Restoring an old harness, Step 1

2 months ago, a friend offered me a set of leather team harnesses.  They were complete, and the leather is very pliable, but very dirty.  This set was used for her team, and they upgraded to bio harnesses, leaving these old dirty leather ones to sit.  A deal was made, and the harnesses arrived at my place.

I wish I had a before picture of the harnesses, but I don't have one.  The leather is very soft and pliable.  There are no stress cracks, and the only problem with the harness is that it is very dirty.  The brass buckles have a lot of green build up, and the leather itself will get your hands quite dirty from handling it.  Now that I have Pam and Rachel working okay, I need to get this team harness up and functional.  I decided that I am going to clean it very thoroughly by taking it completely apart, cleaning the hardware, and cleaning the leather.

Today I broke the harnesses down.  I unhooked all the harness pieces that were hooked with conways, and I unhooked the tugs from the hames.  So now everything is separate.

 This is the spieders and backsaddles broken down.

 This is the cruppers, belly bands, holdback straps, Brichons, and tug holders.

 These are the tugs, and the bridles are in the back.

THE HAMES:  I unhooked everything possible from the hames.  I even took a drill bit, and drilled out the rivets that were holding pieces of leather that were between the tugs and the horse's shoulder.  After that I took a wire brush to all of the loose paint.  I also wire brushed around each part that sticks out from the hame.  I wanted to remove all debris, so that I can repaint them.  I am going to tape all the rings and brass balls, and apply a fresh coat of black rustoleum paint.  I'm still torn between flat black, or shiny black.  Since this is going to be a set of work harnesses, and not fancy parade harnesses, I may just go with flat.

The hames are in really good shape.  They didn't take too much to get ready.





 

TUG HARDWARE:  The hardware that held the tugs to the hames is really rusted.  They used to be painted, but a lot of use has worn them a bit.  I decided that I was going to wire brush each part, including the spacers and bolts.  The picture to the right is half-way through that process.  The parts on the left are done, the parts on the right are not done.  Of the parts not done, the top one shows the side that was on the outside, and the bottom shows the side that was right against the leather.  The top one is not black, it is rusted.  The picture isn't very clear.

After I finished up with those parts, I decided to keep going and wire brushed all the conways and the snaps that were on the hold back straps.  It was really nice to get all these pieces done.

And ... the results for the night.  Most the hardware has been brushed and is shiny.  The picture below shows it.  (I should note that the yellow hue in the pictures is from my energy efficient work lights.  They sure don't help with pictures.)

 As I get ready to work the leather, I have a lot of questions and need to research this more.  It seems everyone has their own idea for the best way to clean up leather.  I feel like I should wash each piece with soapy water to clean it, but I know that will make the leather dry out when the wet leather dries.  I have a bar of saddle soap, and wanted to use that, but it seems to me that the leather is way to dirty to just do that.  The only think that I think I'm sure of is that I'll be using neetsfoot oil after it is all clean.  If anyone has any tips on this, please let me know.  I'm not much of a leather pro, and I'd hate for my ignorance to do something detrimental to these harnesses.