Saddle Care - Cleaning and Oiling Leather

[Music] good afternoon duane here at dry creek wrangler school um i want to make a video today about taking care of your leather gear i've had a number of requests about that so we want to cover that today now i've spent many many days the last several days doing a lot of riding a lot of hard riding uh i have to go do a little ride tomorrow gather some strays and push them up over and then i've got a few days off until it's time to push cattle in the next pasture won't be riding much so i'm going to take care of my leather gear while i have the chance and so i want to talk to you about that now and see if i can help you a little bit with it um when i talk about leather gear taking care of leather gear i take care of everything now that's my saddle it's my saddlebag it's my breast collar uh it's my head stall it's my reins it's my shafts it's my boots everything that's leather needs to be taken care of if it's going to last so we need to we need to go back and understand a couple things leather as you know is the hide or the skin off of a cow um the kind of leather we're talking about now they you know there's horse hide and there's pigskin and but it's what we're dealing with is the skin off of a cow now the thing about a skin off of a cow is it is a natural product you have skin and skin off of a cow is a natural product when it's on the cow it has its natural oils and and moisturizers and and stuff but when they when you skin the cow out and you take the hive it starts drying out now they'll take that hide and it'll go through a process a tanning process uh so that it doesn't rot and the process will um add oils and things to it but over time the leather will start drying out and it needs to be taken care of so um there's two stages of taking care of leather there's two sides number one is cleaning it um leather needs to be cleaned uh on a regular basis when it gets dirty if if you take a carpet okay like a shag carpet or even a berber carpet all right and you don't vacuum that carpet it gets those little sand and and dirt uh and things down in that carpet and what those little particles do it's like sandpaper it'll start cutting on on the carpet fibers over time and it wears out a lot faster and you get bare spots well leather is fibrous and when it's not cleaned two things happen number one dirt or mud if you ride through mud and you get mud on your saddle um or dirt it will draw moisture out of the leather over time but the other thing is is is it starts wearing on those fibers of the leather and so you want to clean your saddle um on a regular basis we'll talk about that and then you want to replenish the oils now the oils will if your saddle gets really wet if you ride in the rain it gets really wet then as the water evaporates it will draw oils out of the leather but and on everything and your leather will start getting dry it'll start getting stiff and it'll start cracking over time if you don't replenish the oils you replenish the oils in your own skin if your skin gets dry you'll use chapstick on your lips you'll use hand lotion on your hands there's no difference if you wash your hands if you have a job where you have to wash your hands eight ten twelve times a day what happens to your hands they dry out and you've gotta use lotion to to replenish that oil so your skin will get supple again and it won't crack and same thing same thing okay so uh so first thing you do is gonna clean the saddle now um so to clean my saddle first take everything off that needs to come off i took my slicker off already i took my lariat off and uh took my uh i've got my um breast collar on here we're gonna take it off okay you'll you'll do your breast collar but you'll do it separate and uh so you get stuff off now my saddle bags i'm gonna leave on because i've got them permanently attached to my saddle um my rig my head stall rig i'm going to take off now i'm not going to clean the saddle here on the video that would be a long tedious video it wouldn't be very fun so we're just going to talk about it and then when the video is done i will uh i'll go ahead and clean my saddle uh so now if your saddle just needs a basic upkeep maintenance there's a couple different ways to do it now i want to stop here and say that this video just like all my other videos i'm not an authority i'm not an authority on anything okay i've just learned some things over the years and i have found what works for me and if you don't know where to start my hope is i can find you provide you a good solid starting place but always learn always research always study always learn and grow and if you find something better that works for you better on then by all means do it okay so i want to make sure that's understood now for basic maintenance and cleaning of the saddle there's a couple different products that's been out for years now this is uh feebings glycerin saddle soap it comes in in a bar and it's been around for years and it works you take a wet a damp rag or a damp sponge and you rub the top of the bar and get that on the rag and then you rub it on the saddle and then you buff it off and and if it's what you have it has it has worked for years i don't use it the reason i don't use it is because um it takes a lot more elbow grease it takes more time and if you're not careful if you've got a saddle like this one that's got stamping uh this this saddle's basket stamp got quite a bit of basket stamping on it if you don't do a lot of work and a lot of buffing that soap will get down in that stamping and you'll wind up with a soft toothbrush trying to get all the white stuff off your saddle okay so what i use and there's different brands um this is farnam's and it's a spray-on it's it's glycerin it's base product is the same as that bar