About the leather
The leather
English Bridle
Vegetable-tanned
English Bridle from Wickett & Craig is a vegetable-tanned leather made the traditional way in Curwensville, Pennsylvania. The hides come from North American cattle and spend two weeks moving through 72 vats of natural tannins drawn from mimosa and quebracho bark. It's tanned with plant tannins and time, not chrome.
After tanning, the leather is drum dyed and hot stuffed with waxes and tallows. That step gives English bridle leather its firm, dense body and helps it shed moisture, which is why saddlers and tack makers have relied on it for generations. Each side is then air dried for about three days, finished with a final coat of wax and ironed smooth. From raw hide to finished leather, the process takes around six weeks.
What that means for you: bridle leather holds a clean, burnished edge. When it's new, you may see a light wax bloom on the surface. That's the wax finish, and it buffs away with a soft cloth. Over time the leather develops a rich patina of its own.
The tannery
Wickett & Craig
Curwensville, Pennsylvania
Wickett & Craig has been tanning leather since 1867. The company was founded in Toronto and spent more than 120 years there. In 1989 it moved to Curwensville, Pennsylvania, a small town that already had a long history of tanning.
They make only vegetable-tanned leather. That puts them among the last vegetable tanneries in the United States. They tan heavy North American steer hides with natural mimosa and quebracho bark tannins, which gives the leather its firm body, its clean edges, and the way it ages over the years.
Their leather has a long working history in saddles, harness and tack, and in holsters and belts. Those are all things expected to take hard daily use and last decades. We use Wickett & Craig for the same reason: leather made the slow, traditional way, by people who have been doing it for over 150 years.