I recently purchased an older saddle that is very comfortable, but the leather is extremely slick! I have tried neatsfoot oil which helped a little bit, but did not make a huge difference overall. Can anyone suggest some products to help with a slippery saddle?
A seat cover that is either sheepskin, or something like this will help.
Breeches with full seat silicon grip.
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Lexol, applied liberally, worked for me.
Saddle is now 50+ years old, had hard use and is still in top shape.
Extremely slick sounds like the mad cow era when manufacturers started “painting” leather with colored acrylic and/ or sealing the surface with a clear acrylic that is indeed slick. Is the saddle black? Re-dyed black saddles almost always got sealed with Resolene or a similar thing to keep the black from rubbing right off. I’ve used Fiebings deglazer to strip that slick print off brown saddles, after which I has to redye them. I generally would use Stubben Hammenol or a beeswax type lederbalsm or if the leather is oil or color keeps trying to rub off Tandy Tan Kite which is water based , not slick if applied thinly, and easy to scrub off if you hate it. I re-dyed one black cutback saddle and just rubbed it down until no black came off, then worked lederbalsm it.
There’s also an adhesive Sitz spray or paste that is supposed to make the leather grippy or sticky. I have a used saddle that has something tacky on it, and I suspect that’s what the previous owner used.
