Since I spent many an hour with the black harness soap, (and the resultant fingernails :uhoh:) back when I was a groom/ballast, I know that driving enthusiasts are expert at this, and thought I might get a better answer here!
What is your favorite blacking…
Looking to actually use on a saddle, but requirements are the same–doesn’t bleed and doesn’t kill the leather completely…
Shoe polish. The old fashioned sort in a tin that you rub in then buff up.
Shoe polish doesn’t rub off?
nope-- think miltary they use it all the time
proper shoe polish if worked in and done properly stays in and doesnt come off
god i know because the amount of times when young i had to clean my shoes and my dad wasnt satisfied till they shone and were smart old fasioned and today i still do all my shoes the same way but also my tack
My show harness was a bit gray, so I used the tin of Kiwi black shoe polish. Blacked it right up, and nope, it didn’t rub off.
A friend of mine recommended melting vaseline and black shoe polish, mixing them together, letting it harden, and coating the harness when storing it for the winter. Sounds horribly messy but I’m considering trying it, since my harness is fairly old. She said it keeps the leather from drying out and the polish will obviously keep it black.
I use Fiebings Harness Blacking, to make the leather black again. Not sure it would not bleed if used on a saddle. Try a ride with some old breeches before you wear the good breeches!
I only black the outside of leather harness, never the insides. Have had bleed off on light color horses, even the dark bays, when sweating up a new harness for a little time.
Sounds awful, but I usually wash new harness with Lexol Leather Cleaner (orange bottle) let it air dry, then condition it, before putting new, black harness on any of our horses. Obviously my harness is a lesser quality than what Thomas would be getting, and my costs are lower than his as well. You have trade-offs with that kind of purchasing.
Sorry, I do not have the time or ambition to hand shoe polish all our leather harness to a mirror finish. There is NO OTHER hired help at this place! Leather is well conditioned, FEELS nice and soft, supple to use, has the harness blacking finish instead. For Presentation, for Pleasure or CDE, Standing or On-The-Move, my method works pretty well. Have always gotten nice scores from the inspectors or Judges.
I have not used the black saddle soap, though David Freedman swears by it in his harness talks. I am not a fan of saddle soap, do not like how it works and feels, attracts dirt. EXTREMELY time consuming to use, clean off, get out of the stitching and crevices. Does not allow blacking to work well. Saddle Soap is not really a soap product at all, but made to add fat to newly made leather coming out of the tanning tubs. Readded the fat to tanned leather allowing flexability again to the hides. The soap name is a trick one, not the truth. Lots of folks love the product, but I do not use it.
I also never use any kind of Neatsfoot Oil or Compounds. The idea of putting that nasty feeling stuff on my harness makes my skin crawl. Leather feels so bad after. Dipping harness in Neatsfoot oil is popular with Draft folks, but actually very hard on the leather itself. Kills the skin cells by making them over-expand with moisture. I never recommend Neatsfoot for ANY leather uses, though again an old method of caring for harness. There just is no comparing nicely conditioned leather to Neatsfooted stuff, when you run your hands over it. Conditioned leather wins easily.
The invention of Lexol Conditioner was one of the hightlights of my horse show career, saving so much time, keeping my leather wonderfully flexible. I now use Harness Honey also, truly a very good conditioner, a step up from the Lexol, not needing several coatings. Does darken light or russet leather though, unlike the Lexol. Both make a pretty water resistant harness when freshly done, doesn’t need any “oiling” of the leather.
I may have a jaundiced viewpoint on harness because of our driving Four most of the time. So our QUANTITY of harness to prepare is large, for any dressy outing. A singles harness would be more easily prepared to show standards, just less of everything!
Someday I will measure how much strap goods we actually have in the Four’s harness, but for now, I REALLY DON’T want to know! I think of it as the cattle-herd-in-a-bag.
I have heard of a new method of boot polishing, using the tins with waxy black shoe polish. You polish the boots, then take the hair dryer or a heat gun, heat the newly polished boots and RUB the polish in. Keep rubbing the warm/hot polish onto the leather boots. Then let the boots and polish cool off, should be no residue because everything has gone into the leather itself. This is supposed to put a mirror finish on, with no rubbing off to leave black smears with sweat or on your saddle. I plan to give it a try on daughter’s boots, see how it works there before trying on any harness goods.
