New vegetable-tanned and bridle leather straps on a workbench beside a cloth, brush and conditioner for conditioning a new leather strap.
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Conditioning a New Leather Strap

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

Most new straps get hurt by kindness, not neglect.

A new strap, cut from vegetable-tanned leather or English bridle, lands on the bench stiff, a little waxy and smelling like the tannery, and the first urge is to grab a bottle and feed it. Hold off for a minute. I make briefcases out of this leather, and the strap is the part that gets bent, pulled and sweated on hardest, so it’s also the part where a heavy hand shows first. What follows is the job in the order it happens: what to look at, what to put on, how much, which side, how to take it back off, and the place where every step goes wrong when someone means well and pours too much.

Video: Adding Oil To Natural Vegetable Tanned Leather, from Marcellino NY Briefcase Maker on YouTube.

The strap before anything touches it

Look first. The tannery may have done half the work already.

Hands brushing a thin coat of oil onto the flesh side of a new leather strap.

Turn the strap over in your hands before you open anything. New leather often arrives with a coat already on it. My care notes say UK English bridle comes with a light greasy top coat put on at the tannery, and that you start feeding the leather only once that coat has faded and dried. American bridle carries no such coat, so it will take conditioner sooner. Two straps that look alike on a shelf can need opposite things on day one.

The white film confuses people. On tack it shows up as a pale haze, and the groom who writes for Pro Equine Grooms, in a post on breaking in a new English saddle, calls that film tallow that protects the leather, something you can rub in with a soft dry cloth or simply leave. Laurie Chapman-Bosco’s tack care handout, posted by the Carolina region of the Pony Club, takes the other road and suggests washing the protective coating off new tack with castile soap and warm water.

The sources disagree, so here’s where I stand. A tannery’s own tallow is fine to leave on. It sits as a light haze and does its job, and I’d rather buff it into the grain with a dry cloth than scrub it off and then try to put back what I took.

Chapman-Bosco adds a rule from the tack shop that holds for any strap. Make sure it fits before you oil it, because most shops won’t take back tack that has been cleaned or oiled. Same with a strap you bought for a bag: punch the holes, set the buckle and try it on the hardware it will hang from. Oil first and find out it’s wrong, and you own it.

What goes wrong here: someone sees haze, assumes the strap is dry or dirty, and washes off the only finish the tannery gave it.

Choosing what goes on

Oil goes deep and darkens. Cream and balm sit closer to the top.

The product decides the color of your strap for good. Weaver Leather Supply’s guide to conditioners for different leathers splits them into creams, balms and oils, and warns that oils “may dramatically alter the appearance of vegetable-tanned leather goods.” It recommends lighter applications for veg-tan and says to test anything on a hidden spot first, since even products sold as non-darkening act differently from hide to hide.

The horse people say the same about neatsfoot. Horse Illustrated’s piece on breaking in a new saddle notes that neatsfoot oil may darken leather, and one rider in it prefers a leather cream because it darkens less and stays less sticky. Pro Equine Grooms lists neatsfoot alongside hydrophane as traditional oils that darken leather, and adds that they can stain clothing.

I reach for beef tallow and leather oil when a hide looks thirsty, and I’ve filmed myself adding oil to natural vegetable-tanned leather. I know what I’m signing up for. On undyed veg-tan, sun and oil both hurry the patina along, and that change only goes one way. If you want a pale natural strap to stay pale for a while, oil is the wrong bottle.

Test on the underside of the tail, or on an offcut from the same hide. Let it dry for a day before you judge. Wet leather lies about its color.

What goes wrong here: a natural tan strap gets a full coat of neatsfoot and comes up two shades darker than the bag it was cut to match.

The first coat, and how much

Thin, thinner than looks right, and then you wait.

Macro of an oil test patch darkening the underside of a natural vegetable-tanned leather strap.

Every source agrees on this one. That almost never happens. Weaver says less is better on full-grain leather. Thin even coats, then time to absorb before you decide whether it needs more. Chapman-Bosco’s handout wants oil in “thin layers with a paintbrush.” Never soak it, never leave it sitting in oil, or the leather turns greasy. She suggests rolling or bending the leather between coats so the oil spreads evenly, and the warmth of your hands helps it go in.

A brush makes sense on a strap. It puts down a film instead of a puddle, and it reaches the edges without loading up the cut fibers.

Too much does damage you can’t take back. Weaver warns that over-conditioning veg-tan can leave it overly soft so it loses its firmness, and says to condition by how the leather looks and feels rather than by the calendar. Chapman-Bosco is sharper about straps in particular. She says billets and stirrup leathers stretch more when they’re over-oiled, which is why she suggests going easy on them. A briefcase strap works the same way as a stirrup leather. It hangs weight from a buckle tongue through a punched hole, and an oil-soaked hole stretches into a slot.