so but it's a liquid and you literally just spray it on and have a rag ready and wipe it off and it brings the dirt and stuff off with you and then it kind of puts a little bit of polish on it uh if your saddle if you pull a saddle out of a barn where it's been for 20 years um or you've gone through a really really nasty ride for a few days in your saddles just filthy you can take a bucket of warm water with some mild soap in it and come out here especially on a warm day like today the heat opens up the pores of the saddle and i've come out here and take a water hose with a sprayer on it and spray the worst of the mud and gunk off then take a sponge with wet soapy water and wash and clean the saddle off two things make sure that you get the soap off really really good if you do that and then secondly make sure you let the leather dry good before before you go to oil it now when you go to oil when you go to clean clean everything okay uh and a basic maintenance like i'm going to do today i'm going to clean my saddle i'm going to come in up under here i'm going to clean my my um fenders i'll come up here and i'll clean my drop plate rigging i'll go up in there and clean my skirt and uh and i'll clean it thoroughly i'll clean my saddle bags i'll clean my breast collar and i'll take the time to get up underneath everything and clean it um now i'll say here the one thing on your saddle the one leather piece on your saddle that i i don't recommend that you oil you keep it clean but don't oil it is your latigo if you use a leather latigo a latigo has a different leather treating process it goes through and it's impregnated with oils and waxes and things and if you oil it two things that happen if you get this oily uh it'll build a residue on it and it'll get sticky and it'll make it harder for you to tighten your cinch and the other thing is it'll stretch that latigo leather you start using a lot of oil on it it'll just keep stretching and you'll never be able to get your saddle tight so you want to keep it clean you want to clean the oil and dirt off of it but you don't want to oil it okay so anyhow you want to clean your saddle uh and you want to clean it thoroughly and you want to clean your head stall it really aggravates me when i put a head stall on my horse and i use eight foot long heavy leather split reins and my reins are all crusted and and dried and and they got stuff on them and and so just just clean it clean your saddle bags keep your boots clean keep your shafts clean keep everything clean just clean it find you a saddle soap that works for you uh fiebings same brand that use this bar they make this spray-on glycerin cytosol so if it's glycerin um and uh but a caution here if you find a spray product if you find a product that has lac in the name now they may spell it lac or laq if it says lac put it back because it's got lacquer in it and what that's what they use that for is to put it on a saddle and then the lacquer creates a artificial shine but it'll also crack and it's not good for leather so you want to keep your leather clean and that's the most important thing you can do for leather and then after you clean it i'm not going to say automatically after you clean it oil it after you clean it inspect it and determine whether it needs oil now why do i say that it's bad on leather to not be oiled enough but it's just as bad to oil it too much okay you don't want to oil it too much now i am a little bit more um i clean along and keep my saddles more than actually most people that i've seen it ridden with i think i do it if anything if i air i err on the side of too much okay so i'm going to clean this saddle but this the leather is in really good shape it's nice and supple okay it's good heavy leather but it's nice and supple it's nice and soft and because i've already oiled it quite a bit and if you give the leather to the point that it's well oiled then you don't have to oil it all the time okay so we're going to clean it and then we're going to oil it couple of points about if if you're going to oil your leather now the product that is most well known and most well used is neat's foot okay now this jug you buy this jug at your i don't know what you have in your area but if you've got a tractor supply or a big r or something like that you can find it but it says pure neatsfoot oil now that's important there's another product that has the same name neatsfoot but it says neatsfoot compound and you don't want that okay needs foot compound is what it says it's a compound it might have neats foot oil in it but it also has petroleum products and stuff in it which are which are cheaper it's cheaper to buy but it doesn't in my experience it doesn't do the leather as well and it tends to eat the threads the stitching and stuff on your leather work it's just not as good a product so needs foot oil to leather to oil it uh another product that i use quite a bit these days like on my saddle it doesn't really need oil but sometimes when it's been through quite a bit and it's just a little bit um there's a product out there called skidmore's leather cream and it's an all-natural product um and it's got a lot of like beeswax and stuff in it um i was trying to see if i if they had uh a good listing of what all's in it but they don't but i've had really good luck with that i use that on when i need a touch up just need to soften the leather a little bit um i'll use that so when so you can spray the leather wipe it off i do everything i do my heads now if you've got like your head stall and your reins what i'll do is i'll take my rag and i'll fold it over good and i'll hang my headstall up i'll hang it if i need to hang it on the horn so i'm out in front so i can kind of stretch it out and do what i need to do and i'll spray this spray on a rag