Restoring an old harness, Step 2

For the past 2 weeks, I've been slowly working on the leather pieces of the harnesses.  It's a little daunting to see all the leather and know that I need to scrub all of it.  Since I broke the harness completely down, I decided to just work a few pieces at a time.  So here's how I'm going it:

First, I put a dirty piece of the harness in my work area.  Looking at the picture you can see how I'm doing this.  I have a towel laid down.  Before I begin working the leather, I take a wire brush, and brush all the hardware.  I have a wire wheel on the drill that works very well for this.  There are some spots that just need a hand wire brush though.  Once the hardware is shiny, I lay the leather down, and get ready for scrubbing.

I'm using saddle soap and a plastic bristle brush to scrub the leather.  You can see in the picture the pink block of saddle soap, and the red handled brush (3 pack of brushes for a few bucks from Tractor Supply).  First I scrub the saddle soap block, then I dip the tips of the brush in water, then I scrub the leather.  This works pretty good.  I get a good lather.  I have found that it's kind of hard to see how clean it's getting because of the lather, but if I really question it, I have a sponge that I can just use to wipe the suds away.

After srubbing all the leather, I use the sponge/scrubber to go over the leather a final time.  This removes all excess saddle soap.  Then the leather gets laid out to dry.

The parts in the picture to the left have all been scrubbed and are clean.  What you see there are all the hame straps, lazy straps, and crupper billets.  I also have the cruppers done, and the actual lazy strap tug loops.  The leather is in great shape, and it's much nicer now to touch it.  There are some straps that are still a tad sticky/gummy, but they are much better than they were.

I was going to apply a thin layer of neetsfoot oil to the leather once it was dry, but I'm second guessing that now.  The leather seems to be pretty oily already, so I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to add more oil to it.  I may just bypass that step and down the road apply more if needed.

I've also got the Hames almost done.  They are painted black now, and the leather strap loops have been scrubbed.  They look pretty good.

I have some Brasso that I am going to apply to all brass parts (both the hame balls, and the buckles and hardware for the rest of the harness).  I'm hoping that a layer of protection on the brass, will help it to keep from getting that green crud building up on it from the horse sweat.

Tonight I took the speiders and back saddles and scrubbed the hardware on those.  I still need to do the leather, but all the rings and hardware is clean.  I also took apart the breast straps tonight.  That was rough.  The bolts holding the hardware together was completely rusted, and I had to drill one of the bolts to get it out.  The center snaps are completely pored and rusty, so I may just buy some new ones.  I also need to buy some new snaps that snap onto the lower hame rings.  Seeing how rusted and bad these were, really drove home the fact for me that if you have a harness, occasionally take the bolts out and put them back in.  Do what you can to keep those things from seizing up!

Things are getting closer.  Can't wait till I have enough of the leather done to start assembling it again.  It's going to look really good!