Thanks for all the excellent tips Goodhors… I’m about to make the plunge into black harness (was using russet) & will find these very useful! :yes:
[QUOTE=goodhors;4159478]
I only black the outside of leather harness, never the insides. [/QUOTE] Ditto
Have had bleed off on light color horses, even the dark bays, when sweating up a new harness for a little time.
I’ve never had that and I’ve quite a few light coloured horses: Pale gold and white. Or does that make me sound like a novice girl? Maybe I should say dun (USA buckskin) and grey :winkgrin:
Obviously my harness is a lesser quality than what Thomas would be getting, and my costs are lower than his as well. You have trade-offs with that kind of purchasing.
How do you know that? I’ve a heck of a lot of harness that’s cheap. VERY cheap.
Sorry, I do not have the time or ambition to hand shoe polish all our leather harness to a mirror finish. There is NO OTHER hired help at this place!
Me neither. I have staff but trust me, I don’t pay them to sit and polish leather harness to a mirror finish!
I’ve posted before about the myths of keeping leather harness in good working condition. All you do for day to day working use is wipe it down to remove all the sweat and crud and with a cloth that’s got hot soapy water on it. No different to plastic harness.
Dependent on how often it’s used (and some of mine is used several times a day) then every 3 months after it’s dried it’s wiped down with some oil to keep it soft. Every year (or so) dependent on how often it’s used but for stuff in very regular use, it’s soaked in oil.
I’ve got harness though that is show quality English Leather that I hardly ever use and it’s just done about once every 5 years!
Hardly an onerous burden!!!
It’s only when I’m doing something that requires the horses to be turned out looking impecible (so say film work or a show, clinic or wedding) that we turn to shoe polish and a soft brush or cloth to ensure it looks pristine. I’ve always found that if you ensure you wipe off sweat and crud reasonably regularly and your harness is decent quality and kept in a cool darkish place (not in full sunlight near a window) that it won’t really fade from black.
I am not a fan of saddle soap, do not like how it works and feels, attracts dirt. EXTREMELY time consuming to use, clean off, get out of the stitching and crevices. Does not allow blacking to work well. Saddle Soap is not really a soap product at all, but made to add fat to newly made leather coming out of the tanning tubs. Readded the fat to tanned leather allowing flexability again to the hides. The soap name is a trick one, not the truth. Lots of folks love the product, but I do not use it.
If you use just old fashioned saddle soap which is non-glycerine, you’ll find it much easier and not have that problem at all. AND… it’s cheaper 
However I just use dish washing liquid and hot water as routine and saddle soap only when it’s the major clean and make it impecible job.
I also never use any kind of Neatsfoot Oil or Compounds. The idea of putting that nasty feeling stuff on my harness makes my skin crawl. Leather feels so bad after.
Me too.
I do soak my harness in just cheap vegetable oil. I’ve had folks over the years try to tell me a right load of cods-wallop about how it can damage it but as this is the way my mother did the harness and it was ultimately passed on to me and I still have it and it’s perfectly good stuff - indeed the stuff I’ve inherited is some of my best - I work on the theory that if it’s damaging it it’s taken a bloody long time and isn’t going to bother me in my life time! I doubt it will trouble my daughters either!!
I may have a jaundiced viewpoint on harness because of our driving Four most of the time. So our QUANTITY of harness to prepare is large, for any dressy outing. A singles harness would be more easily prepared to show standards, just less of everything!
Me too. When you drive multiples you become somewhat “expert and opinionated” about cleaning all that ‘stuff’
Someday I will measure how much strap goods we actually have in the Four’s harness, but for now, I REALLY DON’T want to know! I think of it as the cattle-herd-in-a-bag.
To get a set of teams harness to pristine condition (not the daily routine wipe down) takes a long time. There’s really no way you can cut corners and over the years with a really good routine going I’ve got it down to 14 hours total. Very therapeutic though… or at least I find it so. Myself and one of the grooms sat outside on a lovely summer day and did a set between us in readiness for a prestigious society wedding I’ve got on 27th June.
