Can u restore the colour of a faded wow saddle?

Not to be advised. A master saddler could possibly have a go for you but you need to strip the leather of all its condition to get dyes to take, and they're not that reliable in how well they take after initial tanning and dyeing.

This is why I love top quality brown leather saddles, they fade inall the right ways :)
 
What colour should it be?
We sell Hydrophane Leather Darkening Oil at our shop, which could go towards restoring a brown colour, but as Sbloom says - can be an unpredictable process:(
 
a saddler once showed me some sort of a "magic" balm that restored black colour, she showed me it makes the leather black again but doesn't rub off on clothes! you might wanna take a look at a saddlery shop/ebay/etc for a magic colour restoring balm or something.
 
Personally I never recommend oil for leather, though it does darken it as you say. Oil gets between the fibres of the leather opening them up, stretching and weakening it which is what makes it feel "supple".
 
I fit saddles so my thoughts are mainly about saddles :) - I really dont' recommend oil. A good conditioner used sparingly when needed does a much better job. I have learned the science of leather treatments (many of which are wrongly based on tanning, and which wonderful old leather "survived" rather than thrived on) from a poster called c4 who long posted on Ultimate Dressage Tack Trunk forum but seems to have disappeared :(. His explanations made way mroe sense than anyone else's who simply tends to have anecdotal evidence of what worked. He is an engineer who has trained as a saddler.
 
Yes, advice from WOW is, warning it a bit radical,
Good quality natural oil and a hairdryer! Apply oil liberally and evenly and then heat with hair dryer!! It works ! And David advises this. It has to get quite hot. After it cools the oil goes back into the saddle and restores colour.
 
The hot oil treatment is pretty old style and not great for your tack - the very old saddles with super thick leather survived it, by and large, but they were industrial strength!

Even if that's not a concern, I can tell you the oil doesn't stay put. It well leech back out again, taking the dye with it, and straining light breeches.
 
Just repeating 'from the horses mouth' what David told me to do with mine.
I have done it and actually not had any of the above problems. Not something I'd do every week but on some of my older WOWs it works.
 
Oh, not disagreeing, I've heard other saddlers give the same advice. But, as I said, it used to be done a lot and my personal experience is the oil leeches back out. Just something for the OP to factor in. :)
 
Well finally found my second wow in the right panel so picked it up earlier, only has a slight bit of fading so just going to get a descent balm and look after it! I have heard the hairdryer thing before, but wasn't quite sure if I had dreamt it :-)

Now on the hunt for a 3 headplate and gp/jumping flaps- god does this ever end! :D
 
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