One of our most marketable and successful services that we have offered as a complete saddle shop, has always been saddle cleaning. We call this a Clean, Oil, and Polish… COP for short.
Most customers are very curious as to proper saddle cleaning and maintenance, but unfortunatly do little to keep their gear properly maintained. I have always tried to educate our customers to the importance of saddle cleaning and conditioning so that the repair costs in the future are lessened. Some take the advice, but many of us just simply don’t take the time to follow through.
We have always offered a COP as a service in our shop and the vast majority of our clientele would much rather pay us to do it for them rather than spend their weekend doing it themselves. I completely understand that and we are glad to help them with their gear.
But many times we would get a customer in the shop that would like to clean and condition their own saddle. This is also good and we would openly explain our entire process to them so that they could get the most benefit from their time.
I always wished that I had a video to give to them to show them my saddle cleaning process step by step. This would be very valuable for them and easier for me.
Well now we do!
Below are three videos that we created that show our entire process. From the breakdown of a saddle through reassembly, this resource will show you how we do a COP and explains the types of oil and conditioners that we use in the shop every day.
We also have a playlist on our YouTube channel with all three of these videos together so they are easy to find.
Whether you want to just clean your own saddle, or if you are a shop owner that wants to add a quality service to your customers, this set of videos is a great resource. You will feel good about how well the saddle looks and performs when you are done with it.
For more information on general leather care and maintenance be sure to check out our articles on Oiling Leather and Leather Conditioner. These are not the same thing and I explain the reasons why.
There are many other articles that we have written having to do with gear maintenance. Dive into the archives or click the “Leather Care” tab under the “Blog” tab on our homepage.
In this video, I show you my oiling and antiquing process for tooled leather projects. The finish that I did on this piece is what we call a “Light Oil Antique” and it is one of our most popular finishes in the shop. We have created previous videos on antiquing and oiling, but this video dives in a little deeper.