good luck for most leather that is getting dry with a liberal application or three of Lexol.
Try it first in a little spot, some odd tanning processes at times react with odd colors, but most fade quickly.
If applying too much at once, leather may get so soft is noodley until it dries a bit.
You could try lard. It brought several dried bridles back into usefulness for my lesson stable.
WARNING: Avoid getting the lard on rubber, avoid getting the lard on metal buckles, and make very, very sure that you immediately put the ends of the straps through the keepers.
I find that with the lard I do not need to soap or condition anywhere near to what I used to do in a vain attempt to get pliable leather.
It works great on the old type grain saddle and bridle leather, but the calf leather does not seem to absorb it.
You mean, like, Crisco??
Not Crisco.
I read an out of print book about riders’ contact with the tack, by a saddler, and he recommended using ONLY animal fats on leather, and as little water as possible. I had been despairing about my saddles, I was going through a rough physical patch with a head on collision with a drunk driver and my case of MS finally manifesting itself in a way that I could not ignore.
My Crosby saddle was dry (PDN Wide Front, English grain leather). I larded it because what did I have to lose, my poor saddle was so dried out! First application, I worked the lard in with my fingers, twice on the flesh side and once on the top side, let the saddle sit a day or two, re-larded it, let it sit a week, re-larded it again and I started using my saddle again for riding. My Stubben Siegfried was also dry, the lard only worked on the seat, flaps and billet straps, but those got much more supple than before.
Nowadays when my riding teacher finds an old piece of leather tack that had been in a corner for years she just hands it over to me to lard it up. Dried up leather becomes usable again, though it rarely responds, to the larding as well as leather that had previously been taken care of and conditioned before being lost in the corner of the tack room.
I use the regular lard that is sold in grocery stores.
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I was told by a saddler to brush on olive oil, but do not use olive oil on the girth straps, use leather conditioner for that.
Brush on the olive oil and let it soak in in the hot sun.
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Love their leatherwork!! I still bridles have from the 1980s. Agree no animal fat.German “leather balsam” is good. It has beeswax in. it and is soft and fragrant. Years ago I used Crisco warmed up plus there’s old reliable Lexol and olive oil.
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An old trick a MSF told me to break in stiff or neglected leather was to saturate it in bacon grease, and hang in the sun or a sunlit window for a few days. Wipe down and put on the horse.
I wouldn’t use it on a $900 bridle, but I sure have used it on the cheap stuff like Suffolk and Wellfleet and gotten really nice results. There is a local consignment store I go to and every now and then I find old pieces of tack that were at one point too nice to throw away but now are so stiff they’re unusable - they get the bacon treatment and bounce right back.
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My absolute favorite leather conditioner is some that I made myself following this recipe:
The recipe is 50% beef tallow, 25% lard (aka bacon grease), and 25% beeswax. It doesn’t smell bacon-y at all. Super easy to make, the hardest part was finding the ingredients. Finding lard and beeswax was easy enough but I had a hard time finding tallow that wasn’t ~artisanal~ and a dollar an ounce. I got my tallow and lard from this Etsy shop.
I bet it would help your bridle significantly, and if not, you can use it to break in your new bridle. Good luck! I love old strap goods.
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When I read about putting the fat back into the leather I started looking for tallow.
I finally found a source, called them up, and the guy told me that if I wanted a whole barrel of it (45 gallons?) they could help me but not with lower amounts.
That is why I ended up using lard, I could find it locally (grocery store) in smaller amounts (pounds, not gallons) and it worked fine to bring dried out tack back to “life”. That is why all the dried up tack my riding teacher finds that was discarded in a corner ends up with me working on it for hours to get it usable again and moderately comfortable for the horse to wear.
Several years ago I went to get a lesson at the riding school I had been a residential student at decades ago. The lady running it asked me if I had any ideas about bringing back several old dried up saddles they had found in the corner of the hay loft. I told her about the lard, warned her it would be messy, but that it would work well.
My next lesson a year later she told me that they had been successful bringing these old dried out saddles back to being useful with the lard. She told me it was super messy but it did save those saddles and she gave me a free lesson for telling her about the lard.
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I had a bunch of 40 year old strap goods. All crispy warped bits and pieces. I tossed them into a tub of mineral oil because what did I have to lose? I forgot about them for 6 months. Then I took them out wiped them off and reassembled a totally functional old school flat double bridle, which has resisted getting moldy. I’ve also soaked old gear in neats foot oil but had it then produce a bloom of solid oil in storage, like dried butter.
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That’s what I ran into! It was either a ridiculous amount (though I don’t think anything as large as 45 gallons!) or a small container at the grocery store for $$$. The etsy shop I linked to above has nice tallow in 1lb increments.
Most saddlers/leather workers will not recommend any kind of oil (mineral, neatsfoot, olive, etc) as it stretches and weakens the leather on a cellular level. It certainly won’t hurt if the leather is at the point where it’s about to be thrown away, but that wouldn’t be my first choice for a situation where the bridle is just drying out faster than it used to. FWIW, I rescued a bunch of old strap goods from the dumpster a few months back. I don’t think they were 40 years old, but they were old and hadn’t been taken care of. A thorough wash with Dr. Bonner’s liquid soap and a coat of my homemade conditioner made them good as new.
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Museum restoration technique is to generously apply Ko-Cho-Line to clean, dry leather. Seal in plastic bag overnight.
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I have several New Cav and Edgewood bridles that are that age. I do take very good care of them, and my conditioning routine is a combination of oil and fat, applied over a clean, wiped-with-damp-cloth bridle. For fat I like the Effax, but I find oils easier to use, and so that’s my normal go-to. I like straight neatsfoot oil and Lexol conditioner.
Sometimes bridles don’t accept conditioner because the pores are clogged from goopy products building up over time. In those cases, I’ll strip the leather with a 1:3 mix of ammonia
and water. This will severely dry out the leather, but also strips off the buildup, so subsequent oiling is more effective.