My own care notes say to condition often in the beginning, while the dyes settle. Often isn’t the same as heavy. Several light passes over the first weeks beat one flood on the first night.

What goes wrong here: the strap drinks a whole coat, feels lovely and supple for a week, then the holes start to oval out under the buckle and the strap hangs longer than it was cut.

Which side takes the oil

The flesh side drinks. The grain side shows.

On a single-layer strap you get a choice. Chapman-Bosco says to oil the flesh side of very dry or new leather, since it is unsealed and takes oil better, and warns that heavy oiling on the grain side of saddle leather can stain a rider’s breeches. Robin Davidson of Miller’s Harness Company, quoted by Horse Illustrated, would have you treat both the hair and flesh sides, and adds the warning that sticks: “Over-oiling can also cause dyes to stain breeches.”

Swap breeches for a shirt collar and you have the strap problem exactly. My care notes warn that on new bridle, light color transfer may happen at first, before the dyes have had time to settle into the fibers. A strap riding across a white shirt is where you’ll find out.

Some straps have no flesh side to oil. I split strap leather down and stitch two thinned layers together so the strap has a good face on both sides, and some of my straps are double-lined in bridle. On those, both faces are grain, and the edges are sealed by burnishing or stitching. Oil goes on the faces lightly or not at all, and the flesh-side advice from the tack room doesn’t apply.

Edges deserve a word. A burnished edge has been rubbed tight on purpose. Soaking it in oil can soften what you worked to close, so keep the brush off the edge and let whatever creeps in from the face be enough.

What goes wrong here: grain-side oil and fresh dye together, a hot day, and a stripe of brown across the shoulder of a good shirt.

Rubbing it in and taking it back off

The buffing is half the job, and the half people skip.

Conditioned bridle leather strap with crisp buckle holes and a satin finish after buffing.

My method is the same for any conditioner. Put it on a clean cloth, not straight on the leather, rub it in briskly, let it sit, then buff the excess off with a second cloth that is clean and dry. The rubbing warms the surface and pushes the conditioner into the grain. The second cloth takes back whatever the leather couldn’t hold.

Skip that second cloth and the strap stays tacky. The National Park Service’s 1993 Conserve O Gram on leather dressing lists a sticky surface among the troubles dressings leave behind, along with stains and spews that rise to the surface. That note was written for museum objects, and a strap isn’t one. The grease on it still behaves the same on your bench as in their vault.

Chapman-Bosco puts the soap last, not first. Glycerine soap goes on after the oil, because it seals the pores, and oil put on over it leaves the leather duller and never reaches the fibers inside. She also says to clear the excess out of the holes and around the buckle, which is easy to forget and exactly where grime packs in first.

Then water. No conditioner is waterproof, and my care notes say so plainly. Wax-based ones will bead water off for a while, but water left sitting will get in and spot the leather, so wipe it off right away. On new bridle those spots usually fade as the dyes set and the patina comes up. The site’s Care & Cleaning section goes further into keeping leather from drying out.

What goes wrong here: oil left on overnight, soap over the top, and a strap that looks dull and feels greasy at the same time.

Where the conditioning stops helping

The museum people say most of this does nothing. They’re half right.

Here’s the case against my own advice. The Canadian Conservation Institute’s note on caring for vegetable-tanned leather says many of the oils in leather dressings lubricate in the short term and then oxidize with time, and that dressings can darken the surface. The 1993 Park Service note goes further. It says most studies found dressings had no preservative effect at all, and one found dressed chestnut-tanned leather broke down faster than leather left alone.

That’s a hard read for a man who keeps tallow on the shelf.

A strap isn’t a museum piece. It flexes every day, it gets sweated on, it rides in the rain. The conservators are protecting something nobody will pick up by the strap again, and their advice is written for that. Still, the honest thing to admit is this: almost everything that goes wrong on this page is too much, not too little. The darkened tail, the stretched holes, the dye on the collar, the tacky surface. All of it comes from feeding a strap that wasn’t hungry yet.

So the hardest step is putting the cloth down. A new strap with its tannery coat still on it may need nothing for weeks. Wear it. Watch the fold at the buckle and the face where it rubs. When the surface starts to look dry and pale there, it’s asking, and one thin pass will do more than a bottle would have done on the first night.

I build these to be carried for decades. The first oil on a new strap isn’t the one that decides that. The next few years of light, patient attention do, and the Getting Started pages are the place to begin learning what the leather looks like when it actually wants something.

Pure Neatsfoot Oil, 8 oz: An 8 oz bottle of pure neatsfoot oil for leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Skidmore’s Leather Cream: A leather conditioner cream, one option for the conditioner step. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Leather Conditioner with Grass-Fed Beef Tallow and Lanolin: A leather conditioner made with grass-fed beef tallow and lanolin. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Fiebing's Glycerine Saddle Soap Bar, 7 oz: A glycerine saddle soap bar for cleaning leather before it is conditioned. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

Sources

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