i'll just spray it on a rag and then i'll take it wrap it around my reins and just pull it all the way down my reins so i'm not out there trying to spray my reins and getting it all over spraying everything and i in everything i've got right now has been well oiled in advance so i'm not going to oil it today and and that's the important point that i want to make sure that you understand uh you oil as needed but you'll now if you've bought a saddle and it's super dry yeah i mean the leather is really stiff it's really dry it has obviously hasn't been oiled in years uh how's the best way to go about oiling um i'll tell you how i do it now you do whatever but i if i get a saddle like that i'll take a day like today that's really sunny and really warm and i'll i'll bring my saddle out and i'll put it in the sun and then i'll take this nice foot oil and i'll pour it in an empty coffee can or a butter dish or whatever and then i'll take a small paint brush and i'll make sure the oil is warm because remember it's porous okay and so the pores open up in the heat and if the if the oil is kind of warm it helps i'll come out here and i'll take a paintbrush and i'll oil it all over with a paint brush now you say how do you know when you've had enough oil when it stops soaking it in that's when i stop if i if i i'll usually what happens is you'll brush it and it'll it'll just suck it right in and and in two minutes it's dry we'll just do it again it sucks it in it's just dry we'll just do it again and then when you get to the point where you brush it and it kind of sets on the surface for a little bit take a rag and wipe that excess off and then let it go and then you can always oil it more later as time goes but that's how i do it my shamps um i've got a i don't have them out here i use uh a good pair of shotgun shops they were heavily oiled with each foot and then i used the skidmores on it the skidmarks actually helps it does help shed water doesn't they don't claim it to make anything waterproof but it does water will run off longer better on it so a lot of times when my when my leather is soft when it's oiled to the point it's healthy and soft um then sometimes i'll treat it with this and put it on rub it on directions or on there and then that also helps with with the rain and with the water to run off so listen good gear is expensive all right good gear is expensive and so it pays to take the time and take care of it take the time and take care of it so i'm gonna clean my saddle and i'm gonna have it ready and then when i go back out i'll uh it'll be good to go uh something else to clean to keep clean on on your saddle that has nothing to do with leather work is keep your cinch clean uh you'll soar your horse faster than anything if it gets dirt sweat hair from the horse and everything gets crested on the cinch where it comes up underneath you'll soar your horse so make sure your cinch is clean clean it and and just take care of your gear and hopefully it'll last you a lot of years and i ain't knowing that but you want to take pride okay you want to take pride in your gear you want to take pride in your horse you want to brush your horse you want to calm your horse's mane you want to have his hooves in good shape uh you want your gear in good shape why because you just want to have some dignity and some self-respect and have some pride so i'm going to clean my saddle and clean you'll clean all your billets okay your billets are the part that your back cinch hooks on and my back's inches down there i'll clean my back cinch uh you want to keep it clean because it goes against the horse as well clean your saddle pad make sure your saddle pad is clean people will look at their saddle pad and they say well there's no dirt there's no mud no but if you start riding in the spring uh you're going to get some of the hair when the horse is shedding a little bit and that hair will roll up into little clumps uh if nothing else take a curry and dig that out of there pine needles will get up under if you're riding through heavy timber keep the pine needles out keep the balled up hair out um just uh just sweat and matting and stuff keep keep your pad clean take care of your stuff take care of your horse and then uh so i'm gonna clean it i'm gonna change my stirrups today um i love my monel stirrups i mean i love them they're very comfortable and they work very well but the one on the other side is they don't work so well uh busting through really heavy timber because that the brass on the other side on the other syrup is is getting kind of mangled up where it's been hitting trees uh taking off after calves through heavy timber so you get some jagged edges and and you don't know what that's going to hit you know your horse you whatever so i'm going to take it off and put another pair of stirrups on and just take care of my gear and get it ready for tomorrow so i hope this helps you a little bit if you've got any questions feel free to ask um if you like it hit like and if you haven't subscribed if you go ahead and subscribe for me that hit that bell so that it'll let you know if we do any more content and keep studying just keep studying keep learning keep growing uh you never know enough to stop learning okay you're never old enough to stop learning and anybody you learn from they're not an authority they don't know everything there is to know all right so get what you can do the best you can and keep growing all right and then stay safe and be logical be reasonable and have fun and we'll catch you next time

Channel: Dry Creek Wrangler School

Views: 17,504

Rating: 4.9918032 out of 5

Keywords: leather care, cleaning saddles, cleaning leather, oiling saddle, oiling leather, saddle soap.

Id: fqpQhK3INrw

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021