What Exactly Is Saddle Leather?

[valentin]

Hello guys,

along with my other activities, I got to trasnalte a catalogue about leather products.

Yet, I'm finding it hard to translate the part about saddle leather. I am not sure what type of leather exactly this is, i.e. how is it different from the rest (aniline, semi-aniline, pigmented, nabuck).

It says waxed leather, but I would love to know more about it - how is it being manufactured, what are its charachteristics (does it have one consistent color, or it has the natural one of the animal or maybe something else?)

I searched on Google, but found it hard to understand. I mean, I think there are waxes / oil used in its production (I guessed the leather is either soaked or there is wax as a top layer).
Is it painted? When not, how is it different from vintage leather?

Valentin

[THein]

Ok, I'll bite.

Saddle leather... The usage of the term must be qualified

What little I know about english saddles, they're not made totally from the same leather that western ( meaning north american cowboy ) saddles are. I bought my wife an english saddle years ago. From what I could tell, it was made from a combination of chrome tanned and veg tan leather. The latter being used ( as I believe ) in the stirrup leathers,,,at least, been awhile.

Western saddles are usually made from ( depending on the maker and locale ) almost entirely of veg tan leather.

All that aside, retailers and catalogue writers take a lot of liberty with their descriptions of things. Adding an adjective here and there can enhance sales!! I don't believe that there is actually on type of leather you can call "saddle leather".

Anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

I like this definition of veg tan leather here:

http://www.lederhaus.de/wissen/lederkunde.php?l=eveg-gerb

All the best, and Merry Christmas to all,

Terry

Edited December 3, 2015 by THein

[Art]

Don't believe anything a leather salesman tells you. With experience, there are those who will earn your trust. If your B.S. meter goes off, trust it. With Vegetable Tanned Leather, I really only trust the tannery, and then only Wickett & Craig, Hermann Oak, J&FJ Baker, and J Rendenbach. If you can get your hands on the leather, buy what looks good to you, in other words, trust your hands. Now that only covers less than 10% of the tanned leather produced. Chrome tanned and retanned is the other 95+%. Unless you buy in container loads, you almost never buy from factories as most chrome comes in the blue, and wet blue condition, this means just tanned, nothing else. Some factories also finish the leather, some other sellers and resellers buy the wet blue and refinish it themselves. There are other resellers that stock only finished product, which is what "we" are going to get. There is a mighty lot of superbly finished leather available, and there is a lot that wasn't worth all that trouble.

To answer your question, you have to call the tanner and trust that he is not blowing smoke up your skirt. Saddle leather can be literally anything, but I would hope that it is leather. We often hear of saddle skirting, and we pretty much know what that is. But some of saddle work requires wet leather and I would think you would not want a lot of wax in something you have to get wet pretty much all the way through. I don't do a lot of that and we have folks on here that do and might answer that for you.

Art