I have heard of a new method of boot polishing, using the tins with waxy black shoe polish. You polish the boots, then take the hair dryer or a heat gun, heat the newly polished boots and RUB the polish in. Keep rubbing the warm/hot polish onto the leather boots. Then let the boots and polish cool off, should be no residue because everything has gone into the leather itself. This is supposed to put a mirror finish on, with no rubbing off to leave black smears with sweat or on your saddle. I plan to give it a try on daughter’s boots, see how it works there before trying on any harness goods.
that’s precisely what I do if I can’t sit outside on a lovely English summers day.
I don’t know if you guys wear wax jackets and riding coats over there? The likes of Barbour brand - if you’ve heard of that? But when I rewax those (every 5 years! whether it needs it or not 
) I do those with old fashioned wax that I stand in a bain marie of boiling water and pour on and use a hair dryer to just put the wax into the cloth. No need to wipe at all. EASY PEASY.
I have used black leather dye on a harness I have. The harness is a good quality CDE harness and mainly webbing but it’s got a lot of leather strap finishing on it. I’ve always thoroughly cleaned that by putting it through the washing machine! So it’s had some abuse !! And over time the black did start to fade (on the webbing and the leather!). It was to be relegated to exercise harness and I thought I’d give something a go. So I put a black fabric dye in the machine which worked brilliantly on the webbing but left the leather showing as having lost colour so I then just got a leather shoe dye and did it with that. Brilliant! Looked like new and I used it for competition for probably another 10 years!!!
I do think though that some folks obsess that doing things might do terrible damage to their tack, saddlery and harness and particularly because it’s expensive to buy. In truth though I’ve discovered over the years from practical experience of ‘abusing’ good quality stuff daily that so long as you wipe off the sweat (salt) and keep it supple and well oiled and don’t use sticky residue stuff on it that it will last out longer than my lifetime. That works for me.
Fieblings Harness BLacking
[QUOTE=goodhors;4159478]
I use Fiebings Harness Blacking, )
Hi! I have been looking for Fieblings Harness Blacking everywhere. Vendors can only offer me the Black Leather dye…Where are you buying yours from?
Thanks!
Loads of good ideas here!
I hope to finish the saddle tomorrow or Thursday.
In the US I’ve found a product that claims miracles. I am a sucker, so I ordered. I’ll let everyone know how it does.
It’s called “Doc Bailey’s Leather Black” and is for motorcycle gear. Now, I seriously cannot imagine a big biker dude with black jeans from his seat or (worse?) chaps… so I am going to try it.
Not heard of that and you’ll have to let us know what it is and how it works. But if it’s for motocycle gear I’m thinking that surely it’s going on to the outside of black leather wear NOT the inside. In any case I’m thinking a big biker dude wouldn’t give a flying fig if he got a bit of black on the backside of his pants.
You must know different sort of bikers to me though. The ones I know definitely wouldn’t be bothered about their clothing!
Biker gear
The comment about using motorcyclist’s gear is a wise one, as it’s usually more cost effective, unless one gets something brand named HD. I also like the motorcycle bags for spares kit, the wide variety of reflectors available, and the fingerless gloves are much better for hanging on to the back for a marathon. I have not yet purchased other things for carriage use, but plan to.
Regarding your harness issue, I would warn anyone against blackening the inside of a harness. I was aiding at a pleasure show that was nailed with a deluge of a rain. The poor palominos with harness black running from inside the collars cost the class.
On the other hand, leather is supposed to look like leather: the judge ought not to be able to pick teeth in the reflection. The synthetics have that plastic shine–and I love my synthetic–but it is obvious which is which always. I think it would be wisest to make sure it is really really clean, all the buckles crudless, etc. Also, I have routinely used a dab of cooking oil (canola or suspicious-don’t-know-if-the-heat-got-to-that olive oil ) on leather, which shines it true and also attracts dust magnetically.
The irony of every polishing is that as soon as the carriage rolls, the horse takes a step, there’s dirt. It just has to be their dirt ( shown grounds) not your old farm dirt;)
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