Restoring ancient leather

Pikachu

Pikachu

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At the weekend my dad gave me a "family heirloom" of a very large, very heavy old heavy horse bridle. The leather is really dry and my father admitted to putting Vaseline on it
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So....how can i get it clean and treated, what’s the best way and product. I currently have in the house, saddle soap, neatsfoot oil and some hide food. Will one of those do, or should i get something else? Also, what’s best for the brasses on it?

Last thing is it has a name plate on the noseband, but no date, so wanted to work out how old it was, tried googling the name but nothing came up so does anyone has any ideas/suggestions for tracing it?

Its W.Day & Son Saddlers, Kimbolton & Thrapston.

Thanks
Jeni
 
I was bought a HH bridle too and it was in a bad condition.

I would thoroughly clean with a warmd slightly damp cloth, let it dry, saddle soap, let it dry and use the hide food. Hamanol is really good, I would repeat this a couple of times and then use neatsfoot.

The leather is needing feeding as well as oiling.

To clean the metal parts, I would use duraglit. It comes in a tin and you can use as much or as little as you need.

Have you looked up Thrapston/Kimbolton? (I think there is a motor circuit there) I would look up the area rather than the makers to begin with.

Good luck
 
Thanks, will make a start on it tomorrow. I though a warm water wipe over would be best to try and clear any residue of the Vaseline off. I think my hide food is Gold Label, so not an expensive one but it worth a try till i can get to saddlery.

Never heard of duraglit, is it an equine or normal product? Only know of Braso for brass.

Kimbolton and Thrapston are quite local to me 30 - 40 mins away. What makes me curious is that they aren't next door villages so not sure why the names are together, they not even on the same road so to speak. Think Kimbolton is Cambridgeshire and Thrapston is Northamptonshire. But its close to where my dad's parents used to live, so makes sense it from that area if old as people didn't travel as much back then. I think it has to be at least 50 years old.
 
Duraglit is very similar to Brasso - both work well but make your fingers dirty.

You probably need to use a bit more than warm water to tackle the vaseline - saddle soap should do the trick. After all, you wouldn't use just water to clean a gready pan - some soap/detergent would be essential.

The leather is going to need loads of hide food and/or neatsfoot oil to soften it. It will absorb the feed better if the leaather is warm, which shouldn't be too difficult at this time of year.
 
I personally would use something along the lines of NAF Leather Cleanse or Effax LederCombi instead of the saddle soap (which is the work of the devil IMHO!) and then follow up with copious amounts of Effax leather balm.
 
to find out who the makers were contact the leather museum in Walsall. They have details of all the uk saddlers/past and present.
I would use ordinary soap and hot water to clean off the leather in the first place. Rinse it well and Let it dry completely - not in a warm place. Then apply saddle food - the gold label hide feed is great. Apply that twice a day for about a week. Leaving the bridle in a warm place while you do it. I personally am not keen n th ChoChoaLine as I find it sticky and thick and hard to remove to get back to the leather.
 
Thanks all for your suggestions.

Will try and see what i can do with the Gold Label stuff first and if that doesn't do the job, will search out this Ko-Cho-Line stuff.

Will also contact that museum and see what i can find out, i know i'll prob never find out without the date being on it, but anythings worth a try.
 
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