I'm guessing our collective legs are being pulled. Yet again? Just a feeling but ... the post speaks for itself.
Neetsfoot oil on saddles/tack? Baseball gloves and such I c an see. But, anything other than "saddle soap" on tack I don't understand. I don't want the skirts and straps soft and supple. There's a reason "saddle leather" is thick, form holding stiff and ... thick.
The United States cavalry specified pure neatsfoot oil to the day they quit issuing leather saddles and leather tack. But the first gallon I bought at a horse sale was an impure blend of mineral oil and neatsfoot. My second was the good stuff.
The one and only trouble with pure neatsfoot oil is that it darkens leather. But a good saddle is like a good pipe, in that a hundred years use makes it better.
An old saddle with countless coats of neatsfoot glows like a copper penny in the sun. Tack will eventually need replaced, and every piece of a saddle except the wooden tree might need a repair or replacements, but an Missouri Amish bench made saddle is forever, or until some old outlaw horse flips over a d breaks the tree. The only leather used that I see the Amish saddle makers use is Hermann Oak.
www.springfieldleather.com
However, any brand of saddle soap, either spray or balm, or any other concoction sold as a modern neatsfoot oil substitute will work, and needs less work to apply, and won’t darken leather. It just never is going to make a saddle look a little better than the last time you oiled it up.
London best guns only use linseed oil finishes. I’ve tried everything under the sun to find something better than linseed oil for giving off a high end glow to walnut. I always go back to linseed oil. It’s magical stuff. It never quite dries, and can be polished to a high shine with a wool sock or taken to a matte finish using rottenstone.
I use extra virgin olive oil to polish pipes because unlike when I use carnauba wax or bee’s wax, it makes them glow like my gunstocks or leather boots.
But it will darken a pipe. This late 1940’s 7 point Three Star medium lovat was unsmoked and new in the box about 15 years ago when I opened it and put it in service. It was the natural color of briar and unstained then and it’s beautiful today. But eventually it will get as bronze as an old saddle if I keep using olive oil and a wool sock to polish it.
